TouchƩ, my friend.
Or scoring all the points inā¦
[QUOTE=āTheUlteriorMotive, post: 1107527, member: 2272ā]IOR is calling out this kind of idiot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6YSvCsVJM
[/QUOTE]
The opening scenes of Episode 1 Season 1 are amongst the finest television produced in the last 20 years. A shame it went downhill so badly. The first episode of the fourth season was promising though.
Sure, Iāve been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, Iām not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries arenāt as good. That used to be called patriotism.
@Thrawneen[/USER], I take your points in reply to [USER=2272]@TheUlteriorMotive[/USER]. For example, I wouldnāt hang around with someone who likes rugby football and/or attends games (unless itās [USER=6]@briantinnion[/USER] and purely for business networking reasons) and I gave [USER=1]@Rocko an ultimatum back in 2002 that he had to choose between me and rugby football. He hates rugby football now.
Itās often in work situations where these problems arise. You have to be a bit more circumspect at times when some colleague or customer is regularly boring the shit out of you with talk of his jogging distances, routes, times, targets, new runners etc.
I often feel like saying: Yeah I exercise too. I do stretching and some core work but I donāt go on about it day in and day out. Now fuck off, you tiresome gimp. But you canāt really say that.
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/10/1955.short
In the social world, borders are also of special significance; one side of a border is generally more esteemed or valued than the other. We claim that entities (individuals, groups) that are just over the border on the positive side tend to exaggerate their membership on the positive side (asymmetrical social Mach bands). We demonstrate this by showing that (a) masterās-degree universities use the word university to describe themselves more than major graduate universities do, (b) small international airports use the word international to describe themselves more than major airports do, and Ā© University of Pennsylvania students, who are affiliated with a āmarginalā Ivy League school, use the word Ivy to describe their school more than Harvard students do.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/wealth-creators-klepto-rewards-bosses
[SIZE=6]āWealth creatorsā are robbing our most productive people[/SIZE]
George Monbiot
Tuesday 31 March 2015 19.29 BST
There is an inverse relationship between utility and reward. The most lucrative, prestigious jobs tend to cause the greatest harm. The most useful workers tend to be paid least and treated worst.
I was reminded of this while listening last week to a care worker describing her job. Caroleās company gives her a rota of, er, three half-hour visits an hour. It takes no account of the time required to travel between jobs, and doesnāt pay her for it either, which means she makes less than the minimum wage. During the few minutes she spends with a client, she may have to get them out of bed, help them on the toilet, wash them, dress them, make breakfast and give them their medicines. If she ever gets a break, she told the BBC radio programme You and Yours, she spends it with her clients. For some, she is the only person they see all day.
Is there more difficult or worthwhile employment? Yet she is paid in criticism and insults as well as pennies. She is shouted at by family members for being late and not spending enough time with each client, then upbraided by the company because of the complaints it receives. Her profession is assailed in the media as the problems created by the corporate model are blamed on the workers. āI love going to people; I love helping them, but the constant criticism is depressing,ā she says. āItās like always being in the wrong.ā
Letās imagine the lives of those who own or run the company. We have to imagine it because, for good reasons, neither the care workerās real name nor the company she works for were revealed. The more costs and corners they cut, the more profitable their business will be. In other words, the less they care, the better they will do. The perfect chief executive, from the point of view of shareholders, is a fully fledged sociopath.
Such people will soon become very rich. They will be praised by the government as wealth creators[/URL]. If they donate enough money to party funds, [URL=āhttp://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2015/mar/22/house-of-lords-reform-donors-peeragesā]they have a high chance of becoming peers of the realm. Gushing profiles in the press will commend their entrepreneurial chutzpah and flair.
Theyāll acquire a wide investment portfolio, perhaps including a few properties, so that ā even if they cease to do anything resembling work ā they can continue living off the labour of people such as Carole as she struggles to pay extortionate rents. Their descendants, perhaps for many generations, need never take a job of the kind she does.
Care workers function as a human loom, shuttling from one home to another, stitching the social fabric back together while many of their employers and shareholders, and government ministers, slash blindly at the cloth, downsizing, outsourcing and deregulating in the cause of profit.
It doesnāt matter how many times the myth of meritocracy is debunked. It keeps re-emerging, as you can see in the current election campaign. How else, after all, can the government justify stupendous inequality?
One of the most painful lessons a young adult learns is that the wrong traits are rewarded. We celebrate originality and courage, but those who rise to the top are often conformists and sycophants. We are taught that cheats never prosper, yet the country is run by spivs. A study testing British senior managers and chief executives found that on certain indicators of psychopathy their scores exceeded those of patients diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders in the Broadmoor special hospital.
