Working Overtime
First off, a hearty congratulations to all the big winners on Oscar night, including Martin Scorcese, who took home hardware for Best Director and Best Picture for his film “The Departed,” the poignant retelling of last week’s Accenture Match Play Championships in which approximately none of the players NBC was counting on to spike ratings remained alive by the time Saturday’s quarterfinals rolled around. Further ruffling Peacock feathers — at least in terms of generating interest among American golf fans — Sunday’s finals proved to be a foreign picture, with Sweden’s Henrik Stenson outlasting Aussie Geoff Ogilvy.
The category I was most interested in was Documentary Shorts, which sounds like an article of clothing that may’ve done the trick for Jody “Babydol” Gibson as she was living out the events of her life which would eventually comprise her expos?, “Secrets of a Hollywood SuperMadam,” which hits newsstands this week. Actually, the Documentary Short I was most into was the LPGA’s 54-hole Fields Open in Hawaii, which I anchored for GOLF Channel and which, fittingly, was played in Hawaii and which was won by Stacy Prammanasudh.
If there’s one question I’m asked more than any other when people find out what I do for a living, it’s, “How did you get this job?” If there’s a question I get asked second-most, it’s, “Seriously, how did you?” And then third, it’s, “How do you spell Stacy Prammanasudh?” Answer: with no “e.”
Consider this week’s GMT is a backstage pass into the world of televised golf.
11:02 a.m. — At DFW airport, I check my e-mail prior to my nine-hour flight to Honolulu. Good news! An extremely benevolent Nigerian prince has seen fit to bequeath to me $4 billion and only needs the routing number to my checking account! What luck! Now I won’t have to worry about buying my Viagra on sale, which is being generously offered in the next e-mail. The last message is from my former PGA Tour Radio cohort and still-current buddy Randy Brown, who is neither Nigerian nor a Viagra user (though I’ve heard whispers that he redeems the occasional coupon). Randy has forwarded me a link to a short web movie — maybe four minutes — that I suspect is yet another schmaltzy attempt to be inspirational but instead is just annoying. This one is different. See for yourself at www.tacmovie.com. I sit in Terminal D and weep. My first of 20 events this season is off to a rough start. I haven’t even left the state, and I’m already hopelessly homesick.
Something:40 p.m. — We’re cruising over no place or time zone in particular at 39,000 feet, which sounds frighteningly high until I remember seeing the video of the skydiver who survived neither of his two chutes opening. I feel better.
3:12 p.m. — Eva Mendes is on the cover of American Airlines’ in-flight magazine, which I’m told I’m free to take home. (Mendes is not included.) Seeing her and the mole on her cheek reminds me of the one on my daughter’s bottom lip, which along with the top lip and the rest of her turns five years old today. Happy birthday, A.C. Homesick again.
