I thought he was going to make it. I really did. He was humble, and polite and said all the things expected of the Open champ as he stood in front of the officials and the gallery at St. Andrews last Monday.It went down hill when he started thanking people. And he thanked everybody. He thanked his wife, his caddie, all the folks at St. Andrews who worked so hard to pull off the tournament. He thanked everyone who turned out to watch him win in a playoff and to all the people who ever had anything to do with golf since it was invented in Scotland.
In other words, he went on and on and it was very nice. But then as he wound down his remarks, he bowed his head meekly and said something to the effect that he wanted also to thank his Lord Jesus who gave him the strength to carry on to victory.
Zach Johnson seems like a nice guy. He certainly is a good golfer. But he blew it for me when he pretended that God gave him the victory at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, a few years back and he blew it again with this paean to the legendary Jesus after his win at St. Andrews.
Zach is a fundamentalist Christian and has been written up in the extreme Pentecostal Charisma magazine. He has the right to believe anything he wants and I will defend his right to express his religious notions. But, please, if the man really thinks there's some sort of deity, the god responsible for creating and running the universe, who gives a rat's ass as to who wins a golf tournament, even if it is the (British) Open, he's delusional.
So, go ahead and keep playing golf, Zach, but please ask your Lord to keep you the hell away from political office! We've got enough asshats in Congress and in other political offices who live under the delusion they have received the Word from their "god" to remake our country into some kind of fundamentalistic Christian theocracy!
One final note: There are a number of fundamentalist Christians on the PGA Tour. I would think that if they agreed with Zach's notion that his Lord Jesus helped him win the tournament they'd be pretty pissed off. Why didn't God help them win? Is Zach so special? Is he more pious than the rest of the Bible-thumpers?
[Photo from http://www.thesandtrap.com]
