David Feherty: Original or great memory?

Every time I listen to David Feherty comment during a live golf broadcast - like today at the St. Jude Classic - I hear him craft the most remarkable observations, analogies, and metaphors, and I think to myself: Has he heard this before, or is he really that original?

Case in point: today, when he said of the imploding Robert Garrigus, “He (or ‘It’, I can’t quite recall) feels like he’s gotten on a psychotic horse galloping towards a burning barn.”

I mean, wow - that’s a great simile. He couldn’t have come up with that off the top of his head, could he?

A great way to check the originality of pithy quotes these days is Google’s advanced search. Chances are, if a simile, metaphor, aphorism, or epitath doesn’t show up in the billions of English-language web pages that make up the internet, it’s pretty original.

Sure enough, Feherty’s latest gem nets no hits using Google’s advanced search tools (exact phrase, wild cards, etc.).

He might be a crazy bugger, but he’s a damned original crazy bugger.

Tip o’ the visor to you, Mr. Feherty. You are modern golf’s poet.