It was a busy weekend for golf, with Rickie Fowler winning at Abu Dhabi and Jason Dufner coming through at La Quinta. But I don’t want to talk about those men, or their silly little victories. Instead, I want to address the absolute unforgivable outrage that transpired before tournament play even began. Maybe you’ve heard the shocking news already—at the Abu Dhabi pro-am on Wednesday, golfers were allowed to wear shorts.
Yes, you read that right. No, this isn’t the latest script for “Space Wars,” or whatever trashy blockbuster film is playing at your local nickelodeon. This is real life, and Shorts-Gate is the latest bright idea from that oh-so-special class of self-adoring wunderkinds that call themselves “millennials.” It’s true: Professional golfers, who are supposed to be role models for the rich children of America, were flouncing around in the United Arab Emirates wearing short pants.
Now, I don’t consider myself a “sensitive” soul. I don’t have a closet full of participation trophies, and I don’t go around spouting PC terms like “privilege” and “micro-aggressions” and “free elections.” Most people who know me will tell you that I’m a hard-boiled man’s man in the tradition of John Wayne and Dennis Kucinich. But I’m not ashamed to admit that the minute I heard this news, I fell to the floor in tears, started moaning, blacked out, and woke up seven hours later in a Costco parking lot surrounded by empty gasoline cans and a loyal sidekick who referred to me as “Professor Fuego.”
Truth is, I haven’t seen anything this offensive since Elvis Presley was swirling his hips for packs of screaming girls. At least the TV execs in those days had the good sense to film him from the waist up and spare the nation a disgusting carnal exhibition. But then, those execs belonged to the greatest generation. No such restraint was shown in Abu Dhabi, where the ghoulish white gams of cultural terrorists like Ian Poulter were on naked display.Literally. Tradition was snubbed, and our great golf heroes—men like Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, and Gary Player—must have been rolling in their graves.
Call me old-fashioned, but this is just plain immoral. GOLF IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED IN PANTS. It’s always been played that way, going back to the day it was first invented by a group of stockbrokers in Augusta, GA. And I’ll tell you something else: Just like flavored soda water, shorts are a gateway drug. They will lead to swift ruin for our beloved sport, in a nightmarish chain-reaction that we’re powerless to stop. Here are 30 dark visions that will come true within the next decade unless we nip this dangerous shorts craze in its lewd, wanton, libidinous bud.
1. Golfers begin to wear pajamas. And stocking caps. And those little candle-holder things.
2. Golfers move on to capri pants. (I have it on good authority that Puma has 1,000 orange pairs ready for Fowler to wear, along with tie-dye tank tops and propellor beanie hats, the minute they think they can sneak it past the censors.)
3. Golfers use self-ambulatory robotic legs to save themselves the effort of walking.
4. Golfers have their entire lower bodies surgically altered into golf carts, so that they’re technically “walking” even as they roll down the fairway.
5. Post-surgery golfers legally change their names to golf cart-themed puns, like Kartin’ Kaymer or Patrick Speed or Seung-Yul-Go.
6. Golfers wear bibs. Not caddie bibs, but tiny baby bibs, with embroidered messages like, “I <3 mommy.”
7. Golfers becoming very sloppy eaters, because hey, what the hell, I got this sweet bib, duuuuude.
8. Golfers experiment with foreign clothing items like togas, kaftans, and Canadian denim.
9. Golfers wear those “I’m with stupid!” t-shirts, and run around for hours at a time trying to set up the perfect prank photo. Entire tournaments are canceled when they forget to tee off.
10. Golfers bring back the edgy slogan-based t-shirts of the ’90s that nearly ruined this country, including “And 1” and “No Fear” and “Big Dogs” and even “Big Johnson.”
11. A pestilence visits the earth. Golfers wear head-to-toe aluminum foil to reflect the sun.
12. The angry sun god retaliates by frying out America’s golf courses, which will necessitate millions of gallons of additional water, which will drain the oceans, which will anger the sea god, who will flood the courses until they’re green again, which will anger the grass god, who will make the greens spotty and bumpy and totally unplayable, which will anger the Chambers Bay groundskeepers, who will be like, “hey, grass god, that was kind of our thing.”
13. Golfers use giant golf balls that can’t even fit in the hole in order to overcome the shoddy greens.
14. The PGA Tour adapts to the giant balls by making giant holes, which quickly fill up with alligators that develop a taste for volunteer marshals who wander from their stations, so that when a ball goes in the hole, you can hear the sickening crunch of bones from their skeletons.
15. With death surrounding them, golfers give in to nonconformist urges and surf in the water hazards. (“Hang ten” used to be a bad thing in golf, AM I RIGHT FOLKS?) Also, they sunbathe in the sand traps. Why not, they’ve already got the shorts!
16. Morals decay further. Golfers drink flavored soda water in front of impressionable kids.
17. The kids become so corrupt that Augusta National chairman Billy Payne is forced to learn to skateboard in order to keep up with trends. One day, out of control, he crashes into the lever that opens the subterranean cage where the captive birds and squirrels are held. Hungry and maddened, they storm the course and attack the first golfer they find, which turns out to be Kartin’ Kaymer, who can’t escape because his surgically altered golf cart body stalls out on a big hill.
18. Kartin’ Kaymer survives, but becomes so disfigured that he has to wear a Phantom of the Opera mask, and transforms into a supervillain named “Spartan Crimer.”
19. In the meantime, metal clubs become legal. (Note: My editor tells me this has already happened, which is just more proof that I’m on the right track.)
20. Indoor golf explodes outside of South Korea.
21. Golfers begin disappearing, one by one, and nobody knows why. First Spieth, then Fowler, then McIlroy.
22. “This is a great shame,” says Spartan Crimer, with a thin smile. “Who would commit such an act?”
23. While governing bodies are distracted by the disappearances, the peasant laborers—I mean caddies—are allowed the basic legal right to choose which companies and products they’d like to endorse.
24. Billy Payne, still trying to skateboard, crashes into another lever. In another subterranean prison, a door opens, and Spieth, Fowler, and McIlroy rush to freedom.
25. But their time underground has changed them. In the glaring light of the “real world,” they understand what Martin Crimer was trying to teach them about the beauty of the darkness. They decide to become supervillains, and rename themselves Sword-in-Sheath, Trickie Howler, and Gory Jackal-Boy.
26. The four supervillains invent a new putting technique that allows golfers to avoid the pitfalls of a free swing by lodging the club against a separate body part for stability. They name it “ballasting.”
27. “Ballasting” ruins golf.
28. People marry box turtles.
29. Zach Johnson says a bad word.
30. Team USA wins the Ryder Cup.
I’m sorry if any of this disturbed you, but we need to act quickly. Stop the shorts. Stop them now.
I am America.
I am Professor Fuego.