Sometimes silence is golden
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2007 5:38 PM
What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard an analyst say? I want to know.
Fill this space up with the dumb lines that are passed off as cogent insight.
I don’t care about who said it – I prefer not to know. The object isn’t to insult people who are working hard – or even those who are hardly working – for a living by attempting to sound intelligent without offending anyone for three and four hours at a stretch, which is impossible to start with.
One that drives me nuts is when an analyst talks about the importance of “gaining positive yardage.’ You know, as opposed to gaining negative yardage.
Woody Austin, the golfer, blew up a while ago complaining about an announcer who was gushing about Tiger Woods’ competitive nature. (Announcers are required to do this, as if we don’t know that Tiger likes tto win.) Then the announcer says something along the lines of, “Nobody wants to win more than Tiger Woods.”
Austin blew up, and rightfully so. Just because Tiger usually wins, doesn’t mean that his desire is stronger. He may be more talented, but every other guy on Tour wants to win, too. Some may want to win every more than Tiger; they just don’t have the skills to do it.
I heard another on Friday afternoon.
I’m watching the Presidents Cup and Vijay Singh and Stuart Appelby are climbing all over Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk. It’s just one of those days when Singh holes out for birdie from a greenside bunker on the first hole and he and Appelby just keep making impossible shots all day.
Anyway, Woods and Furyk are down two almost immediately and are desperately trying to make something happen when one of the analysts says this:
“They don’t want to go three down this early in the match.”
Huh? What does he mean, “this early in the match?” Is there perhaps a time later in the match when they will want to go three down? And, when you get down to it, if you’re going to three down, you actually do want to go down early so you have more time to catch up. When you really don’t want to go three down is late in the match, like when you have four holes to play.
Those are just a few examples. Go down to the comments box and post yours.
