Murmurs of Riding the Pine now echo through the halls of Baker-Berry Library. “Did you see what Hank and Fish wrote this week? I can’t believe our boys did it again!” Our Riding the Pine groupies may think we have it all figured out. They see the trappings of glory but are sadly blind to the reality of the life of the columnist. Sure, our picture may run on the back page of The Dartmouth once a week, but we still can’t get on table at Heorot supertails. Yeah, we may get eight likes on the Facebook post of our latest column, but neither of us could score an invite to Sigma Delt semi. We’re rolling in Internet dollars, but unfortunately, that’s not an accepted form of payment for a Boloco burrito bowl.
This week, you probably turned to this column expecting a hot take on LeBron James’s move to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but while Riding the Pine stands for many things, bending to the will of the idiotic masses is not one of them. While our simple-minded readers sit, slack-jawed, drooling on their editions of The Dartmouth, chuckling absentmindedly at our use of the word “Boloco,” we sit in our ivory tower pitying you, yes, but are still inexplicably dedicated to bringing you informative and original takes on the world of sports. You are all but begging us to tell you what to think about LeBron James. Guess what? The 24-hour news cycle has already chewed that story up and spit it out. Instead, in a desperate attempt to stay relevant, this week’s Riding the Pine is looking across the pond at the potential resurrection of an old friend.
Here are the greatest quotes of the 21st century: “I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence,” by Nicolas Cage in “National Treasure” (2004), and “Tiger Woods will win the 2014 British Open,” by Hank and Fish in Riding the Pine. Tiger has not won a major tournament since 2008 or any tournament whatsoever since last summer. He’s been cut or withdrawn from two of his last four events and is still recovering from a recent back surgery. But none of that matters. The only thing that does matter is that Tiger Woods is undoubtedly the biggest boss on the PGA Tour, and charisma wins every time (except for when he missed the cut last time).
We want to make it very clear that our prediction is based on proud ignorance of nearly everything to do with golf. Hank, though he aced the 17th and 18th holes at the Fore-U Golf Center, unfortunately cannot use that natural talent to make accurate forecasts about PGA Tour play. Fish, on the other hand, is bad at both mini-golf and making predictions. While we don’t know anything about golf, we know a lot about people. And perhaps even more about Tiger Woods. We know about him because he’s a lot like us.
We’re all prodigies in our given fields. A 2-year-old Tiger Woods was featured on “The Mike Douglas Show” hitting golf balls. We started blogging for Dartbeat at 19. We all have iconoclastic wardrobes. For Tiger, it’s of course the scintillating red polo and black pants championship Sunday combination. For Hank and Fish, it’s probably just a gray T-shirt. Simplicity meets haute couture: don’t underestimate the swagger of a gray tee. We also all like to live on the wild side. For Riding the Pine, that means still bringing our own red social cups to FoCo, refusing to give up our belief in a dream that died long ago. For Tiger Woods, that means extramarital indiscretions. All we can do is present to you the facts. The burden is on our reader to connect the dots.
Last time the British Open was played at Royal Liverpool, Tiger Woods won in memorable fashion. That history provides us with 99 percent of the information we need to predict that he will win there once again. Many golf pundits are quick to point out that the course has been totally transformed, rendered nearly unrecognizable when compared to the course Tiger laid his golden egg on eight years ago. To those pundits we respond, the course still has the same name. Shakespeare (we must wonder if these so-called pundits have ever heard of him) once questioned whether a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Riding the Pine barely understands this question, but call anything a rose and we will probably think it smells good. Call anything Royal Liverpool and we will predict another Tiger Woods victory.
Woods hasn’t been winning because he lost his mojo. He went from being the guy who could carry on dozens of simultaneous extramarital affairs without blinking an eye to the guy who said the following statement four years ago in a press conference apology:
“I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have far — didn’t have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish.”
Riding the Pine wants to leave our readers with one message: Tiger is a changed man, changed exactly back to the way he used to be before he got caught. As evidence, we offer you an admittedly out-of-context quote the new Tiger gave to ESPN at Hoylake: “I can do whatever I want.”
