In Steroid Era, Will Golf's Integrity Stand Test? - New York Times

In Steroid Era, Will Golf's Integrity Stand Test? - New York Times:

"'Up until this point in time, I would have said it is a fairly laughable question,' Joey Sindelar, a seven-time PGA Tour winner, said in a recent interview. 'The guys in my era weren't workout guys. It didn't used to be such a brute strength thing. But we're getting some serious 6-1 baseball-player-type guys. There's probably going to be a time when you're going to look at guys and say, Well, sooner or later somebody is going to cross that line.'"

Oh God. Cross. That. Line. Now!

I've said it for years: golf and golfers are too damn precious. (I've also said this about tennis players) To me there is no difference between the skill and concentration to do the following: driving off the tee, putting, serving, shooting from the free throw line, kicking for goal, a penalty kick, boxing, facing a pace bowler, high jumping, facing a pitch, place kick, overhead smash, chipping out of a bunker.

See anything weird here? That's right in all but tennis and golf, the crouwd can make (are in fact encouraged) to make as much noise as possible to distract/encourage the person trying to concentrate. But not golf. Oh no! no! no! If Tiger hears a photographer take a pic he loses the plot.

"The most important shot of the entire week and he gets happy finger," moaned Woods of the photographer. "It just threw my focus off. I probably never got it back to where it should have been."

"I was so hot because of all the times for him to take a photo- I’m 236 yards out and I trying to hit a four iron in there which isn’t exactly an easy shot."

Boo frickin hoo!!

Imagine the equivalent: "I was so close to winning that game, but I just choked due to the crowd noise. DAMN CROWD!" Leo Barry if he'd missed that mark, 2005.
Or any number of games, events and so on decided by one person stepping up and blanking out the noise.

That's why steroids in golf is ideal. The players will end up so hot headed and angry they'll be lookingnfor people to gee them up.

Of course this all relates to my idea of having rock n roll golf. It's an idea that will bring golf out of the dark ages. Every hole will have a live band/DJ/performance artist involved.

So an opening hole might have a young band one trhe way up. The opening hole is the loosener, the support hole so it follows that it would have a support act type band.

A long par 5? The Rolling Stones of course. You have to be consistenet, in it for the long haul etc. A short, but genius par 3? A Jeff Buckley cover band/performer. Dog leg/weird par 4? Trance DJ. A hole with lots of water? Ambient DJ. It all makes sense.

Drinks would be served at every hole. The drinks would relate to the hole as well: from martinis to beers and so on.

In short, golfers will get with the program over time. It's just this ludicrous notion of tradition. Don't get me wrong, I love nothing more than a pair of plus 4s and a Brian Johnson cap and correct etiquette.

But I also like the ide of hitting 300 yards to the sound of Rammstein...