It is rare in professional sports that we see a true group of goofballs.
But don’t tell that to PGA professionals Ben Crane, Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler.
I know this came out almost a year ago, so I'm kind of late, but I want to talk about this.
Once I start, I cannot stop watching this video. Watson and Crane’s costumes, Mahan and Fowler’s chest-flashing techniques, the noticeable farmer’s tan on Mahan and Watson, the really cheesy (and sometimes insensible) lyrics. BUT IT’S AWESOME.
The lyrics: Swing it like a boomerang, a tang tang, wanna hit the top, top? Chip, putt, you know, what’s the big whoop? When I play my game, I’mma make my momma proud. Gonna hit the ball far, let the bogeys go, and say hey!
The costumes: Southern Florida boy Bubba Watson in overalls, Crane in a red unitard and helmet complete with aviator’s goggles, Fowler looking like a hip Backstreet Boy and Mahan wearing a wool vest.
The music: So boy band.
What the group does is showcase a goofiness that we haven’t seen in golf. They represent a generation past that had personality unlike any seen today. Sam Snead was a good ‘ol Southern boy like Watson who played tournaments wearing a straw hat and sometimes barefoot. Walter Hagen was a womanizing jokester who would often care more about his date after the round than how he played. Lefty Stackhouse was a pro who had a pretty bad temper. One time after missing a crucial putt, he punched himself and knocked himself out. Another time, he threw his putter, his entire golf bag and his caddie into a pond next to the hole.
Those characters aren’t seen anymore. I don’t condone Lefty’s temper or Hagen’s womanizing by any stretch of the imagination, but characters like that are missing on the PGA Tour today. In the NBA, you have Allen Iverson talking about practice, saying the word near 20 times in an interview. In the NHL, Sean Avery got suspended for talking about NHL players taking his “sloppy seconds.” In the NFL, you’ve got somebody who legally changed their last name to their number in really bad Spanish.
In golf, you’ve got a guy in Bubba Watson who is a “hype man” in a Christian rap song (skip to the end to hear Bubba).
That’s what’s awesome about these “golf boys.”