In which the Caterist and the Major play through without a thought of yelling 'fore' ...

 

The pond had hoped to startthe day with columns offering serious insight. 

For example, there's a truly astonishing AP story about academic freedom going missing, Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups.

And Julian Lucas came up with a hopeful spin in The New Yorker in The Data Hoarders Resisting Trump’s Purge, Can librarians and guerrilla archivists save the country’s files from DOGE? (archive link).

The world has moved on from the fascist book burnings of the 1930s, these days it's a fascist uncle Leon-led digital purging, as Lucas outlines in alarming detail, but a few are fighting back ...

...Last week, the guerrilla archiving movement reached an important milestone, when restoredCDC.org went online. It’s a replica of the health agency’s pre-Trump website based on backups from r/DataHoarder—one that’s fully functional, with a reconstructed back end and interactive tools. But fresh challenges loom. Librarians and data hoarders have been able to save only publicly available records; restricted ones, such as the D.O.J.’s National Database of Police Misconduct—or the internal records being shredded by employees of U.S.A.I.D.—may be gone for good. Some publicly available data sets have proved unmanageably large, such as N.O.A.A. weather data, which is generated more quickly than volunteers can pull it down.
The Data Rescue Project’s next priority is finding a decentralized storage solution for the data it already has. Majstorovic is working on a way to break up hundreds of terabytes into chunks small enough to share via BitTorrent, which stores files distributively among users. The result might be less vulnerable to censorship than central servers. But it would also require even more people to donate their time and terabytes. He’s encouraged by the commitment shown by volunteers who ran out of hard-drive space on a previous campaign. “They started uninstalling their games,” he told me. “I thought that was the ultimate nerd sacrifice.

The pond could have started with a joke, contained in D.C. Press Breaks 140-Year Tradition in Snub to Trump (archive link):

...One of the night’s speakers, Democrat Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, joked about the Trump administration’s ties with Russia.
“If I actually wanted to be president, I wouldn’t do any of this,” he said. “Instead, I would take my case directly to the people who are in charge of our democracy, the Kremlin.”
In response to Moore’s jab, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll walked out in protest. 

Protest all you like Mr Driscoll, it must have pleased your boss. No, not the minion, the real one ...

Da, all good fun, but sadly the pond must deal with the reptiles, in full wrap-around mode this morning...

Well done Cirrus. 

The pond would never have availed itself of your your services, but now the pond can at least put in a negative word should you ever be mentioned in conversation.

But that central portrait of Gina was relevant to the proceedings, because strangely Gina became part of the discussion today. 

Over on the extreme far right of the hive mind there was a clue as to why ...

Some in the extreme far right hive mind could be tossed aside right away ... 

Aidan was just aiding the reptiles with a standard bit of renewables bashing, concluding thusly ...

....it’s now clear what the renewables industry is fighting for: its future funding. It won’t come from power bills, certainly not in any world where they are lower.
Three-quarters of the finance will come from taxpayers, via the Capacity Investment Scheme. This could cost taxpayers around $8bn annually to fund the increase in wind alone projected to be required by 2030.
The rush to renewables will cost us dearly. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, and never was.
Aidan Morrison is the director of energy at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Ever wondered if the rush to climate change might cost us dearly, Aidan? Of course not, you're in the hive mind ...

The Major presented a most curious case, but more of him anon.

First, please forgive the pond for beginning with a dive into recent history, but it's important when considering memory disorders in members of the hive mind. 

Whether it might be construed as mere forgetfulness, or dementia, or amnestic syndrome, or cognitive impairment, it definitely exists and in some cases, can be exceptionally severe.

As evidence, the pond first cites in full the Caterist in celebratory mode not so long ago, back on 25th January of this year, in the bizarrely names "Reality Bites" (who knew that quarries had teeth?). 

The header ran Trump's counter-revolution, The 47th President's inauguration was the beginning of the end of woke (sorry no link, the pond isn't in the business of helping Caterist with traffic)

Then the yowling began, and because it's now, in reptile terms, ancient history, the pond will ignore the frequent invocation of "woke". 

It's long, and presented without visual distractions or interruption, but the pond needed to go "then" before going "now"...

