Good evening Ladies and Gentleman and welcome to the “Larrys for the year 2022. Who would have thought that a couple of beers and some whacky stories with mates in the pub could turned into – a couple of beers and some whacky stories with mates in the same pub?
Sports fans, I give you – “The Larrys”
Wow, 2022 has been quite the year hasn’t it? And that brings with it a brand new category to go with others that’ve stood the test of time with honour… so let’s hook in kiddies!
The worst attempt at swinging a golf club when slightly flustered.
Nominations are –
Matthew Wolff can seriously play his nut but I can’t help comparing his swing to a a break dancing arachnophobic using a broom to kill a huntsman on the ceiling while scared shitless it could crawl down the handle.
South African Daniel Van Tonder, a former middle weight boxing champion who now plays on the DP World Tour, appears to go onto a chronic state of cramp halfway into his takeaway then audibly grunts as he makes contact with his pill… but I’m not about to tell him this face to face anytime soon.
Mito Periera made headlines back in May when he came from virtual obscurity to hold the lead in the US PGA Championship playing the final hole. I talked about this a couple of months ago in another issue but if you missed it, his final driver swing saw his club begin its journey quite normally but suddenly the gravity of the moment seemed to kick in resulting in more changes of plane than a Qantas flight from Launceston to Saskatchewan. Therefore “The Larry” goes to the popular Chilean.
A new award this year which I think will really take hold over the coming years is “The Larry” for the most significant quotes from players and media people regarding LIV Golf.
Nominations are –
Brandel Chamblee has been one of LIV Golfs loudest critics and in my opinion, doing his best to gain notoriety by hurting the game he seems to think he’s protecting. On the eve of the first LIV event, he spewed this out- “So when I hear these players say that they are ‘growing the game’ … it makes me want to puke. They’re destroying the game. And they are destroying their reputations.” For the good of the game, just shut up mate!
Maybe another example of something you wouldn’t be smart to blurt out to the bloke’s face could be this bite from Golf Week Journo, Eamon Lynch.
“A shark left to thrash around on a dry deck hopelessly gasping for water will survive only a few minutes, so there exists at least one metric by which Greg Norman can be said to have exceeded expectations during his tenure as CEO of LIV Golf.”
Hey Eamon, I wouldn’t suggest you poke that shark just yet?
One of the most emotional golfing moments I’ve seen was watching Rory McIlroy crying after he felt he’d let his team mates down in the 2021 Ryder Cup. In fact I interviewed Wayne “Radar” Riley by phone just after the event and he said at one point he was also battling back the tears while hugging a near inconsolable Rory. Which makes this quote from LIV Golf’s Taylor Gooch the winner – “Yeah absolutely I haven’t played a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup, but I can’t imagine there’s a whole hell of a lot of difference. I mean this was as cool as it gets. We’ve been saying about it all week like the energy is, it’s different, it’s awesome.”
Taylor might have missed the point and the culture and atmosphere that is, according to Radar, the greatest golfing event on the planet… and there’s not a cent changing hands.
Weird name awards
One of the most unique stories that came out of the Japanese PGA Tour in 2022 was a player and his management group complaining to the Japanese media about lack of coverage he was receiving when in contention. Turns out the local commentators just found it way too difficult to pronounce the Christian name of Eric Sugimoto.
Players on the Korn Ferry tour are often seen with their wives and girlfriends on the bag to save dosh. I’ve been in this same boat and trust me it can be a rather large effort motivating your wife to get out of bed for a 6am start. No such problem for Korn Ferry Tour player Chris Gotterup.
And the winner is –
His extraordinary length from the tee and brilliant amateur career had the pundit’s foreseeing greatness but word is now a burgeoning acting route is next on the horizon for Thailand’s PGA Tour player Soontubee Inaporn.
My God – I’ve run of of space already. Thanks for reading folks and have a brilliant New year!
PS – I just walked out of the media centre to the practice fairway at Victoria Golf Club for a squizz and spotted Min Woo Lee hitting some long irons. It was like watching some kind of lethal, low flying missile warhead screaming off under the enemies radar towards an unsuspecting enemy flag stick. Seriously, the Ukranian Armed Services should set Min Woo up on the border with a Driving Iron and a couple of dozen Callaway Super fasts.
