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The Return (sort of) of David Duval

David Duval has always been the poster boy of gilagolf. Because he was so damn good when he was at his top, and he is now so damn lousy that our awe has frankly turned to pity. He’s still a hacker god to us, but you know, he’s probably a guy that has gone through what we’ve gone through: the humiliation of shanks, topped, duffed shots, more than he could account for. And you know how frustrated or angry we get because we know we can play better than how we played the last round? Like how generally my terrier gets angry when his shit is less large than his previous shit? Well, multiply that by a billion and we would get to probably 0.0000001% of what David Duval is going through. From the claret jug to the laughing stock. This is how far the mighty falls.

This year, it seems will be his 10th breakout year. Obviously he’s still delusional, which is why we love him as much as we can love a cuddly cactus. He’s so like us! Again, he has stated he wants to get back to PGA Tour. We believe that’s possible, with the same possibility that Dorchester Town Football Club can win the champions league. (It actually happened…in my Football Manager 2012 game). The great thing about it is (drumroll) David duval has a twitter account!! Follow it on @david59duval, which strangely has a picture of him at an American Football game, instead of golf. This probably shows that he’s only playing golf for the money I think, before the foreclosure of his home.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to get down on gilagolf’s boy, David. He’s my hero whether he’s a zero or not. He’s the reason why I wear Oakleys now, till the day I die. He’s one of the reason, besides the black dude, why I play golf, because I reckoned I could look cool like him and get me more chicks. But boy, has he been disappointing. It’s so tough to root for losers. I mean, I’ve done that for so many times, so I’m used to it. Juventus in Serie B. Liverpool now. Miami Heat during the Glen Rice, Alonzo Mourning eras. Tiger when he was playing like he had a badger up his butt. Federer when he F-bombed Murray on his way to lose another grand slam game. Lindsay Lohan, who looked hot and now look like a skank. The economy.

So many losers.

The problem with Duval is that he doesn’t seem driven to improve. Instead he tweets sorrowfully that he didn’t get invited (exempted) to the Humana Golf 2013 (previously Bob Hope, where he shot 59, and was 120 pounds lighter).

“So it’s official. I will not get a spot at the Humana.”
“I guess having the defining moment in the history if (sic) the event doesn’t matter.”

I mean, face it, DD, you are playing like crap. They have a better option giving your spot to Elmer Fudd, who doesn’t exist. So he probably won’t make the cut anyways.

We’re supportive of DD all the way, but instead of banging away on charity exemptions, play your way back into the game. Start from the bottom. Like Ty Tryon. It’s going to take a few years, but I guess there’s where Michael Campbell, Mike Weir and all these sad major champions are headed as well.

Go DD!

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Oh, What have you done, Rory?

Last year, Rory was just blazing the trail, breaking the record set by Woods on being the youngest for the second majors, by winning the PGA championship in record fashion. He was on top of the world, regularly blasting past Tiger in his drives and playing some incredibly ridiculous shot. As how Tiger had destroyed the dreams of Ernie Els, Phil Mickleson, David Duval and a host of others who would have otherwise been the finest of their generation, Rory looks to be the foil to defeat Tiger’s ambition to overhaul Jack’s record of 18 majors. Nothing looked set to stop Rory.

Except for one little word, that had levelled the playing field: NIKE.

Nike means the goddess of victory. It’s all very well and nice, but every sports person on earth knows that Nike makes the worst products and has the best marketing. They are absolutely horrendous in mostly everything: but when it comes to golf, it takes disaster to the next level. Nike, in other words, suck so bad that it makes professional golfers want to break their club and stab themselves with the sharp end multiple times to numb the stupidity. But Nike has one thing: MONEY. As it does, it regularly throws money at stars, who in turn convinces mortals like us that the Stars knows what they are doing, and we buy more merchandise that are over-priced and utilises child labor in Szechuan.

But Nike levels everyone  and brings great players like Rory and Tiger down to embarassingly normal standards. Don’t expect our sympathy though, because they get paid sh*t load of money. I.e their annual salary is the cumulation of our company’s earnings + our regional earnings + the GDP of all the third world countries combined.

Due to this, Rory missed his cut in the Abu Dhabi. Tiger played better though, but ended up missing the cut due to a mistake made on purpose, it seems, so he can go home early to catch the Super Bowl Conference Finals. I mean, it’s Tiger, how can he make such an idiotic mistake like not knowing how to freaking drop the ball? The only reason is that he has collected his appearance fees and has decided to scram out of there as soon as possible.

Check out these clips and decide for yourself if this year is gonna be an interesting season, as both the best players in the world has decided to use the worst equipment in the world.

You can’t see it due to the crap quality, but I watched it on TV and it’s the exact same shape as my specialist banana hook shot that is designed to go OB. It was horrible. Thank you Nike! You suck!

And in the same tournament, before Tiger decide to commit suicide with his stupid drop, he hit the worst shot of his career, a topped drive that skittered about 100 meters, and not passing the ladies tee box, thus he has to spend the traditional beer or coconut water to approximately 15,000 people watching him that day.

Boy, world number 1 and 2? Nike’s gonna bring you down!!