While most US presidents are merely sworn into office, Donald Trump stormed into Washington this week resembling the commander of a liberating army.
On Inauguration Day, the US capital felt like an emancipated city as countless thousands of Americans from all corners of the country took to the frozen streets to celebrate with a passion that has seldom been matched.
Robbed by the weather of the chance to witness the ceremony in the National Mall, Americans crowded into bars and restaurants where they cheered, applauded, hugged and cried as the President said the things they had all been thinking, but hadn’t been allowed to say.
It is too early to describe January 2025 as the end of the war against woke. It was undoubtedly the beginning of the end, or at least it felt like it as I watched the 47th President deliver his inaugural address in a crowded sports bar a kilometre from the Capitol building.
Naturally, these were Trump’s most dedicated supporters, people regarded with disdain by the Democrat elite. Yet none seemed in the least deplorable as they stood for the prayers, bowing their heads in respect, before the incoming President began his speech by proclaiming the dawning of a golden age for America.
Trump struck a chord with his declaration that he would lead “an administration of patriots”, promising to reclaim America's sovereignty and that the nation would “soon be greater, stronger and far more exceptional than ever before.”
Their response was jubilation, tinged in so small measure with relief. For a decade or more, the anointed elite had been telling them they should feel ashamed of their country. They had been told that the nation of which they were proud citizens was no better now than it was in the era of slavery. They had been deluged with propaganda to coerce them into believing the opposite of what they thought about gender and race and threatened with sanctions if they dared to contradict.
Now, their bottled-up thoughts and emotions were being articulated by no less a figure than the President in his inaugural speech, which would set the tone for the next four years and probably beyond.
Trump’s victory marks a counter-revolution against accelerating cultural change. On Monday, he promised to end the social engineering of race and gender in every aspect of public life. Echoing Martin Luther King Junior, he promised to forge a colourblind society based on merit.
Trump pledge to change government policy to acknowledge only two genders: male and female, a declaration that provoked a loud and emotional standing ovation. A middle-aged woman at the next table appeared to be in tears. In one short sentence, the President had banished the fear of ostracism and denunciation for simply asserting a biological truth.
It was the most consequential election address since 2009 when Barack Obama delivered the manifesto for an era of progressive change that would prevail for the next 16 years and was only partially relieved by the first Trump presidency.
Obama's soaring rhetoric obscured his radical intentions. Trump's speech, by contrast, was a to-do list, outlining concrete objectives by which Americans can hold him to account.
It would be foolhardy to judge Trump’s second presidential term a success in his first week. Yet the extent of the onslaught on the woke establishment in only a few days encourages us to hope that the second quarter of the 21st Century won’t be as dismal as the first.
A tide of change is indeed sweeping America, as Trump said. Its currents will be felt around the world, not least in Australia, where the restoration of Australia Day by popular acclaim is further evidence that woke ideology is collapsing under the weight of its own absurdity.
Peter Dutton can draw courage from President Trump’s uncompromising rhetoric, safe in the knowledge that most Australians are more patriotic and more conservative than the elite could ever conceive.
We should not be surprised if the fall of woke is swift. The collapse of the Soviet Union happened that way, as does the end of every regime that draws legitimacy from an enforced consensus around an intellectual delusion.
Trump’s return inspires hope that Communist China’s claim to become the dominant world power will not go unchallenged. China’s weaker allies, Russia and Iran, will draw no comfort from Trump’s promise to build the strongest military the world has ever seen.
There will inevitably be pockets of resistance, people making plans to sabotage Trump's second presidency, as they did the first. Yet this time, he has begun decisively, inspired by passion and purpose with a strategy to get things done as early as possible in his term.
Trump has surrounded himself with a coterie of brilliant minds capable of outwitting the devious proponents of neo-Marxist revolutionary thought who have undermined America from within.
On Monday evening, a panel of unsmiling commentators on CNN, who looked as if they didn’t want to be there, assessed the day’s developments.
The Republicans described it as a day of shock and awe, observed one commentator. "Actually, it’s shock and awful,” he said.
This week has indeed been awful for America's elite, the people who presume to be blessed with superior wisdom and morality compared with ordinary mortals. It is a turning point however for the common man and woman, the restoration of the rights of the individual and the rejection of the ideological machine.

Phew, talk about being all in, like the foolish fart he is ...

