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PGA Tour’s All-Bad Boy Team Announced

For the past 10 years, the PGA Tour has been billing its players under this well-known and super-positive spin: “These guys are good!’’

While that’s true, it’s also apparent that, “These guys are bad, too.” Or why is it that for the past two weeks one of the main storylines at the Wells Fargo Championship and The Players Championship has been whether or not Rory Sabbatini is going to be suspended for his bad behavior earlier this year?

Seriously, is it really a surprise that the “Mini Volcano,’’ as Sabbatini is nicknamed – a tribute to “the Volcano,’’ the moniker worn proudly by former Tour delinquent Steve Pate – has erupted again? Reportedly, Sabbatini laid a profanity-laced tirade on a volunteer at the Northern Trust in LA and then followed it up with an equally four-letter worded tirade aimed at fellow pro Sean O’Hair at the Zurich Classic.

Apparently the Tour hasn’t quite figured out what Sabbatini’s punishment should be as he’s playing (and among the leaders) this week at The Players. It does make for some good TV, as the announcers go back in forth in their speculation on what the “double secret probation’’ for Sabbatini will be.

Personally, the way I see it, being a bad boy isn’t all bad. With apologies to Donna Summer, I’ve even assembled the Tour’s All-Bad Boy team and Sabbatini just barely made this, arguably, undesirable unit.

Naturally, the No. 1 spot goes to John Daly, who would easily qualify as the captain and automatic entry into the Bad Boy Hall of Fame. After going through four wives, a runaway train-load of alcohol, and more WDs and DQs than any other guy whose ever teed it up, Daly is the poster boy for the slogan, “These guys are bad, too.’’

Actually, I was a little worried about Daly protecting his sordid reputation when he let the air out of his body with the Lap-Band (laparoscopic gastric surgery). But he climbed right back to the top of this headline-seeking heap when he restored sexism all the way back to the Dark Ages.

During an interview on 790 The Zone in Atlanta not long ago, Daly implied that the reason Tiger Woods cheated on his wife with “127 or 128 women” was because Woods wasn’t “getting it anymore.’’

“My exes, if you look at my life, they just quit supportin’ me. Plus, they didn’t want to have sex anymore,’’ Daly said. “When that happens – and I’ve always been straight up front with every one of them – I said, ‘If you’re not going to give it to me, I am going to go out and get it somewhere else.’

“Is that adultery? Maybe so, but from what I understand, when you’re married they’re supposed to give it to you.’’

Asked if that’s what he talked to Tiger about at last year’s PGA, when Daly supposedly gave consul to Woods at Tiger’s request, Daly concurred. Or as the interviewer worded it: “So Woods should have gone up to a podium and said, ‘I’m not getting (sex) anymore, I’ve had enough.’?

“Exactly,’’ Daly retorted. “That’s what I did.’’

Or as Daly further spun it: “I told (Tiger), ‘If you would have come out that night (Thanksgiving, 2009) after the (one-car crash) incident and told the world what was going on – not listened to your agents, not listened to the anybody else, just what your heart said, and thought what you just told me – this story would have ended in one day.’’

Daly is amazing, but then again, so is Woods, who comes in No. 2 on the All-Bad Boy team. Granted, it wasn’t “127 or 128 women,’’ but Woods did do a great job of totaling his career with his infidelity that was played out through a dozen-plus mistresses. Plus, the bare truth is that Woods just isn’t a nice guy, although he’s not the leader in F-Bombs on Tour despite dropping more than a few on network TV.

No, that honor goes to Anthony Kim, who is just getting started on his bad boy image. Kim comes in at No. 3 primarily on the strength of his rampage last year at the Justin Timberlake tournament in Las Vegas.

Apparently, AK (-47?) got the boot from a cuss-loaded craps game at Bellagio and then went Happy Gilmore by showering the dance floor at another casino with a bottle of Dom Perignon. To top off his weekend, where everything that went on in Vegas apparently didn’t stay there, Kim thumbed his nose at the tournament by withdrawing with a thumb injury.

Which brings us to No. 4 on the All-Bad Boy team – Sabbatini. Truthfully, would anybody really care about Sabbo if he wasn’t such a well-known sour puss? Even when Rory Boy played for the University of Arizona, he was a head case who liked to destroy clubs and throw tantrums. Why would six wins and $24 million ever change the spoiled South African?

Rounding out the All-Bad Boy first team is Pat Perez, or “Double P’’ as he goes on his website, www.patperezgolf.com, where flames and a golf ball/clubs shaped like a skull and cross bones greet visitors. Once known as “the most tempestuous player on the PGA Tour,’’ Perez finally won a tournament to somewhat cool his hot head. Not that this dude who packs a signature boxing glove headcover will ever change, mind you.

Not long ago, the Tour suggested that Perez under go anger management. This followed a couple of well-publicized blowouts, the most notorious meltdown being the 2002 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he led all the way until a quadruple-bogey on the 72nd hole.’’

“The Tour suggested it, but I didn’t go,’’ Perez explained. “I get mad and show it. The only way I won’t get mad is if I win every tournament.’’

Such reasoning is why Perez is such a solid fit for the All-Bad Boy team. There were others who received consideration, like Tommy Armour III, the infamous carouser of Birds Nest fame; Colin “Rabbit Ears’’ Montgomerie, who has read the riot act to more than a few fans; Vijay Singh, “the Cheatin’ Fijian,’’ enough said; Frankie “the Blade’’ Lickliter, who once pulled a knife on a guy in a Georgia bar; and Jim Thorpe, the Champions Tour player who recently got paroled from the Big House where he had been housed for tax evasion.

It’s just hard to look past Daly, Woods, Kim, Sabbatini and Perez, as these are exceptional examples of players who truly are bad to the bone. But, hey, at least they’re not on the Tour’s All-Wimp team with crybabies like Paul Casey!


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