Driving us all mad

And so, another unforgettable US Masters shudders to a tumultuous close. If, that is, you happen to be a member of Tiger Woods’ marketing machine (and what a difficult gig that must be).

For the rest of us, who regard golf as a pastime rather than a proper sport, the Masters was everything it had threatened to be from the outset: uneventful, dreary, ridiculously drawn-out, and direly predictable.

It threatened to get semi-interesting for a while there, with more than one person in with a chance of winning the thing. With two whole days still to go, that is.

But, as had been feared, the real highlight came on day one, when the 89-year-old Sam Snead ceremonially teed off and managed to send the ball all of ninety yards, where it smacked a hapless spectator squarely between the eyes and shattered his glasses.

Scarcely less embarrassing was the sight of Arnold Palmer, traipsing around the course like Grandpa Simpson, only with a nicer line in leisurewear. (Or not, depending on your taste in pantaloons – Ed.) He shot a scarcely believable 89 on his opening round, and closed with an 85. I won’t tell you what he got in between, because this is a family publication.

Foul Play doesn’t know that much about golf, but even he is aware that this man won four Masters, scooped up countless other trophies between the 1950s and the 1970s, and basically singlehandedly invented what we now know as tournament golf.

Allowing him to dodder around Augusta all weekend making a disgrace of himself, therefore, was the golfing equivalent of dragging Ferenc Puskas out of his nursing-home sickbed in Budapest and bringing him all the way to Seoul to ceremonially (that word again) kick off the World Cup on May 31st – and then play in the opening match.

At least the Palmer sideshow served as a distraction from Tiger Woods for a while. I had forgotten just how much of a charisma-free zone this man is.

This is not the time or the place to attempt an analysis of Woods’ career-long refusal to lend his name to any black causes, or his unwillingness to get involved in any civil rights/race relations disputes (such as the almost total absence of other black people from his chosen sport). But, Tiger’s name could hardly be more misleading: the guy is so bland and safe, and corporate, he could be selling pension schemes.

As I write, the lead golfing story on one of America’s most popular sporting websites is an article about a group of rich people bidding furiously at an online auction for the privilege of sharing a round of golf with the guy. I know it’s for charity, but Christ almighty, aren’t there any toilet bowls these people could be licking out instead?

Can you imagine a bunch of sad sacks queuing up to throw hundreds of thousands of pounds at, say, Roy Keane, in exchange for being allowed to breathe the same air as him during a training session?

On reflection, maybe you shouldn’t answer that question.

You’ll have observed by now that golf is not my favourite game. I have, however, been known in the past to while away a few very pleasant hours reading about the sport, which to my mind is infinitely preferable to participating in it.

For instance, I recently finished John Updike’s Golf Dreams, a wonderfully beguiling collection of pieces about golf, written by the man who gave the world the Rabbit Angstrom novels, and much more besides.

And how about this for a shameful confession: there are few things I enjoy more than a long session of Golf Pro With Gary Player on the PC. This, I think, is because I was exposed at an impressionable age to that old classic Leaderboard, when I owned a Commodore 64 in the mid-1980s.

There is something incredibly soothing about hacking your way around these endlessly soporific, pastel-coloured courses that stretch blandly into infinity. As methods of relaxing go, a couple of hours spent playing computer golf certainly beats the shit out of listening to one of those inexplicably popular coffee-table chillout albums, or smoking a joint of Amsterdam’s finest, or whatever it is that the young people do these days.

I experienced the same tranquil vibes when gazing upon those appealing vistas of gorgeously leafy landscapes that were beamed back live from Augusta over the weekend. If only they could have removed the golfers from the equation, we’d all be laughing.