It was fully in the spirit of patron saint of the IPA, Gina, who appeared in the lizard Oz on the 23rd January urging Be like Donald Trump, Gina Rinehart tells nation’s leaders (relax, it's outside the lizard Oz paywall):

The nation’s richest person is pushing Australian political and business leaders to emulate Don­ald Trump’s policy agenda, urging the Albanese government to set up a version of the Department of Government Efficiency and withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
Gina Rinehart says she is hoping that Australians will be “inspired by Don­ald Trump” but warns there is a risk the country will be left behind if it does not ­adequately respond to the new policy agenda being rolled out in Washington.
“If we are sensible, we should set up a DOGE immediately, reduce government waste, gov­ernment tape and regulations,” she said.
Mrs Rinehart also argued in favour of tax cuts while shortening approval processes and compliance in a bid to encourage investment, create jobs and revenue while providing a higher standard of living for Australians.
“Donald Trump has led an important movement with his policies – a movement that is growing and growing,” she told The Australian. “I hope our country is not left behind.”

Back in the day, she too was all in on the Cantaloupe Caligula ...

The US President’s actions in encouraging greater investment in America had served as a “shining light for the world”, she said, and it was time for “people in other countries to now get their governments on board with this”.
Mrs Rinehart, who attended the Starlight Ball in Washington following Mr Trump’s inauguration on Monday, said Australia should withdraw from the Paris Agreement because this was “common sense.”
“The implementation agenda by our governments of the Paris accord is costing our living standards and causing suffering for many Australians and if not abandoned, will likely get worse,” she said.

And so nauseatingly on and on, but these days Gina has a new object of deep affection.

You can see him in the deeply weird mural devised for Gina's seventieth birthday. You can see why the pond wanted to get Gina into the story...

What fine details there were amidst the spectacle and the complete absence of taste of any kind... there he is, grinning and smirking like a blessed beaver...

Now, stage fully set, flash forward to the present and an entirely different Cateristis on hand.

Why Anthony Albanese will find it much harder to exploit the Trump effect, Donald Trump’s worsening relations with Canada should disabuse Australia of any idea that the US sees mutual value in defence and trade partnerships.

The reptiles started off with a snap of the chief villain of the story, one of those insulting, demeaning ECU's for which the Murdochians are famous, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is way out of his depth. Picture: NewsWire/Nadir Kinani

Then it got truly weird ... as the Caterist started off with a war with China wedge shot, but finally came to the point ...

Last week, Anthony Albanese spent a relaxed 15 minutes talking about footy on Nova Perth 93.7 before the conversation moved on to worthier matters, such as Donald Trump. The PM voiced his concerns about Trump’s tariffs on aluminium and steel before the host steered the discussion to China.
Shaun McManus said Chinese tariffs on barley, wine, crayfish and other agricultural products had been “way more than 25 per cent”. “Plus, they’re doing bogie laps around Australia where there are frigates and stuff. That surely has to be more concerning.”
“Well, China, we fixed the relationship,” Anthony Albanese responded. “We fixed that through diplomacy.”
Of the many words that could describe the state of play between Australia and China, “fixed” does not readily come to mind. Not after last month’s unannounced live-fire naval exercises, 150 nautical miles east of Sydney, causing commercial flights to be re-routed between Australia and New Zealand.

At this point the reptiles flung in an AV distraction, The Trade Minister has described the path the Albanese government should take to secure a tariff exemption from the US. Don Farrell believes Australia needs to make President Donald Trump "an offer he can't refuse" in future negotiations to mend the deteriorating trade relationship. No nation is yet to successfully lobby the Trump administration for an exemption to its sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminium. Mr Farrell says recent conversations with his US counterparts have been productive, but diplomatic efforts are ongoing.

The pond refused to be distracted as the Caterist rushed pell-mell to a turning point:

If the Chinese navy is looking for a spot of target practice, there must be a suitable location closer to home than the Tasman Sea, some 5500 nautical miles from Shanghai.
It was not the action of a friend. It was a show of strength designed to intimidate and expose Australia’s weakness. It succeeded. Albanese tried to excuse China by saying its action was “in accordance with international law”. “We have boats in the South China Sea, and we do exercises all the time,” he said.
Yet there is no moral equivalence between Australian right-of-passage exercises in the South China Sea and China’s reckless live-fire exercises act. Australian ships and aircraft participate in those exercises with others to protect international shipping lanes from China’s imperial ambitions.
China’s claim to the Spratly and Parcel Islands and Scarborough Shoal is based on the “Nine-Dash Line”, which the 2016 Hague Tribunal rejected as having no legal basis under international law. Yet the PM thinks he can smooth things over with a plate of shellfish.
“The relationship is far improved,” he told Nova Perth listeners. “I brought the Chinese Premier here to WA, of course, last year, and that was well received. We did have lobster for lunch. And that helped.”
The optimism inspired by Trump’s second inauguration was short-lived. Trump promised that America’s power would “stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable”.

