In a world where professional sport, golf more than many, is receiving unprecedented levels of coverage and analysis we have had to learn to put up with mundane commentary – Peter Aliss aside of course – and punditry that is so repetitive and full of clichés that often the best option is to mute the TV and watch our beloved golf in silence! That is unless former Ryder Cup player David Feherty is on air!
But with the sad news that David’s 19-year broadcasting career has come to an end, here are a few of his best one-liners.
Quotes:
On giving up alcohol:
“I didn’t quit drinking because I was a bad drunk. I quit because I was a spectacular drunk. It got to be like a video game, where you get to the highest level and it’s not even a challenge any more.”
On Gary Player’s unsubstantiated suggestion that performance-enhancing drugs are rife in modern pro golf:
“Gary thinks he invented fitness because he used to do push-ups on the airplane. He’s just upset because you can’t win a major any more with a low, flat hook and a Napoleon complex.”
Golf Legend 0 – Punditry legend in the making 1!
On the life advice given to Michelle Wie by her parents who thought it would be a good move to encourage their then-16 year old daughter to compete on the PGA Tour:
“She could be adopted by Britney Spears and be better off. I want my 16-year-old daughter to have an enormous phone bill, a case of the giggles and to be pissed off at me for killing her first three boyfriends. I do not want her out on Tour under that kind of pressure.”
On Tiger Woods:
The first time he ever watched him play, Woods had hit the ball into deep rough alongside a large root and was left with a horrendous lie. Feherty said on-air that the only available option was to hit a wedge out sideways and try and scramble a par. Tiger promptly hit one of his miracle shots, a towering, sweeping slice with a 2-iron that rolled to within 12 feet of the flag. When describing his reaction to the shot, Feherty said, “I just stood there watching him walk past and thinking, ‘I don’t know what that is, but I know there weren’t two of them on Noah’s Ark.’ “
On Jim Furyk’s swing:
“It looks like a one armed man trying to wrestle a snake in a phone booth”
Upon seeing a tour player hook a ball miles left of his intended target:
“That ball is so far left Lassie couldn’t find it even if it was wrapped in bacon.”
On Phil “The Thrill” Mickelson’s maverick and sometimes downright destructive approach to golf:
“Watching Phil Mickelson play golf is like watching a drunk chasing a balloon near the edge of a cliff.”
ANECDOTES:
On Phil again…
“Phil is brilliant, but he’s nuts. There’s something not quite right about that boy. Phil is watching a movie that only Phil can see. His mother told me, ‘Phil was so clumsy as a little boy, we had to put a football helmet on him until he was 4 because he kept bumping into things.’ I told her, ‘Mary, Mary, I’m a writer, you can’t keep handing me material like this.’ So the next time I saw Phil I said, ‘You didn’t really wear a football helmet in the house until you were 4, did you?’ He said, ‘It was more like 5.’ “
Ultimate Peer Respect…
