I don’t know a lick about golf, but apparently the Ryder Cup is crazy intense. The US and Europe have especially been trying to get at each other prior to this year’s tournament. Rickie Fowler, in a stunning display of personality and counterculture from a golfer, had the letters “USA” buzzed into his haircut. This is the most awesome thing I can remember a non-Tiger golfer ever doing.
Of course, those uptight Brits have gotten a hold of the photos and they are NOT happy with Fowler, his blazing Americanism flowing through the wind (well, it’s a buzz cut, you get my point). Apparently they can’t appreciate a patriot, or at least Oliver Brown, Daily Telegraph columnist can’t:
Golf’s conventional etiquette is suspended at a Ryder Cup. There is no other stage in the game that would permit Rickie Fowler to disembark the Americans’ Ryder Cup plane in Edinburgh sporting a GI Joe-style crewcut, the letters “USA” shaved around his ear in an exhibition of thuggish jingoism that on any normal day would give grounds for many a club secretary to throw him off the premises in a heartbeat.
“Thuggish jingoism”? This is a golf tournament, right? Jeez, are British golf people even more uptight than American golf people? This is ridiculous.
The column is actually very funny and mentions a lot of weird, overly patriotic moments in Ryder Cup history, including the U.S. team disobeying one of my biggest pet peeves: playing Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” as though it were a patriotic song. We need to start teaching this in third grade.
Anyway, the Ryder Cup — which debuts tomorrow morning on Golf Channel and Saturday morning on NBC — will likely be even more intense than usual, all thanks to Rickie Fowler’s hair.
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