Say what? Slap the pond's cheek with a fresh haddock ...The optimism inspired by Trump’s second inauguration was short-lived. 

So severe and grave was the course correction that the reptiles felt the need to repeat it as the caption for a visual distraction, The optimism inspired by Donald Trump’s second inauguration was short-lived. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

The Caterist was in now in full retreat, or perhaps searching for a way out of the rough ...

His irascible diplomacy has achieved the very opposite. America’s allies have reason to feel less safe now than they were under Joe Biden, with the possible exception of Israel.
In his attempts to assert America’s moral authority, Trump has diminished it. If he is prepared to rip up free-trade agreements, can we trust the US to abide by its ANZUS obligation to act to meet a common danger if Australia and New Zealand came under armed attack?
Trump’s worsening relations with Canada should disabuse us of any idea that the US sees mutual value in defence and trade partnerships. In Trump’s zero-sum world, the only question is who is screwing who.

Say what? Now the Caterist has turned moose herder and maple syrup devotee?

Elbows up Canada ...there were many who had your back before useless Johnny and Nick came late hosers came along ...

The foolish, uncultivated person with memory loss prattled on ...

The development of the Alberta oil sands in Canada in the 1990s offered the US a secure and stable oil supply away from the Middle East. In 2001, at the start of the invasion of Iraq, the US was importing 2.7 billion barrels of oil a day from the Persian Gulf. Last year, it was less than a fifth as much.
Canadian imports in 2001 amounted to 1.8 billion a day. Last year, it was 4.6 billion a day. In Trump’s zero-sum world, the US energy deficit with Canada is an unmitigated negative.
Yet, if flows from the Enbridge Mainline and Keystone Pipeline lessen the risk of being forced to put boots on the ground in the Middle East, access to Canadian oil will be an incalculable benefit to the US. The 10 per cent tariff Trump intends to slap on Canadian energy exports only assists America’s enemies.

What happened? Why did the Caterist brain snap? 

Why it's almost as big a turnaround as his discovery of how flood waters in quarries actually moved. 

The reptiles tried to distract with another snap, a high tech vision, Syncrude Canada’s oil-sands mine site north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Picture: Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images

Oh was he proud this new born Canuck. All that talk of berating the woke back in January was but a dream, neigh a hoser nightmare:

If Trump thought Canada would crumble under its lame-duck-woke prime minister, Justin Trudeau, he underestimated Canada’s residual national pride. Trudeau and his successor, Mark Carney, have surged in the polls, pulling back much of the 20-point lead the Conservatives enjoyed before Christmas.
Polling at the weekend found Carney neck and neck with the Conservatives’ Pierre Poilievre in an election expected to be called within weeks, if not days.
Albanese will find it much harder to exploit the Trump effect. Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago in December to persuade the president-elect to see sense. Albanese struggles to get the President to answer his phone call. He assured Nova listeners on Friday that Australia would continue to argue its case. “Kevin is working really hard,” he added.
In January, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the PM broke the news on ABC AM that Rudd had had a meeting with Trump. “There has been direct contact, which is a good thing,” Albanese said.
Asked whether that meeting occurred at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Albanese would not say. “I’ll leave that detail to go through to the keeper,” he said. “We engage diplomatically, rather than go into those details. That’s how we get things done, that’s how you do diplomacy, and that’s how you get results.”
In February, Senator James Paterson sought more detail in Senate estimates from Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials.

Ah Jimbo ... outraged by the thought of any lickspittle lackey kissing billionaire rings ...

Why he's just the sort of chap to do with the mango Mussolini, at least if you have the same sort of connection to reality as the Caterist has ...

Paterson: “Can you tell me the date of that direct contact?”
DFAT secretary Jan Adams: “I might have to take that on notice.”
Paterson: “Can you say where the meeting was?”
Wong: “I refer to the previous answer.”
Paterson: “Do you know whether it was a sit-down meeting?”
Elly Lawson, deputy secretary, strategic planning: “I will take it on notice.”
Paterson: “How long it was scheduled for?”
Lawson: “I will take that on notice.”
Paterson: “Do you know whether it was organised by the embassy or by a third party?”
Lawson: “I’ll take that on notice.”
Paterson: “Was a diplomatic cable produced following the meeting?”
Lawson: “We will provide you with all of these.”
What we know about the meeting, if it took place, is that it did not dissuade Australia’s most important ally from slapping tariffs on our aluminium and steel.
We know, too, that our relationship with the US is at its lowest since the Whitlam government, and the PM is way out of his depth.

