Jeff Rude’s “I Hate To Be Rude” column appears on Golfweek.com on Wednesday, the same day as his video show of the same name.Got a crystal ball as a holiday gift. Here’s what it said about golf:
• A bailout is coming for dimpleheads. And why not? Everyone and everything else is getting bailed out: housing, banking, mortgage and automobile industries, you name it.
Golf’s bailout, of course, will come in the form of Tiger Woods’ return in the first quarter of 2009. And as blue-chip stocks go, it doesn’t take a Warren Buffett to know those other businesses don’t have anything to rival the man with the new knee.
• The Chinese Zodiac was spot on in 2008 with its Year of the Rat. After all, Corey (The Rat) Pavin was named U.S. captain for the next Ryder Cup.
(In fairness to the gritty Pavin, he no longer looks more like an Olympic swimmer than a rat since he shaved his mustache and head in that reverse Hair Club for Men makeover.)
This year is the Year of the Ox. Golf has a Tiger, Bear, Walrus, Shark, Rat, Spider-man and late Lighthorse. But it has no ox, unless it’s Vijay Singh. We’ll go with that and bank on another big year from the Fijian even though he turns 46 next month.
• The scary news for the rest of the PGA Tour is that 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. The crystal ball says Woods, at age 34, will win the Grand Slam at venues especially suited for him: Augusta National, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews and Whistling Straits.
OK, maybe not Whistling Straits, but let’s not argue with the Chinese Zodiac.
• In his 2008 Year in Review for the Miami Herald, humorist Dave Barry wrote that Woods’ U.S. Open victory on a broken leg proves “beyond all doubt that golf is not a real sport.”
The crystal ball says the funnyman won’t be as serious when writing about golf in 2009.
• Golf will never end in 2009. The Tour schedule confirm’s the ball’s vision. The official-money season ends Nov. 15, later than ever. Then there’s Tiger’s tournament, Q-School and a couple days of an offseason before the next year’s traditional kickoff in Hawaii.
The ball also says that some year soon the Tour will have a 53-week schedule and charge that those in major team sports, which go away for 4-6 months, are a bunch of lazy sissies.
• The Tour will see a slight increase in player entourages in 2009. That means pros will be seen working at tournaments more often with swing coaches, putting gurus, sports psychologists, personal trainers, nutritionists and PR specialists. The technical term for this phenomenon is “Tiger Effect.”
In light of this prediction, I ran this guru trend past a couple of multiple major winners. You might say times were different in their primes.
“The last golf lesson I had was at 19,” double-major winner Fuzzy Zoeller said. “We didn’t have gurus when I came out. Our guru was the guy looking back at you in the mirror.”
“I had one,” Hall of Famer Billy Casper said of gurus. “My wife.”
• The crystal ball refutes a medical study, reported on ABC News, that the sound of a thin-faced titanium head hitting a golf ball can cause hearing loss.
Our seer elaborated: Caddie Steve Williams will still hear camera clicks, Woods will still be able to stop his downswing upon being distracted and just about every Tour player will hear one man’s footsteps.
• John Daly will eat, drink, smoke, stress, gamble, weigh, blame, bogey, double-bogey and quit too much in 2009. No offense to our swami, but that sounds more like a biographical sketch than a prediction.
• Annika Sorenstam, like a lot of retired people, will play golf.
• Boo Weekley’s new book will be translated into 13 languages, including English.
• No one will see Hunter Mahan without sunglasses, a Secret Service man smiling, Tyra Banks understating, Tiger and Phil watching a movie together and Ian Poulter and Doug Sanders at the same time at the same place.
Footnote: Mahan is still well shy of David Duval’s Tour record for most years without seeing his eyes.
• And, in a far-out reading, Camilo Villegas will go down to read a putt in 2024 and not be able to get back up.
Posted: 1/7/2009
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