Some struggle with 'R' word; for me, it's 'G'

I’ve always considered golf pretty boring, especially as a spectator sport. But Tiger Woods is changing all that.

In fact, the world’s most famous athlete is adding another dimension to the game – driving for dear life as your spouse chases you across the yard with a golf club. While I can understand those who feel the media should leave him alone, it’s also true that people in positions of prominence need to be extra careful – journalists included.

I know that if I ever got stopped for driving under the influence, for example, my not-so-adoring public would have a field day. I’ll bet your Payson Roundup would even break its vow of silence regarding the use of my name. Gleefully.

But unlike me, Tiger has the money to buy himself out of his mess -- including all four (and counting) of the women he’s wronged. Heading that list is his wife, who, it’s reported, is getting a $5 million bonus to re-up for two more years). If anybody doubts the relevance of Shakespeare today, allow me to remind you of one of my favorite lines penned by The Bard: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Of course for the racists among us, including those who can’t seem to find anything to like about President Obama, what happened to Tiger is proof that black men marrying honky women can come to no good. I know racists hate the “R" word, but, as my friend and colleague Noble Collins points out, it’s hard to make any sense out of the crap some people are making up and spreading about our duly elected leader.

Anyway, most of you know that I have been a bit critical of the game of golf in the past, but Tiger’s travails have afforded me this opportunity to make some clarifications regarding my position.

Mainly, The Consort and I have bought a condo in Denver that’s – are you sitting down – on a golf course. Let me quickly qualify that so it doesn’t sound quite as bad.

It’s a 1,074-yard, par 3, 9-hole course, and the community is NOT GATED. In fact, the course is open to the public at a slightly higher fee than that charged us residents (who are not, I might add, all honkies).

But, you protest, you have been a longtime critic of the game of golf as a water devouring waste of precious resources. Your protest would be right – when the game of golf becomes water wasting. As in the Valley (a desert, mind you) where there are 189 golf courses and so little rainfall, people think twice about spitting (except they really don’t because the Valley doesn’t want to cause a panic by encouraging conservation).

And in the Rim Country where precious potable water is wasted on two hoity toity golf courses in gated communities. It’s true that effluent is utilized when possible, but it’s also true that the Rim Club trucked in thousands upon thousands of gallons of potable water during a recent dry summer when the sanitary district had a problem producing effluent.

In Denver, where the average rainfall is over twice that of the Valley, a green golf course and a healthy planet are not mutually exclusive concepts.

My other objection to golf is that golf courses take up way too much precious real estate for the number of people who utilize them and the amount of exercise they afford – especially since rich people tend to use golf carts instead of walking, a practice I will never understand. Why not just hire somebody to go play the game for you and report back on how you did.

But here’s the real bad part about our two private golf courses. I have heard from several reliable sources that often fewer than 50 golfers play the two private Rim Country courses combined on a given day. Don’t even remind of how many gallons of water, potable or otherwise, it takes to keep those courses green for 50 golfers.

My third and final objection to the game of golf is that I am not very good at it. At least I wasn’t very good at it when I gave it up some 40 years ago.

But I must confess that I have purchased a set of golf clubs – used golf clubs at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, mind you. (And by the way, if you have not checked out the new ReStore between Legacy and Urgent Care, you need to.)

I have not yet played the little course in Denver, but the day will come when The Consort and I “hit the links.” In embracing the “G” word I have professed to loathe all these years, I realize I will be leaving myself open to charges of hypocrisy.

But isn’t that kind of what the world’s greatest golfer has done – become a hypocrite?