The Illuminated Donkey

Alex Heard discusses an issue I briefly thought about as I flipped by The Masters on my way to the Lakers game: the experience of being a spectator at a major golf tournament:

Physically, going to a tournament is a pain. You'll swelter, get sore feet, spend $200 on Cokes, and wait in line forever to enter skanky port-a-wees. As the action unfolds, you'll either try to follow the leader, which means spending the day looking at the back of some guy's head and smelling a Very Large Array of armpits, or you'll "stake a claim" to a particular spot on the course and watch the same shot get played 100 times. Distant cheers and cries of "You de man!" serve as a constant taunt that something great is happening—somewhere else.