Golf course reviewers share some blame for the Silly Season

Pro golf is in its “Silly Season", which was apparently dubbed that because Dumb Moronically Pointless Cash Grab didn’t catch on with the marketing guys. This is where golf’s stars (liberal use of the term) play for big checks under ridiculous rules with no pressure whatsoever.

You really think Fred Couples was sweating it when Stephen “No Name” Ames won the Skins Game last weekend?

Couples tried a putt with his wedge, replaced John Daly’s ball on the green with a remote-control ball that swerved here and there. Oh, that Couples. Hilarious stuff. If you live in 1980.

Which is where the Skins Game and events like it should have stayed.

Golf course reviewers share some of the blame for keeping these outdated events around though. You know who loves the Silly Season even more than the players gargling on easy cash? The courses who get to host the event and therefore declare ever after that John Daly played here.

A Silly Season event is a great chance for a golf course to host some pros without the burden of a full-field PGA or LPGA Tour event.

And apparently being a Silly Season site impresses some golf writers and fans to no end. Reflection Bay at Lake Las Vegas promoted the fact it had hosted the Wendy’s 3 Tour Challenge with such fervor when I played there that by the end of the day, I’d assumed they’d got their golfers mixed up and thought I worked for Wendy’s.

Maybe, they thought I was Dave Thomas’ bitter scorned son, who didn’t even get a side salad named after him.

Really, is anyone playing a course because it hosted a “prestigious” Silly Season event? It’s the damn Silly Season. Nothing’s going down in golf history by definition.

Golf writers should know better than to fall for this marketing play. Hosting a Silly Season event is equivalent to having a sitcom on MY UPN or whatever that Witness Protection Program fifth “network” is calling itself these days.