There’s a meme I’m quite fond of, and I suspect you’ve seen it too. It’s built on a photo of Tiger Woods and John Daly, staring down one another on the green, during a practice round.
Woods, whose back is to the camera, is smartly attired in Nike golfing threads, including a white cap, a white long-sleeved shirt under a black sweater vest, and black trousers.
Woods is unquestionably the greatest golfer of the modern era, having won 15 major championships and at one point seemed certain to break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles. That was before injuries and very public personal problems derailed his career.
Daly is best known for whacking the ball so far and hard that geodesists (scientists who study Earth’s movements) have detected a momentary dip in the speed of the planet’s rotation whenever Daly tees off on a Par 5 oriented counter to Earth’s spin. Every weekend hacker dreams of replicating Daly’s exaggerated backswing while still managing to make some contact with the ball.
Daly’s also noted for dressing in gear that defied every sartorial convention of the stuffy golf world — his polo shirt is bright blue, almost turquoise. His pants are a garish floral pattern of pink and blue and red. He’s taking a deep drag on a cigarette. He has his own demons, alcohol being the fiercest. Over his career, he earned many colorful nicknames, including “Long John” and my favorite, “Wild Thing.”
The meme presents a contrast between two worldviews. One is stuffy, conventional, the by-the-rules orthodoxy of the elite. The other describes scrappy, down-to-earth realists, better known as the riffraff.
An example: You might type across Tiger Woods’ back, “Mercedes G-Wagon with three locking differentials that have never been engaged because this truck rarely ventures far from Rodeo Drive.” Then, across the chest of the chain-smoking Wild Thing, you type “International Harvester Scout II, with floorboards so rusted you must ease on the brakes gingerly to avoid punching your foot through the firewall. The 304 runs on just 6 cylinders yet rescued three G-Wagons during last week’s blizzard.”
It’s always a good idea to give props to the riffraff so you don’t appear too bougie.
I was never much of a golfer, though I dabbled a bit in college. I knew a few guys that went full Tiger, but once they saw me play, that was the end of our friendship, so far as golf was concerned.
I knew a lot more dudes who went the Wild Thing route. If you played, you likely knew someone like Wild Thing, a player for whom a cooler full of iced macro lager is the most important piece of golf equipment. The sort of golfer who, whenever his Titleist rolls within 10 feet of the pin, announces “in the leather” and hurries back to his cooler.
Heck, I was that kind of golfer, though I always insisted on putting the ball in the hole no matter how many groups were backed up behind us.
The meme that started me thinking about how this might relate to the outdoors went as follows:
Tiger: People that only field trial.
Wild Thing: Me hunting only wild birds with a dog that’s not woah broke and won’t retrieve (riffraff bonus points for the less-preferred spelling of “whoa.”)
Field trials, for those who don’t know, are a type of bird-dog competition where the poor canines run around all day chasing “planted” birds. The pups are scored on how perfectly they execute each function. Make a mistake — bumping a bird an instant too early, reworking ground multiple times, pointing with a tail that’s not at the proper angle — and you’re looking at a participation trophy rather than the blue ribbon. It’s fun for some folks but seems too bougie for me.
Next week we’ll evaluate common fishing techniques using our new Tiger/Wild Thing rating system.