This
Week at TravelGolf.com: December 13, 2005
Poker-playing wussies
could not handle golf bets
Guys who sit around a table for hours at a time, trying to
intimidate each other with junior high stares, as they wait for their
card, have become American TV heroes. Getting a full house is becoming
akin to threading a touchdown pass through a crowd of defenders or
soaring to finish an alley oop over a 7-footer.
Which just may be the most ridiculous concept since New Coke. For all these poker "stars" do not hold the guts of your average
weekend hacker. They have less skill than the worst
golfer ever.
Think about it. Every two-bit, shank-happy duffer in the universe
has made a bet on the golf course, actually put his skill up against
another man or woman's skill. Even if he's much more likely to rattle
golf-course-bordered house windows than the bottom of the cup. Now that's guts. Sitting in a comfortable room, getting free drinks brought to you as
you fold hand after hand, waiting for chance to shine on you is about as
daring as knitting for money. Though far less difficult. Give me the courage of a middle-aged middle manager with the putting
yips playing for a $2 Nassau any day.
Why are you more likely to see Matt Damon in a celebrity poker
tournament than a celebrity golf match these days? Because Damon's
learned that golf is infinitely more likely to cause you to embarrass
yourself. No matter how many comped rounds at Las Vegas celebrity
hangout Shadow Creek you get.
Golf's tough. Poker's so embarrassingly easy, they've built modern
folklore around it to make it seem less lottery fluky. So you have the
MIT nerds who flunked out of school delving into the statistical
analysis to justify every turn of the cards. This way they can play by
rote rather than actually having to even make a decision while sitting
on their butts all night long.
The statistics were against me, nothing I could do, they'll whine to
explain away a loss.
Can you imagine a golfer who sliced one into the pond on 17 with the
money on the line, trying the same defense? His buddies would dump a
bucket of beer - beer he bought - over his head.
This is why poker is destined to always be more hip than golf. Golf
takes too much work, requires too much personal accountability to ever
be as mainstream sizzling as poker is now. No matter how much this must
pain PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and his straw grasping ways.
Real golfers know that poker's something to pass the time in the non-daylight
hours of a golf trip, another excuse to drink beer. Poker devotees
have never seen daylight hours, spending more time in front of a
computer in their underwear than Hugh Hefner's content programmer.
As always, TravelGolf.com welcomes your comments.
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Golfers know that making a pitch for a golf vacation to their spouse
requires a well-thought-out plan. Pitching a trip to Las Vegas is
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Twin Isles Country Club, on the Florida Gulf Coast, has a bit of a
schizophrenic history. Originally built about 30 years ago, it underwent
a major renovation in 2000 under the brush of golf architect Chip
Powell. Then Hurricane Charley had its "input." Through it all, one of
the better courses in the Punta Gorda area - named one of the top metro
areas in the U.S. by a nationwide golf magazine - somehow emerged.
Full story | Also: This year's guide to stupid golf gifts
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