No Ma'am! A tradition unlike any other

“A tradition unlike any other.”

This isn’t just the family motto whenever Uncle Gerry hogs the water closet after his Friday night Chilicheesechimichungas. It’s also a phrase Jim Nantz has been brainwashed with and has declared in a gazillion CBS promos. These shrining words date back to when Augusta National board members sat around a table one hot, Georgia night years ago and one of them said, “That ‘don’t leave home without it‘. . .we need a saying like that ’round here!”

So you see, old, rich, southern, old conservative men can change, so long as they believe it preserves their ideals of “tradition". But this is precisely why it’s hard to believe women will play at Augusta before I’m ever able to ask Best Buy each week why they haven’t gotten the ‘Sisters’ DVD box set in yet without the clerk nervously replying, “for your mother, right?”

So Augusta National won’t change unless it’s in the name of “tradition".

Wait a second, didn’t they just add rough to the course?

Wait a second, wasn’t the whole course gutted and flipped upside down (or the more P.C. term: “modernized” or “Tigerproofed"?”

Didn’t you used to not be able to see the ultra-secret front nine on TV?

“But by golly I’ll be it if some ’skirt’ is found on my golf course!”

Are these guys who make the rules at Augusta the same kids at reccess who would sprint out to the jungle gym first and say no one else could play on it because dammit it’s their jungle gym? Then when the bell rang they ran back inside and one of them would inevitably pee their pants.

Same thing here but one difference – the jungle gym is a country club of course. (the young blogger’s making daddy diaper jokes like he’s not going to be one of them eventually. . .hey I’ve got a good 40 years still. Right, elder bloggers?).

So I guess next time I see an old, rich, southern old guy in a green jacket and want to ask why they don’t let the women they swore their lives to ‘for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health’ etc, share a 150 acre playground, I should assume the answer is, “Hey boy! That there vow ain’t said nuttin’ about lettin’ em on my golf course! Now run along and cut me a switch. . .and make sure no ladies snuck out there while I was with me scotch now.”

This week when all the pics are snapped of old, white southern men in fashionably inconsiderate green jackets shaking each other’s hand after another successful year of defending their tree fort from the yucky girls, we could sit back and applaud them because they are rich and old and miraculously found themselves on a very exclusive list. Or, each time we see one of their goofy, stuck-up smiles we can pity them for being stubborn, spoiled ignoramuses who are slowing the progressive path of mankind. . .

Personally I’m not sure which side to take. I think I’ll just root for ‘Lefty’.