If you possess the one indispensable skill ā battering and blustering your way to the top ā incompetence in other areas is no impediment. The former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina features prominently[/URL] on [URL=āhttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-worst-ceos-where-are-they-now/ā]lists of the worst US bosses[/URL]: quite an achievement when you consider the competition. She fired 30,000 workers in the name of efficiency yet oversaw a halving of the companyās stock price. Morale and communication became so bad that she was [URL=āhttps://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=20020320&id=IIEfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zH8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6784,6538915&hl=enā]booed at company meetings[/URL]. She was forced out, with a $42m severance package. Where is she now? [URL=āhttp://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/29/hp-ceo-carly-fiorina-presidential-runā]About to launch her campaign[/URL] as presidential candidate for the Republican party, where, apparently, she is considered a serious contender. Itās [URL=āhttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829ā]the Mitt Romney story all over again.
At university I watched in horror as the grand plans of my ambitious friends dissolved. It took them about a minute, on walking into the corporate recruitment fair, to see that the careers they had pictured ā working for Oxfam, becoming a photographer, defending the living world ā paid about one fiftieth of what they might earn in the City. They all swore they would leave to follow their dreams after two or three years of making money; none did. They soon adjusted their morality to their circumstances. One, a firebrand who wanted to nationalise the banks and overthrow capitalism, plunged first into banking, then into politics. Claire Perry now sits on the frontbench of the Conservative party.Flinch once, at the beginning of your career, and they will have you for life. The world is wrecked by clever young people making apparently sensible choices.
The inverse relationship doesnāt always hold. There are plenty of useless, badly paid jobs, and a few useful, well-paid jobs. But surgeons and film directors are greatly outnumbered by corporate lawyers, lobbyists, advertisers, management consultants, financiers and parasitic bosses consuming the utility their workers provide. As the pay gap widens ā chief executives in the UK took 60 times as much as the average worker in the 1990s and 180 times as much today ā the uselessness ratio is going through the roof I propose a name for this phenomenon: klepto-remuneration.
There is no end to this theft except robust government intervention: a redistribution of wages through maximum ratios and enhanced taxation. But this wonāt happen until we challenge the infrastructure of justification, built so carefully by politicians and the press. Our lives are damaged not by the undeserving poor but by the undeserving rich.
[QUOTE=āSidney, post: 1116823, member: 183ā]http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/wealth-creators-klepto-rewards-bosses
[SIZE=6]āWealth creatorsā are robbing our most productive people[/SIZE]
George Monbiot
Tuesday 31 March 2015 19.29 BST
There is an inverse relationship between utility and reward. The most lucrative, prestigious jobs tend to cause the greatest harm. The most useful workers tend to be paid least and treated worst.
I was reminded of this while listening last week to a care worker describing her job. Caroleās company gives her a rota of, er, three half-hour visits an hour. It takes no account of the time required to travel between jobs, and doesnāt pay her for it either, which means she makes less than the minimum wage. During the few minutes she spends with a client, she may have to get them out of bed, help them on the toilet, wash them, dress them, make breakfast and give them their medicines. If she ever gets a break, she told the BBC radio programme You and Yours, she spends it with her clients. For some, she is the only person they see all day.
Is there more difficult or worthwhile employment? Yet she is paid in criticism and insults as well as pennies. She is shouted at by family members for being late and not spending enough time with each client, then upbraided by the company because of the complaints it receives. Her profession is assailed in the media as the problems created by the corporate model are blamed on the workers. āI love going to people; I love helping them, but the constant criticism is depressing,ā she says. āItās like always being in the wrong.ā
Letās imagine the lives of those who own or run the company. We have to imagine it because, for good reasons, neither the care workerās real name nor the company she works for were revealed. The more costs and corners they cut, the more profitable their business will be. In other words, the less they care, the better they will do. The perfect chief executive, from the point of view of shareholders, is a fully fledged sociopath.
Such people will soon become very rich. They will be praised by the government as wealth creators[/URL]. If they donate enough money to party funds, [URL=āhttp://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2015/mar/22/house-of-lords-reform-donors-peeragesā]they have a high chance of becoming peers of the realm. Gushing profiles in the press will commend their entrepreneurial chutzpah and flair.
Theyāll acquire a wide investment portfolio, perhaps including a few properties, so that ā even if they cease to do anything resembling work ā they can continue living off the labour of people such as Carole as she struggles to pay extortionate rents. Their descendants, perhaps for many generations, need never take a job of the kind she does.
Care workers function as a human loom, shuttling from one home to another, stitching the social fabric back together while many of their employers and shareholders, and government ministers, slash blindly at the cloth, downsizing, outsourcing and deregulating in the cause of profit.
