The Big October Surprise

The Witches Are Stirring the Brew
Morning television is so happy. Scotland Yard thwarted a plot by British nationals (read: Muslims who were born in Britain) to blow up as many as "perhaps" 10 airliners in route to the U.S. of A. from Britain.

[A disruptive moment: Did anyone happen to notice that at this year's British Open Golf Tournament, teevee tried to spin it as "THE OPEN" and during the whole F-ing tournament, won by Tiger Woods, the teevee announcers never once called it the "British Open," which is really what it is. It was held this year at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club (what does that mean, the Queen gets the tee no matter when she shews up? or perhaps the delightful Prince Harry in his best pressed Nazi uniform gets to play a 'round before retiring to his horsey riding--he should be good at horsey riding since his mother had an affinity for stable boys, or so the London gossip said). The explanation was that since the British Open was the first Open ever, it was THE OPEN, but the US Open, still had to be called the US Open--or the Japan Open has to be called just that, because neither one of those tournaments is THE OPEN. Some advertising agency must have gotten a fortune for coming up with that "disruptive" promotional gimmick. It didn't really work. The Senior British Open was called just that, which is what it really is and it is not THE OPEN; and this year, I'll be damned, they had a Ladies British Open.]

So, sports fans, here comes Al Queda again, this time it's the British Branch (perhaps THE BRANCH) and their plot was unraveled by Scotland Yard (why not THE YARD?). Praise the Lard. Following up: What happened to the big Canadian thwarting of the major Al Queda plot to blow up the Peace Tower in Toronto? Remember that, just a few weeks ago? Most of the Canadian Al Queda were teenage Canadians (Muslims born in Canada). Wow, is it getting close to a big election time or something and could Joel "Double Loser" Lieberman's being left spinning in the middle of a highway like an empty beer can thrown from a speeding Lancia Spider by Ned Lamont have anything to do with these new threats? Hey, Michael Chertoff said it was a good thing; that it took pressure off US airports now--what an idiot this pompous fop is; check him out next time he does a teevee photo op and tell me you don't see country club idiocy floating around in his alcoholic eyes.

These assholes are such liars; it's like the boy who cried "Wolf!"--right; it's scary hard not to believe them, but it's also scary hard to believe they could be plotting with Georgie Porgie and Big Bad Mike Chertoff some kind of October surprise--or 9/11 anniversary surprise--and don't forget old crooked-as-a-snake-at-night Commander John Poindexter is also on the case with his new overall NSA power--born in London, by the bye, the son of a Greek shipping magnate--and no, not one of Onassis's bastards. Remember Poindexter from Felix the Cat? He was Felix's genius nephew--yeah, I know, somebody's already asked how can a cat have a human nephew. The answer is, "It's a cartoon; anything's possible in a cartoon." "Hi, folks, I'd like for you to meet my Uncle Felix. Be careful shaking hands with him...his claws, you know." That Poindexter was a genius; our Poindexter is a criminal deviate (he is a convicted criminal).

Golf and thegrowlingwolf
You see, I once was a pretty good golfer and when I growing up--I played high school golf and then played a pro-amateur circuit one summer. The best golf ever in those days was played in the USA and especially out in my neck of the woods, Texas, and, some of my other family's neck of the woods, California. My favorite golfer in those ancient days after WWII was a dapper Hollywood-pretty-boy-looking guy named Lloyd Mangrum. Lloyd was born in Trenton, Texas, up north of Dallas in the Red River area, and learned his golf by caddying with his brother, Ray, who also became a professional golfer, later becoming head pro at the Cliff-Dale Country Club in Dallas where Lloyd was his young assistant.

Lloyd joined the PGA tour in 1938. But his golfing was cut short when WWII started and Lloyd was led to join the army (you either joined or they joined you in those days of conscription). In the army, Lloyd was offered a pro job at the army's Fort Meade golf course and he would have avoided combat, but Lloyd turned it down and said he wanted to do his army duty not play golf. So, they sent Lloyd to Europe, to France, landing him on Omaha Beach, then putting him with the US forces on their way to Frankfurt. During the Battle of the Bulge, Lloyd was shot three times, twice in the shoulder and once in his chest. He lay unable to move on the battlefield for a long time--he said he thought for sure he was a goner and kept reasoning with himself that he surely was dying and that he surely would not survive such damaging blows to his body and he surely would never be rescued--all of those thoughts before he was finally rescued and saved to live another day. He received two Purple Hearts.

When he returned from the war and rejoined the PGA tour, Lloyd became a house on fire. During his career in golf, from 1938 until 1962, when he retired, Lloyd won 36 tournaments, tenth ranked in the PGA record books with number of tournament wins, far ahead of such greats as Jimmy Demaret, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, and Gary Player, or as Byron Nelson described him, "Lloyd's the best player who's been forgotten since I've been playing golf" [Byron Nelson is still alive and living in Texas; he's 94 years old]. Lloyd's last tournament win came in the 1956 Los Angeles Open, an open he won 5 times.