Talk about a prime goose, way out of his depth, and willing to change on a dime in mid-stream, according to whichever way the wind blows ...

And so to the Major, and a gigantic PR problem ... 

The Major could sense the problem, though he never tackled it head on ...

The Cantaloupe Clown was present mainly by his absence, so the pond felt the need to drag him in, as the Major began ...

Public golf under threat from sub-par local councils, Much of the campaign against golf is driven by the idea it is an elite sport – yet it is not the elite private clubs that are being targeted, because they own their own land. What a tragedy if it became a sport only for the rich.

A sport for the rich? 

Where did the Major get that idea, as the portly mango Mussolini has reverted to the greens ... and continued his winning ways (sorry, it's a Daily Snail link)

Did the Major land on the greens with his mission DOA?

The reptiles tried to distract with a snap of areal golfer,  Jason Day in action at the Arnold Palmer Invitational earlier this month. Picture: Getty Images

A little more of Arnige later on, as it turned out that the Major was one of those silly, entitled old farts doing the rounds in his retirement ...

Former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, a keen golfer, banned the sport in Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula during the Covid-19 pandemic, but – as with much of what he did during his reign – the result was unexpected.
The game was actually given a global shot in the arm by Covid-19. People realised what should have been obvious to Andrews: you don’t get sick playing golf in the open air.
Golf Australia on December 18 released the sport’s five-year results: a record 3.8 million Australians played golf in 2023-24. Participation rose 9 per cent, and 19 per cent of all adults played at least one round across that 12-month period.
This column plays golf three times a week – either in Sydney or at Kew on the NSW mid-north coast – and has noticed a rise in school-age students playing late afternoons. Junior participation last year rose 33.4 per cent (37.3 per cent for boys and 13.8 per cent for girls).
Yet public golf, the foundation stone of the game nationally, is under threat.
Golf Australia says as many as 50 courses nationally face pressure from community groups wanting open public space at golf courses.
Moore Park, Sydney’s 18-hole city public course, may be halved to nine holes next year after years of campaigning by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who lives in nearby East Redfern and owns property in the area.
The Minns Labor state government has conducted extensive public consultation – most of which supported the status quo – but has budgeted to start work on plans to turn 20 of the course’s 45 hectares into a park.

The pond has no club in this debate, it's just that when the reptiles offered a snap, Aerial images of Moore Park Golf Course and driving range. Picture: Sam Ruttyn ...

... the pond thought it could offer a cartoon celebrating old days, old ways, born again in new times ...

The Major ranted on ...

The Save Moore Park organisation has delivered an alternative that keeps 18 holes but reduces the course to a par 68 and offers 15 hectares of extra public space, parking, bikeways, skate park, BMX track, fitness trail, dog park and minigolf for children.
James O’Doherty in The Daily Telegraph on Friday reported the government had been warned the original plan might be far more expensive than imagined.
The compromise 18-hole option would certainly guarantee much of the $16m a year flowing from golf activities at Moore Park would continue to help finance the Greater Sydney Parklands portfolio.
Moore Park, gazetted in 1913 as the city’s workers club, is visited by 500,000 people a year, 82 per cent of whom live within 10km of the club. Many rely on public transport to access the course.
It is at the western end of 360 hectares of parklands including Centennial Park, Queens Park and the wider Moore Park grounds.
The Warringah course on the city’s northern beaches fought for years to resist a push to turn the city’s second busiest course into public open space.
Chatswood on Sydney’s north shore is being reduced to 12 holes.
In Melbourne, Darebin Council in 2022 voted to retain the Northcote course for golf after a push for it to be opened to public recreation after 3pm daily or all day Sunday.
Last year, Monash Council voted to keep the nine-hole Oakleigh Course after a push to turn the course into parkland.
Brisbane’s inner city 18-hole Victoria Park Golf Course closed in 2021 after 90 years.
The Elsternwick nine-hole course in Melbourne’s Bayside Council area closed in 2018 and was turned over to wetlands. Rosny Park Public Golf Course in Hobart closed – at least temporarily – in 2021, although no final decision appears to have been reached on the future of its land on the eastern shore of the Derwent River.
The shift to inner urban areas by young families is putting pressure on public open space, as have urban projects turning old industrial areas into modern developments.
Yet property developers in the outer areas of our big cities are required to allocate land for recreational purposes. Golfers wonder why big urban renewal projects in Sydney’s inner south are not similarly required to keep open land for recreation.
Jared Kendler, a golfer from inner-Sydney Surry Hills and campaigner for the Save Moore Park Golf Course group, makes the point.
“Local councils are often ill-informed about golf’s popularity and overall benefits to the community. Public golf courses just become an easy way for them to make a land grab to make up for poor planning decisions,” he said.
Much of the campaign against golf is driven by the idea it is an elite sport – yet it is not the elite private clubs that are being targeted because they own their own land.
Public courses do not require club membership and nine holes can cost about $27.