It doesnāt matter how many times the myth of meritocracy is debunked. It keeps re-emerging, as you can see in the current election campaign. How else, after all, can the government justify stupendous inequality?
One of the most painful lessons a young adult learns is that the wrong traits are rewarded. We celebrate originality and courage, but those who rise to the top are often conformists and sycophants. We are taught that cheats never prosper, yet the country is run by spivs. A study testing British senior managers and chief executives found that on certain indicators of psychopathy their scores exceeded those of patients diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders in the Broadmoor special hospital.
If you possess the one indispensable skill ā battering and blustering your way to the top ā incompetence in other areas is no impediment. The former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina features prominently[/URL] on [URL=āhttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-worst-ceos-where-are-they-now/ā]lists of the worst US bosses[/URL]: quite an achievement when you consider the competition. She fired 30,000 workers in the name of efficiency yet oversaw a halving of the companyās stock price. Morale and communication became so bad that she was [URL=āhttps://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=20020320&id=IIEfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zH8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6784,6538915&hl=enā]booed at company meetings[/URL]. She was forced out, with a $42m severance package. Where is she now? [URL=āhttp://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/29/hp-ceo-carly-fiorina-presidential-runā]About to launch her campaign[/URL] as presidential candidate for the Republican party, where, apparently, she is considered a serious contender. Itās [URL=āhttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829ā]the Mitt Romney story all over again.
At university I watched in horror as the grand plans of my ambitious friends dissolved. It took them about a minute, on walking into the corporate recruitment fair, to see that the careers they had pictured ā working for Oxfam, becoming a photographer, defending the living world ā paid about one fiftieth of what they might earn in the City. They all swore they would leave to follow their dreams after two or three years of making money; none did. They soon adjusted their morality to their circumstances. One, a firebrand who wanted to nationalise the banks and overthrow capitalism, plunged first into banking, then into politics. Claire Perry now sits on the frontbench of the Conservative party.Flinch once, at the beginning of your career, and they will have you for life. The world is wrecked by clever young people making apparently sensible choices.
The inverse relationship doesnāt always hold. There are plenty of useless, badly paid jobs, and a few useful, well-paid jobs. But surgeons and film directors are greatly outnumbered by corporate lawyers, lobbyists, advertisers, management consultants, financiers and parasitic bosses consuming the utility their workers provide. As the pay gap widens ā chief executives in the UK took 60 times as much as the average worker in the 1990s and 180 times as much today ā the uselessness ratio is going through the roof I propose a name for this phenomenon: klepto-remuneration.
There is no end to this theft except robust government intervention: a redistribution of wages through maximum ratios and enhanced taxation. But this wonāt happen until we challenge the infrastructure of justification, built so carefully by politicians and the press. Our lives are damaged not by the undeserving poor but by the undeserving rich.[/QUOTE]
Thatās not journalism. Thatās a polemical rant. Classic Monbiot.
Journalism can be polemical, mate.
āRantā is a subjective term.
Ā· Youāre paid too much.
And are a microcosm of all that is wrong with modern society.
+1
boasting about ruining Liam Millers career,ffs
Heās dead right
I think heās right in general but some of his figures seem a bit low for costs.
Red Bull Arena in Salzburg cost more than ā¬45m. That was the cost before they brought it up to standard for the Euros which added another ā¬25m. Apologies for the rather boring clarification.
Thought this Kimmage interview with McDowell was a decent read:
Nine years ago, during the fourth round of the European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre in Switzerland, Graeme McDowell snapped his five wood against the root of a tree and issued a directive to his caddie, Ken Comboy: āGo find yourself a decent player. I am not the guy youāre looking for.ā
This is not how professional golfers normally behave.
A poor drive?
They blame the coach.
A missed putt?
They blame the caddie.
A missed cut?
They blame the manager.
A bad day?
They blame the wife.
It is never their fault.
McDowell is different. The second of three boys born to his parents, Kenny and Marian, he grew up in a three-bedroom terraced house in Portrush and charmed his early teachers. What a well-mannered boy. What a gift for learning and numbers. The kid was a shoo-in for Oxford or Cambridge.
He wanted to play golf.
The sages watched him play and couldnāt make sense of it. His driving was fairly average. His ball striking was pretty ordinary. His putting was nothing to shout about. His peers were clearly more gifted.
How was he so good?
He travels to Birmingham, Alabama on a bog-standard scholarship and becomes the No 1-rated college player in America. He turns professional at the age of 23 and wins on his fourth time out. He becomes the first European in 40 years to win the US Open. He takes Tiger Woods down the stretch in his own tournament - the Chevron World Challenge in Sherwood, California - and beats him in a play-off. He pulls himself off the floor and takes out Jordan Spieth in the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles.