I learned how to play golf from reading Lloyd's book that used photographs of Lloyd shooting different shots at different great golf courses around the U.S. In 1946, Lloyd ended the U.S. Open tied with Byron Nelson and Vic Ghezzi. In the playoffs, they went eight holes before Lloyd eliminated the other two and won the U.S. Open (not to be confused with THE OPEN). In 1948, Lloyd had his best year when he won 7 tournaments. In 1951, Lloyd was the leading money winner on the PGA tour. Lloyd's low score of 64 in the 1940 Masters stayed in the record books for 46 years until1986 when Nick Price broke it by shooting a 63. In 1950, Lloyd and Ben Hogan, it was Ben's first time back playing golf after suffering a near fatal car wreck outside Fort Worth, Texas, a year before that put him in traction for several months with doctors gloomingly predicting Bantam Ben would never hit another golf ball. How wrong they were, as usual, and in 1950, Ben battled Lloyd to a tie. In the playoff, Lloyd was beating Hogan by a stroke when he got to the 17th green and noticed an insect had landed on his ball. Lloyd picked the ball up, left his marker where it had been, flicked the insect off it, and then reset it on the spot marked by the marker, knocked it in the hole and saved his par. When he got to the 18th green thinking he was still ahead of Hogan, a tournament official told him he had been penalized two strokes for picking his ball up and cleaning it, something that wasn't allowed on the PGA until the seventies. Hogan nipped Lloyd in the bud to win the 1950 US Open.

After the war, friends noticed a personality change come over Lloyd, who before the war had been, though dapper in his dress and looks, a quiet, reclusive type. After the war, he got hung up with guns and violence, playing in high stakes card games with revolvers on the table by each player, and once after a barroom brawl, it took him six months to recover from his injuries.

Lloyd was the head pro for most of his career at the course in Apple Valley, California. Lloyd retired from the tour in 1962. Lloyd died in 1973 in Apple Valley after suffering his 12th heart attack.

Lloyd Mangrum represented the Golfcraft Company who in the mid-fifties came out with their Lloyd Mangrum signature clubs--they were new, exciting clubs, exactly balanced and with fiberglas shafts, ahead of their time. I've said all of this and introduced you to Lloyd Mangrum only to tell you that I, thegrowlingwolf just completed putting together an almost complete set of those original Lloyd Mangrum Golfcraft golf clubs--I have a #1 wood (a driver) and just yesterday, I got irons #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, which added to my sand wedge and putter, gives me a fairly complete set of these vintage clubs that are in remarkably good condition to be 60 years old--all I lack are three more woods, a 9 iron, and a pitching wedge. The whole set so far has cost me around $100. I can't wait to take 'em out for a test run over on Chelsea Pier at the driving range overthere. Whether I'll ever play golf again depends on whether I can meet another fellow golfer around here. I can't imagine playing golf in the New York City area no matter your age or condition.

Besides, hitting golf balls, and I'm a pretty good golfer still, is good exercise for a dude my age.

Fore! Here comes me and my Lloyd Mangrum Signatures to knock the cover off as many buckets of golfballs as I can afford.

See ya on the links.

thegolfinggrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

How utterly insane is the news the U.S. Army is planning to spend several millions of We the People's hard-earned money on an amusement park? That's right. An army blood and guts amusement park--fun rides like driving Hummers around blasting women, children and dogs, or the exciting virtual tank attack where you can blow away an Iraqi family all in one fatal explosion--Hot damn, how exciting is that?--especially rewarding when you enter the Falajah War Zone game where you shoot the children and babies in their heads first--I mean what did we learn in VietNam? We learned that even children and babies can be gook commandoes--like also all Viet Namese women no matter their age all have grenades up their vaginas--"Whoo boy! look at those brains splashing all over that towelhead hovel wall...how many points did I get, Sarge?" Or how about a reconstruction of the village of My Lai in VietNamLand? You get to be Lieutenant William Calley [remember him?]--your mission: to blow away more gooks than Bill Calley and his boys did that day in My Lai. It's a tough mission. Calley and his goons killed 500 villagers that day.

We always knew the Army was Mickey Mouse; now they really are Mickey Mouse. We're excited about Israeliland or the Execute Saddam ride, too.

By the way, 30 people have already been blown to smithereens today in Baghdad. 29 yesterday; 30 today. Also, the number count in American soldiers blown away over there now has to be climbing way over 2500. We've not seen any mention of soldiers's deaths in Iraq anymore on any news. You never did hear about US troops deaths in Afghanistan. The networks are still very much excited about Israel's illegal invasion of sovereign Lebanon's southern borders, except in yesterday's fighting, the Hezbollah (a Grade B bunch of guerillas) scored their heaviest hits on the Israeli army killing 15 Israeli stupidos. What are these people dying for? Is it just absolutely necessary a certain number of human beings die every damn day or the number crunchers can't rest. The Malthusians are coming alive again with all these deaths from wars, disease, starvation, and environmental disasters.

Meanwhile, a photographer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune pleaded with New Orleans cops to blow his ass away when he found out the insurance money he received to rebuild his storm-deleted home would not even pay to haul off the debris much less afford him a new house. He saw no sense of living anymore. Sounds stupid to those of us, like Georgie Porgie, our "president," vacationing this time of year, enjoying the luxuries of our SUVs, cell phones, gulping down overpriced java at Starbucks, pinned to our plasma-screen teevees, or knocking off a couple'a dozen cases of Budweiser Lights. Why drink beer if you're drinking light beer?--remember Gablinger's beer (one of the worst tasting beers ever brewed)?--that's the diet beer that started all the "light" beer bullshit. It just means you're paying the full price of a regular beer for a watered down beer. Why not order a "beer and water"?

People are truly stupidly scary. You can fool all the people all the time.

thestaff
of The Daily Growler