Golf seems to be in great shape. At least, the golf I play and the golf that about 99 percent of the golfers in the world play is doing great. Rounds are up, more people – especially young people – are playing, and there are even new courses being constructed. The golf on TV? Not so much (“Why we’re not watching golf,” April 22 GGP).
Viewers are down and seem to be unhappy with much of the whoop-de-do about, well, just about everything. Of course, the players are still rolling in money and privilege but can’t figure out why they aren’t as popular as they used to be. The answer just might be that things are all gooched up.
Gooched up? Yes, I’ve selected Talor Gooch as the poster boy for everything wrong with professional touring golf today. His totally arrogant, self-absorbed pronouncement that any major championship without him should be marked with an asterisk deserves to be recognized and enshrined in our vocabulary of ways to describe self-important jerks and otherwise jerky actions. Doubly so since he is apparently so important he can't be bothered to enter qualifying. Even the spelling of his first name is gooched up.
Possible uses:
Your partner takes his seventh practice swing – stop gooching around and play.
Your opponent lost the Nassau but doesn't have any cash on him – what a gooch.
You just took a quad on the last hole – you really gooched it up.
Well, you get the idea. I’m sure you will all find many interesting, informative and amusing ways to incorporate gooching into your everyday golf vocabulary.
You’re welcome.
Blaine Walker
St. Paul, Minnesota
It’s interesting that viewership is down, but the number of people playing golf has surged since COVID. If anything, you would think more people would be watching golf (“Why we’re not watching golf,” April 22 GGP).
On the other hand, one could argue that the advent of LIV has diluted the professional golf product and has soured some people from watching golf.
Perhaps they are watching golf on other platforms besides TV? In any case, I watch a lot of golf, whether it’s the PGA Tour, LIV, the LET, Asian Tour, etc. There is a lot of good golf to watch, and it doesn’t need to include the top players in the world.
For example, a few years ago I remember watching some events in Asia and thought that a guy named Min Woo Lee would be going places. Or, watching Christo Lamprecht play a couple of events in Africa and thinking the same thing.
Sean Foster-Nolan
Weymouth, Massachusetts
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