It’s summer and Hartley is searing

Darren Clarke won the British Open. Let me see … all the names out there of golfers supposedly ready to be stars and the next Tiger Woods and Darren Clarke won the Open with, to quote one report, “a cigarette curled under his fingers as he barreled down the fairways.”

Finally, an athlete Marlboro can sponsor!

Now more on this ATHLETE label golfers toss around. Let me return to the top for a moment – “A cigarette curled under his fingers as he barreled down the fairways.” I’ll bet you he had several pints of Guinness poured in the water bottle, too. Don’t one of you tell me golfers are athletes. Not one of you. You … the one still thinking it … shut up.

Rory McIlroy. He won the U.S. Open and everyone called him Tiger Woods. The golf media and experts want stars so badly in that depressingly boring game they try to create stars every time someone makes a putt. It is pitiful. All week I heard Rory McIlroy is the new Tiger Woods. And isn’t it possible, just  possible that he had a great week at the Open. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The list is endless: Lucas Glover, Y.E. Yang, Zach Johnson, Graeme McDowell, Martin Kaymer … Can we give it a rest, please? Golf is dead now. The top two ranked players at the moment, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, haven’t won a major between them. Sure, they’ve won some tourneys like the Dubai Qatar Pantyhose Open, but when it comes to the big events, Lee Westwood has choked more than Linda Lovelace (for the oldies like me), Ginger Lynn (for the tweeners) and Jenna Jameson (for you young folks).

Everyone gives Westwood credit for being close and handling his disappointments with grace. You know who handles losing with grace? People used to losing.

World Cup. Every few years, the USA gets hyped up over the World Cup like Soccer is going to take over. And as soon as the World Cup is over, people pull that USA soccer jersey out of the wash and can’t believe they paid $75 for it.

What a sport. They play 90 minutes. Then after the 90 minutes, because of all the flopping and faked injuries, they go into extra time. Extra time. The magical extra time that counts up with no one outside of the referee knowing how long they will play. They just keep running. And one team scores and the game is over, right? No. ‘cause it’s extra time, not sudden death. So they keep playing. Then the other team scores. Now it is 1-1 after 123 minutes. Right where we started. So no one wins. ?????

So to decide the game, they line up and do lay-ups … I mean penalty kicks. Penalty kicks to decide the final game of a tournament that comes along only once every four years. Wow. just got out of prison after four years … I guess the Sears Bra catalog will do.

I was driving to work the other day and while making a pass, I couldn’t identify the make of the other vehicle. It looked like a little egg with wheels on it. I got closer and on the back of the car it said “Daewoo.” DAEWOO. That was the name of a VCR I had back in the day … and it was a piece of sh*t. When I go to the car lot to buy a car, I don’t want to see the name of my VCR on the back of my car. For the same reason, I’ve never been ablew to take Mitsibushi cars seriously either.

Finally, three hikers are presumed dead at Yosemite. Why?? Here is where people get pissed off at me for not having sympathy for dumbasses. Get mad if you want, but these folks are stupid. They were at Yosemite and crossed a metal barricade to take pictures closer to a 317’ waterfall. Now there are signs that tell you not to do it. But they felt they needed that little extra for a picture that will never be looked at again. But they had to have that picture. Then one of them fell and … the next one tried to help that one and they both were hugging each other as they fell over the falls and into the water. A third person tried to help and fell with them. Ugly. And everyone was praying and crying and … I would not. ‘Cuz it was stupid. They had no reason to step over that rail and get that magic picture.