Feherty apologizes for mixing golf and politics

When golf and politics collide, inevitably someone will hit it out of bounds or shank it deep into the woods. And in this era of political correctness, the scores are rising. Take this year's Northern Trust Open sponsored by XYZ Bank. (We're not naming names here in the interest of excessive name dropping. Whoops! Just notice Northern Trust. Nevermind.) XYZ had just accepted or been encouraged to accept a few wazillion dollars in bailout money. Then as part of their sponsorship of the golf tournament they threw a lavish concert/party for clients and guests who they were trying to impress with all their money. This was the equivalent of hitting two out of bounds in public relations terms.

This whole situation becomes a slippery slope of government regulation and public image. I bet you never thought you would be reading a golf column talking about government regulation unless it was about pesticides and green grass.

The most recent happening involving golf and politics involves of David Feherty of the CBS golf announce team. Feherty opened his mouth – rather pen – and made a crude joke about … well you read it.

From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though. Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.

In a sense the switchboards lit up like Tiger had committed a rules infraction during the final round of the Masters. Feherty is lucky he survived the night without the PC Police barging in and making a citizen's arrest.

But it's funny – unfortunately not as in ha-ha funny – that this PC requirement does not extend to all forms of entertainment. Comedienne Wanda Sykes can make a joke about hoping that Rush Limbaugh's kidney's fail in front of every White House correspondent and more cameras than cover a space shuttle launch and the PC police turn their heads and go out for donuts and coffee. But Feherty makes a remark in a magazine that only the writers' mothers read and he's immediately treated as if he signed a wrong scorecard.

Now here's the whole point. Feherty, a golf commentator, was asked to write a column with a political strain to it. That is a recipe for disaster. There are really two people to blame here: Feherty for not proofreading his article for pinhead statements and the editor of “D” Magazine who gave him the assignment without thinking of the literary nuclear bomb that was waiting to detonate.