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Gilagolf Returns

To coincide with the return of the golf season (more on that in a later post), I’ve decided to come out from my semi-retirement from golf and have a go this week at the relatively benign Kinrara course with a couple of my usual buddies. There were a few things I’ve learnt, after hitting my last golf shot in August 2012, before being forced into retirement by a wrist injury.

1) The cortisone injection kinda worked. I don’t feel the niggling pain anymore in my left wrist and I’m able to cock my wrist properly again. Thank you, medical advancement!! Cortinsone is like a steriod injection, similar the the type that Lance Armstrong is now in deep crap for…but while I did it to get better, he did it to sucker millions of people!

2) After 5 months, the theory of Gilagolf remains: Hackers will never improve by playing regular golf, and neither would they get worse by NOT playing regular golf. Meaning, no matter how many or how little golf we play, there is NO difference. My buddies who have been hacking regularly while I was out of action are still scoring the same as when I left them last year. Myself, out for so long, even managed to play better than I was before, due to another Gilagolf Theory: The longer we stop playing, the more time we get to purge our toxic swing.

3) Kinrara sucks. They converted the drivable 4th hole par 4 to a par 3. That’s mean. Because that was the hole we could drive the green. Because they had to do maintenance. CRAP SHOOT kinrara! Now you have 3 par 3s in your front 9???! In a row?? I might as well pay for pitch and putt!!

4) I shot a 94, with a 48-46, and sprinkling with 4 pars. Not bad, for someone who hasn’t been to a course for 5 months.

5) My drive got better, except for a 2 holes where I duck hooked. But that was a huge improvement. My irons were ok. But my wedges were SH*T. Both my triple bogeys came from horrendouse pitches inside 70 meters after great drives. My bunker play was also crap, messing up an eagle opportunity with some retarded bunker playing. My putting was good though, bombed in a couple of 20 footers in a row for pars.

6) So what now? I won’t be playing that much golf for sure. But still it was good to be back hacking. I don’t think I will ever break 90 with the short game I’m having right now. In fact, it got so bad that I putted from 20 meters off the green because I just. could. Not. Freaking. Chip.

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A look at Les Miserables

Aside from golf, there’s another great passion in my life: reading. I know it sounds unbelievable, but my entire love for writing did not stem from English classes and lessons in my high school, which were so poor in SO MANY WAYS. It came from devouring books while growing up. And not just any books, but books that these days you’d use for paper weights: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens, Thomas Hardy et al. I was a teenager and my best companion while reading these suckers was a little Oxford dictionary. They don’t have that phrase “What the dickens are you talking about” for nothing.

One of the books I happened to come across before I knew there was a musical or now, a movie, was a book called Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I enjoyed his Notre Dame de Paris, so I started reading all his books. Les Miserables was a 2000 page tome. It was massive. And it rocked. It was the best book I’ve ever read…and that’s not even in the original language. It was written in French. I read three different translations and contemplated taking up French in university to read the original manuscript.

I have read the book about six times, not counting the random chapter readings I’ll read for fun when I am bored. I’ve watched the musical live 5 times: 3 times in Australia and twice in West End…over two days in London. One with my wife, and the very next day when she was shopping, I watched it Again!

So, when the movie came out, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that even if I’ve been away from the cinema for 7 months already, I’ll worm my way in there just to watch this. Very briefly (since most of my gilagolfers readers have already tuned out, maybe):

Les Miserables the Movie (Spoiler):

What Worked

Jean Valjean – great acting and ok singing, except for the massacre of “Bring Him Home”. The song (which shouldn’t be sung at all in the first place because that wasn’t how Valjean felt in the book), is sung with full falsetto, not a screaming voice, Mr Wolverine!

Fantine – Super “I dreamed a Dream”. Must watch just for this.

New Song – “Suddenly” is absolutely fantastic and faithful to the book. This is so necessary because this just brought a different understanding to Valjean that the musical failed to do.

Faithful to Book – Lots of scenes depicted are from the book. Like the giant elephant statue where Gavroche emerges from and Valjean’s escape. Excellent tributes to the book so nerds like me can appreciate it.

Gavroche – Excellent depiction, but still no word about him being Ponine’s brother.

Cosette – Great singing, but character still too shallow…it’s not her fault, because even in the book, she wasn’t a great character. Although she’s the “Face” of Les Mis.

Borat as Thenardier – This was great casting. Excellent villain.

What Did not Work

Eponine – Samantha Barks is way, way too hot to be a poor “wretched child” as described in the books. And looks too well-fed. But Way. Too. Hot. Marius must be either blind to prefer Cosette to this Eponine (especially when she’s drenched in rain), or he’s secretly gay.

Javert – Should stick to acting, not singing, Mr Crowe. He was terrible in singing.

Marius – Still so unlikeable, from the book, musical and movie. You wish he’d just die quicker.

Pacing – If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s a bit tough to follow. I saw like some people leaving and some asking, “WTF is this la?” halfway through.

OK, that’s it for my completely non-related to golf post for the year.

Happy New Year Gilagolfers!

OK, one more shot of Eponine. Way. Way. Hot. Especially. In. Rain. Yowzah.