Why donāt we love him more?
Itās a Sunday afternoon at Augusta during the final round of the Masters. Heās standing in front of the clubhouse explaining his disappointment - heāll finish tied 52nd - to a coterie of journalists. āAugusta is my favourite golf course in the world,ā he says. "I love Augusta, I love the Masters, even though as Brian says (golfwriter Brian Keogh), itās an unrequited love, and thatās kind of a good way to describe it.
āI enjoy it for what it is but I always walk away from here disappointed. I never get anything out of it. I always walk away from Augusta with my head down. I didnāt let it beat me emotionally this year but it beat me, still.ā
But the thing that strikes most is his good humour and grace. Heās not blaming his caddie for this and wonāt be sacking his manager or his coach. Heās going home, he says, to put his feet up with a bottle of wine to watch the final round.
Two days later, that seemed a logical place to start when we sat down before the RBC Heritage tournament at Hilton Head.
Paul Kimmage: On Sunday, you were going home to open a bottle of wine and watch the leaders in the final round. Did you?
Graeme McDowell: I might have opened two! Yeah, I did. I went back and had the family up . . . Kristen (wife), my mum and dad.
PK: What was the wine?
GMcD: A Beringer cabernet - Iām a bit of a California-cabernet guy but Iām trying to expand my horizons. I was in the wine cellar at Augusta a couple of times last week - got one of the sommeliers to give me a guided tour. Itās pretty cool.
PK: Itās supposed to be one of the best cellars in America?
GMcD: Yeah, they have everything you could ever imagine in there from France to Italy to Spain to California, stacks of the stuff.
PK: You didnāt get to taste any of it?
GMcD: (Smiles) No, I didnāt do any tasting.
PK: Where did this love for wine come from?
GMcD: I donāt know really, just bumping into people. Ray Taccolini has a phenomenal wine cellar. He was on the board of the Tiger Woods foundation and has become a very good friend. So it was just through having the odd dinner with him and getting an appreciation for it. I built a little wine cellar in the house with a couple of hundred bottles. Whatās this they say? Theyāre worthless if you donāt drink them and priceless if you do.
PK: (Laughs) Jordan Spieth is on the cover of Sports Illustrated today. Have you seen it?
GMcD: No.
PK: Itās a photo of him driving off the 18th tee at Augusta with a headline: āJordan Rules: The Spieth era begins now.ā Do you agree?
GMcD: I donāt think itās the Spieth era but I think weāre in the era right now of the complete young player. I think weāre looking at complete golfers arriving on Tour much more often now, guys like Jordan and Patrick Reed. Will Jordan rule? I donāt know. Rory is going to be awfully hard to beat. Their golf games are very different. Rory is a bit like Tiger was, dynamic, a 21st-century golfer who hits it 330-340 (yards off the tee). Jordan gets it done the old-fashioned way. Heās more of a Jack (Nicklaus) or a (Nick) Faldo. Heās mentally very strong, very mature and very grounded.
PK: McIlroy drives like God; Spieth putts like God. What would you take?
GMcD: I think Iād like to putt like God. It used to be āDrive for show, putt for doughā but youāll make plenty of dough if you can drive it in this day and age. But thereās more if you can putt.
PK: So youād take putting?
GMcD: Yeah, I think I would.
PK: You were drawn against Spieth on the final day of the Ryder Cup last year. Did you have any idea you were playing golfās next superstar?
GMcD: Well, it was an interesting day. For the first five or six holes, I felt like a guy who hadnāt played enough golf. Iād played with Victor (Dubuisson) on Friday and Saturday afternoon and I literally hadnāt hit any iron shots, it was really weird. And itās so late each evening when you get off the golf course you canāt get any work done. So here comes Sunday and I feel under-prepped.
PK: Youāre one down after two, two down after three and three down after five.
GMcD: Yeah, and I hit my first decent shot to 6 but miss the putt. On 7, he hits two shots to ten feet and Iām 30 feet away and miss. So Iām watching this kid hit this ten-footer (to win the hole) thinking: āIf I go four down here Iām really in the shit.ā He misses it and the next two holes are key. He hits a decent shot into 8 and I follow him. On 9, he hits a phenomenal chip shot up-close and I follow him in close and that kind of gets me going.
PK: You get one back on 10?
