D-AQs falling from the Stupid Tree

One of the things that I love at the start of every golf season is the veritable windfall of what I refer to as D-AQs. That’s newspaper jargon for Dumb-Ass Quotes. There are a couple that have already fallen from the Stupid Tree and have fluttered harmlessly to the ground only to be blown away by gales of laughter. At the end of the year, the most ridiculous D-AQ will be awarded the Rory Sabbatini “Let’s Get Tiger Pissed at All of Us” award.

Let’s examine these early moments of genius.

The first comes from across the Atlantic. It comes from slender English lad with multi-color hair and a frantic hairstyle, not to mention his chaotic wardrobe. At the age of 32, he sounded as if he’d overindulged in his local a wee bit.

“When I reach my full potential, there will just be Tiger and me battling for the top,” said Poulter. Word has it; he didn’t slur these words which should put him at or near the top of the list when the drug testing starts in July.

I believe that’s a bit cheeky as the Brits would say. Downright dumb they might say around his second home in Orlando, Florida.

As of today the highest finish Poulter has had in a major is a ninth place finish. The only higher finish in majors for Poulter was in 2004 when he wore pink slacks at the Masters, the Union Jack embroidered slacks at the Open Championship and the Stars and Stripes at the PGA Championship. Nearly everyone thought he was high on something that spring and summer.
Evidently, he hasn’t seen Tiger’s trophy cases. While Poulter’s making a nice living racking up top 15s and 20s, Tiger is the man looking down from high above on the leader board.

I’m sorry—my fault. It’s not now that it’s going to be he and Tiger mano a mano—it’s when his game matures. He may want to pick up the pace. They’re the same age and Tiger has a 13 major and 62 PGA Tour victories lead. I’m thinking Tiger’s not going anywhere except into the record books. All we know for sure about Poulter is his clothing company is designing the uniforms for the 2008 Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup team.

Actually, this is a bit of a carryover from the end of last year and it comes from a golfer who should no better. It already has started to grow legs and might take a hint of the glow off his certainly Hall of Fame career.

Ernie Els actually said he is on a three-year campaign to unseat Tiger Woods as the Number One golfer in the world. Sure Ernie and I’m going to win three Pulitzer Prizes in the next three years as well. Hell, it took me three tries to spell Pulitzer correctly.

This is to take absolutely nothing away from Ernie. He’s a great golfer, but he should have checked rankings before he made the statement public. If Tiger doesn’t play for the next two years and it’s business as usual for the rest of professional golf; he steps on the tee in 2010 STILL the number one player in the world.

Els has a lot that’s not going for him at the moment. He’s 36 and has distractions. He’s this generation’s Greg Norman in a lot of ways—good and bad. He has had personal disasters at the Masters. In 2004, he had it won when Phil Mickelson snatched it from him. He won the 2002 Open Championship, but there are scars from numerous heartbreaking misses. Still, Ernie has won 44 events around the world and 15 here in the States and he has two US Open trophies.
The positive side of Norman which Els emulates is business acumen. He has a successful golf course design business, a top-rated vineyard and label in his native South Africa as well as numerous other business ventures.

Maybe he announced his plan following a long day at the winery? Who knows? I know this, if he wants to bag Tiger he has to recover from the final round in Dubai earlier in the month where led, made eight on the last hole to throw away the lead. The winner? Tiger, of course.
Ernie, my boy, you’re more than one down in your run at Tiger, but you’re definitely in the running for the “Sabbatini.”

Hey bartender, pour me whatever these two guys are drinking…Never mind, I say enough dumb things sober. I don’t need any help.

See you on the first tee.

Jack