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Weighing in on Lane Graves

By now, if you are on Facebook or any sort of social media, you probably heard of a few issues: In US – Orlando, specifically, you have the assassination of Christina Grimmie, a singer; the mass shooting at a gay club that killed 50+ people, and the alligator attack at Disney World’s resort on a 2 year old boy, that tragically ended in him drowning. Also, the assassination of a parliament member in UK – and in Malaysia, amidst all this, we have a runaway ostrich and yet another idiotic comment from our politicians on ransom money being donated to welfare charities. It’s pretty sad. If the entire world was a living organism, our politicians have successfully made our beautiful country the arsehole of the world where shit after shit is spewed out from. If the genie gave a wish, I’d wish these politicians can crawl back into whichever hole they slithered up from and forever disappear from the face of this universe.

But back to the Orlando news – and this has nothing to do with golf, even if the US Open is up and running and Rory is playing like crap dirt, and Jordan Spieth is cursing and Jason Day is not leading….everything suddenly seems so trivial, when you hear about a 2 year old boy being dragged and killed by an alligator while on a holiday with his parents. While in a Disney resort.

Of course, everyone have their opinions but it seems to fall into two camps, whether the parents are to blame or not. I think a lot of people made this into a racial thing, which is understandable, since a couple of weeks ago, when the gorilla vs boy story blew the internet and the gorilla had to be killed, initially the mother is being taken into questioning to be charged (which has since been rescinded). The mother of the boy in the gorilla pit is black. The family of the alligator attack is white. The problem to compare was that the boy in the gorilla pit survived, the gorilla was killed. Here, the boy is killed, and the alligator (presumably) survived.

Some of the comments blamed the parents for neglect. I was just thinking, if I was there on a holiday in a bloody DISNEY resort, the last thing I am thinking about is a damn alligator coming into 2 feet of water and killing my son. Should my son be in the water? Well, yes, boys are boys. And what’s more, this family was from NEBRASKA. If you know Nebraska, there is not a single drop of ocean or water within a thousand miles. It’s the freaking midwest. So yeah, a family comes to Disney, a 2 year old boy wants to experience the beach and water , plus it’s man made – plus it’s bloody DISNEY. So to those who says that the parents are stupid to allow their son into the water in Florida shows these guys (the commenters) are absolutely retarded. As retarded as our politicians, apparently so it seems that we are not the only arsehole of the world. Part of America is. Obviously they don’t have children of their own. Or they smoke weed for a living and comment on facebook.

While sympathy is there for the family, and of course, me being a parent, I immediately superimpose the “what if it was my family” connundrum into the situation…I cannot imagine the pain they must be going through. Sympathy is not enough. The fault is not the parent’s. The fault isnt even on the alligators. They were just doing what they were created to do by nature – and then so many alligators were killed unnecessarily.

If anyone is at fault, it should be Disney. The company.

Yes, the CEO apparently visited the family and paid his condolences. No, he shouldn’t just do that as if that was a big deal. So what? Because you are CEO the family should appreciate your time? Who cares? You are just a human, like everyone else. The fact was, Disney failed to put up a sign to state there were bloody alligators. And why are there alligators roaming around your bloody Resort? If it’s a natural lake, sure. But this is a man made lake belonging to the resort. And the sign stated ‘No Swimming’. WTF does that mean? Why not put, “No swimming because a crocodile is going to snatch up your kids”? The kid wasn’t even swimming, he was wading on the shore, looking for treasures. Just like my kid would do.

Disney just made 1 billion with their new movie Zootopia. They have a few more movies coming out that will cross that mark – Finding Dory and another one about a hawaiian princess, Moana. They make millions from their parks and endorsements and copyright.

Disney should own up on their fault here and they should pay this family at LEAST 20  million USD. The money won’t bring Lane Graves back, but the company should be punished for severe negligence on their part.

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First Tournament Win

cropped-gilagolf2.jpgI’ve been playing recreational golf for more than 10 years. Started in 2004, first time swinging the club and now it’s a dozen years and I’ve gotten my game down to 12 at one point before ballooning up to 24 and now re-settled back at 16.

We had a small, closed tournament recently and amazingly, this is the first time I won. As in win anything at all in golf. Here’s my theory on my game:

My weight had also ballooned up, till a point one of my regular kakis whom I have not met for a long time kept commented how bloated I am when I met him at the tournament. He was a strange fella. He’s the type of golfer who talks a lot and analyzes a lot but still plays like crap. I mean not total crap, but I’ve never really seen him play well before in my life but the way he talks makes you think he is scoring regularly in the 70s. But he doesn’t. He scores well into the 90s and sometimes even 3 digits.  I suppose he is marketing guy. He kept going on about my weight and being so amazed etc, until it was getting slightly awkward as I wanted to just retort to him that while weight can change, unfortunately his face cannot. He has a face like an avocado, as in pockmarked and completely brutal to look at. The sort that only his wife would probably appreciate. In the dark. He’s like Deadpool, without the mask.

But I treasured our friendship a lot over the years and just smiled politely. He’s a really nice guy under all the golf BS, really and I didn’t want my silly sarcasm to spoil anything between us. Besides, I wasn’t offended or anything, but it’s just sort of natural for me to start bantering and has gotten me into all sorts of scraps previously. So I’ve learnt to shut my gap more.

Anyway – why I’m saying this is I think my weight has added some good stuff to my game, while subtracting from my lifespan. I’ve gained around 8 kilos since my second son came out and due to less golf and more food, gotten to a point where I can’t fit into a lot of my pants. However, for some reason, my golf game has improved.

I feel a lot more stable now on my irons and my drive. I don’t know if the weight has anything to do with it, but I am totally clobbering my irons. As in, murdering. I was standing at around 120 meters at one point in the game and overshot the uphill green with my gap wedge. Right now, for anything 140 meters, I am taking out a pitching or at most a half swing 9-iron. 100 meters, I am looking at a sand wedge. Anything in the 180s I am hitting my 5-iron. I regularly take 2 clubs less than my playing partners – and while my score is floating in the high 80s to low 90s level, I am a lot more confident approaching most of the greens with a 9 iron than a 7 iron.

The tourney was in KGSAAS and I havent played there in years. The first nine, I reeled off 4 pars in a row to end the nine, all with makeable birdies which I missed badly, and ended the game with 89. This includes a triple, and 5 greens where I 3-putted. My putting for some reason has become like a retarded platypus.

Now the competition was not PGA Tour standard by any means, in fact, there were no buayas (it was a very friendly competition) – and the winning score was actually 35 on stableford. In fact 5 people tied for 35 but because of my eight pars, my handicap was the lowest and I won. Yea.

It’s still a milestone though.

And I think I’ve got my weight gain to thank for this. So. More Durians!