Legal Commentary

A Texas original

By Tom Kirkendall

Given the achievement of covering his 200th major golf tournament at the U.S. Open this past June, Clear Thinkers favorite and fellow Texan Dan Jenkins has been making the interview rounds and it has been a rollicking good time.

Last week at the PGA Tournament (Jenkins' 201st major tournament), the PGA presented Jenkins to the press corps one afternoon and the interview session ended up being the most entertaining of the week. Here are a few snippets:

"It's been a great geographic trip, because I got to cover the dominant player in the world from Texas [Ben Hogan] and then the one from Pennsylvania [Arnold Palmer] and then the one from Ohio [Jack Nicklaus], the one from Missouri [Tom Watson] and the one from Spain [Seve Ballesteros], and now a guy from California [Tiger Woods]. Pretty good geographic journey."

Recalling an anecdote from an Atlanta hotel that Jenkins stayed in while covering a tournament:

Jenkins: "What exactly is the name of the property we're staying in?"

Julius Mason, a Jenkins friend: "It's the Sheraton Four Points."

Jenkins: "Four points out of 10? No air conditioning, no ice, no TV, no phone. It was a grand slam."

On his future:

Question: "How long are you going to keep doing this?"

Jenkins: "I'm not qualified to do anything else. So I'll be here until they carry me out and the message on my tombstone will be 'I knew this would happen.'"

On his two passions, golf and college football:

"Hey, golf is fun. It's beautiful. It's elite. It's gorgeous and all those things. But college football -- it's important. People live and die for that sport."

And, as noted earlier here, the 79 year-old Jenkins has taken to Twitter like a fish to water. Here are a few of his twit gems from last weekend's PGA:

"Tiger three-putts for bogey. Still gets standing ovation."

"Tiger throws grass in the air on the fifth fairway. Gets another standing ovation."

On Vijay Singh's 3rd round putting woes:

"Vijay putted today like your member-guest partner. The partner you don't invite back."

"I see 'Squeaky' Fromme was let out of prison Friday. Maybe the Eagles will sign her."

"Female mixed martial arts seems to be catching on. Some of my friends believe they might have been married to a couple of them."

"I just noticed I'm closing in on 4,500 [Twitter] followers. My daughter says, 'Great, Dad. Still two million behind Britney Spears.'"

On Irishman Padrig Harrington's quintuple bogey 8 that took him out of contention on the final day:

"The Irish do love funerals."

On South Korean Y.E. Yang's victory in the PGA:

"After conquering the LPGA Tour, the South Koreans have now set their sights on the men. And after all we've done for them."

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on August 20, 2009 (boomark / email).