27 smackeroos? That's pretty 'leet where the pond comes from ...

Sorry the pond shouldn't interrupt the suffering Major ...

This newspaper’s Saturday columnist Nikki Gemmell triggered a storm when she wrote about golf in 2021, arguing public land would be better used as open space for children rather than the old men she argued receive all the benefits of golf.
Children do need open space. But there are counter-arguments in favour of public golf.
Lifelong ratepayers who access public golf are in effect being asked to sacrifice facilities so that people who have only recently moved into new higher-density developments can access open space that councils did not demand developers provide.
When Sydney’s old Manly Council – now part of the merged Northern Beaches Council – targeted Warringah public course for open recreational space, many critics of golf pointed to the nearby Manly course as an alternative. But Manly is private, and membership is very expensive.
Most people who use the Warringah course are locals, including many women and teenagers.

The reptiles tried to sway the pond with a heart-warming snap, Junior golf clinic run by professional golfer Matt McFarlane. Picture: Brad Fleet

But the pond refused to be moved, remembering the good old days of Killer masks and Ivermectin ....

Aware of the image problem, the Major did his best ...

Club professional Rob Richards says golf is misrepresented as an elite sport for older men.
He says while about 40 per cent of players at the course are over 55, about 25 per cent would be under 30.
Richards says new players “anchor their golf at Warringah”. Indeed, even if new players could afford to play on a private course it is hard to see how most could justify such a financial commitment early in their time with such a difficult sport.
Says Kendler: “I use the example of Jason Day. He is one of the world’s best pro golfers but he started out playing with a club his dad found at the tip.”
Day, who has won 13 US tournaments, has often spoken about how he was introduced to the sport as a three-year-old in Beaudesert, south of Brisbane, with a three wood his father picked up at the dump.
He formally joined the Beaudesert public course as a junior, aged six, and turned professional in 2006 at age 19. He won the US PGA in 2015 and has held the world No.1 ranking. He has won 19 tournament in the US, Europe and Australia.
Warringah’s Richards says golf also teaches life skills: “It requires dedication, training, learning in a social environment with a strong tilt towards rules and behaviour.”

Say that again! "a strong tilt towards rules and behaviour.”

Uh huh ...

It was a tough ask from the get go, and the Major landed in a bunker ...

Adds Kendler: “Golf courses are melting pots that bring together people of all ages, genders and backgrounds.
“In what other sport do you see a 12-year-old spending four and a half hours with a 70-year-old engaging in meaningful conversations and learning life lessons while focusing on a game, (and) away from mobile phones?’’
Legendary golfer Arnold Palmer summed up the sport: “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and challenges the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening – and it is without doubt the greatest game mankind has invented.”

Arnie? 

That reminded the pond of a yarn, here at PBS, Trump kicks off a Pennsylvania rally by talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia.

Politicians saluting Palmer in his hometown is nothing new. But Trump spent 12 full minutes doing so at the top of his speech and even suggested how much more fun the night would be if Palmer, who died in 2016, could join him on stage.
“Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women,” Trump said. “This is a guy that was all man.”
Then he went even further.
“When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said with a laugh. “I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”

Sorry, the pond shouldn't have interrupted with a joke by a golfing legend ...

You see, the Major had a last line, a desperate last fling of the dice, a one iron when perhaps he should have played a four wood ...

What a tragedy it would be if it became a sport only for the rich.

Well Major, there are tragedies ... and then there are tragedies, and the one currently unfolding makes playing a round of golf feel a bit like pissing into the wind on a par 3 hole ... or using a niblick to loft your way out of a profoundly deep sand trap ...

As always the immortal Rowe was on hand to drive the point home, though he changed the form of driving ...

It's in the detail, always in the detail. If only the Caterist and the Major had noticed when it mattered ...