Hubba Bubba

Bubba Watson won his second US Masters title yesterday, which pleased me.  I don't know anything about Bubbles and don't especially care for the game of golf either, but he's unusual in the game as he is entirely self-taught.  His victory, therefore, is one in the eye for the golfing purists and equipment nutters.  This is to be welcomed.

As I think I've ranted before in these pages, men treat sporting equipment and technique as a secular religion these days.  It demands absolute blind faith.  Despite the lack of any evidence to show that any of this gear or tuition does anything beneficial, men unthinkingly shell out for  the latest equipment in the mistaken belief that it will afford them perpetual happiness.  If it did, gents, you'd stop buying it, wouldn't you?

Why should it be, I wonder, that women are immune to this particular malady?  They're not adverse to a bit of marketing bullsheight themselves of course (anti-wrinkle cream, anyone?).  Hmm, it must be that they see sport for what it actually is, an ultimately pointless, albeit highly ritualised game of war.

That's why I have some regard for boxing.  It gives the lie to this notion that sport somehow has a noble and transcendent meaning.  Boxing cannot claim to be constructive when its explicit aim is to render the opponent insensible by punching him or her in the face and abdomen.  Yes, one has must use guile and skill to achieve this end, but the same is true of most anything.  I dare say most stranglers look back on their early attempts at throttling as gauche and tactless.  It doesn't make the practise a worthy pursuit for schoolchildren.

The sporting apotheosis of the gear obsession must be fishing.  Fishing is a uniquely male sport, and without laydeez present to argue the case for common sense and restraint, anglers really go to town on equipment. 

The wife and I were down at the coast a couple of weeks ago.  The town we ended-up at had a long Victorian pier, the end of which was overrun with anglers.  The very amount of equipment each was dragging around after him was heartbreaking: rods, nets, spools of different gauge line, floats, flies, harpoons, GPS worms, you-name-it.  And, I understand from a chap in the office who fishes, it's all carbon fibre these days.  Of course it is!  How is 15-stone man supposed to land a 10 ounce Herring with a metal or wooden rod.  Anyway, it's a moot point because there weren't any fish on the pier.  Yes, despite the computer-aided kit, the anglers were being ripped a new one by the kippers and whelks.  Oh, well maybe next year's rod will be the one.