GMcD: Yeah, itās the first chink in his armour. He hits it to 50 feet and lags it up to three feet. I hit this putt that couldnāt miss but it misses, and then he misses and Iām like: āOh! Iām almost four down two holes ago and now Iām back to two!ā And Iām energised. He misses a 25-footer on the next and he gets really angry with himself because Iām 15 feet away and I think he knows, that I know, that Iām going to make it. And I make it. And he doesnāt hit a shot for the next two holes. Iām thinking: āThis kid is gone!ā
PK: And he was.
GMcD: I thought his temperament was a bit suspect: Iād played with him a few times and he had a tendency to be hot-headed and that came out when he missed on 11. But he hasnāt shown much of that since.
PK: You created a monster.
GMcD: I donāt know.
PK: Heās going to look back years from now and write in his autobiography: āLosing to Graeme McDowell was the turning point in my career.ā
GMcD: (Laughs) Well, his eight months since that day have been fairly epic, and mine have been fairly ordinary. Iām craving (being in contention on) a Sunday afternoon again. I need it, I want it, and Iām frustrated. Iām not playing great at the minute; my life has changed a huge amount over the last couple of years and I feel like Iām turning a lot of corners.
PK: What sort of corners?
GMcD: Iāve gone from a guy who loved only one thing in his life; apart from my mum and dad, golf was all I had. Now Iāve got a wife and two kids that are more important than golf to me and I guess Iām wrestling with the priority changes. I just had a chat in the playersā lounge with Scott Verplank about what Iāve been going through. Heās been out here (on tour) for 29 years and has a wife and four kids.
PK: You told him what was on your mind?
GMcD: Yeah.
PK: Was he surprised?
GMcD: No, he just went, āPhhhh, Iāve been there many times.ā
PK: Thatās interesting.
GMcD: Something Iāve become better at in my life is asking questions: Is it a low? Am I going through a low? I donāt know. Iāve got married and had a child but still made a Ryder Cup team, and performed well, and maintained a top-20 in the world position until the last four or five months. So I probably donāt give myself enough credit.
PK: PĆ”draig Harrington used to start every season terrified he had ālost itā during the winter.
GMcD: I think as humans weāre always terrified that we might be finished, or might never compete again. What Iām talking about, craving that Sunday afternoon, is a need for validation, to put that fear away again. My season hasnāt given me that so far and I need that, and want that. But I donāt want this piece to be all deep and dark and soul-searching.
PK: (laughs) I do.
GMcD: No, soul-searching is good but I donāt want it to suggest that Iām in a dark place at the moment.
PK: No, thatās understood. There was a sense of what youāve been talking about in an interview you did recently with the Mail on Sunday: āI feel like Iāve been at a crossroads lately. I am trying to get myself back to the player I was and the way I thought rather than being this guy who is trying to be perfect and has less patience and gets frustrated and angered quicker than he ever did. I am trying to take a step back and realise that you are supposed to be happy when you get to this point.ā
GMcD: Yeah, I suppose I was sort of saying out loud some things that Iāve been working on mentally. Iām not sure what cycling is like and whether you guys went through the same thing.
PK: No, cycling is a sport where you donāt have to think - you put your head down, your ass up and your brain in neutral.
GMcD: Really?
PK: Yeah.
GMcD: Iād have figured being on a bike gives you a lot of time to think.
PK: It does, but itās better if you donāt engage your brain.
GMcD: Well, obviously thereās a lot of pain. Do you . . . Is there a certain amount of meditation required to block that out?
PK: You mean medication.
GMcD: (laughs) I like that.
PK: Medication kills the pain.
GMcD: So the thinkers donāt . . .
PK: The thinkers think: āFuck this! I need to change my career!ā
GMcD: Thereās a lot of that in golf. You either have to be really smart, or quite the opposite, to be good at this game. Thereās a lot of time to think and a lot of intangibles to wrestle with: the smart guys learn to deal with it, and organise their thoughts; the other guys donāt notice the clutter and just get on with it. The guys in the middle are the ones that struggle.
PK: The other interesting element to that interview is the quest to win another Major. You said: āI expected to be more satisfied after the US Open. Maybe when I achieve another Major championship Iāll be happy. That comes with being a sportsman. Anybody that is good at something. It doesnāt matter how much money you have, you want more.ā
GMcD: Yeah.
PK: Have you seen The Sixth Sense?
GMcD: Yeah, a fantastic movie.
PK: It was directed by a guy called M Night Shyamalan but pretty much everything he has done since has been shite.
GMcD: Did he write that movie?
PK: Yeah, and itās a work of genius, but my point is this: Surely once should be enough? How many people in history have won the US Open?
GMcD: Yeah, thereās no doubt.
PK: So the question is: What is enough?
GMcD: I donāt know.
PK: Some say itās the secret to a happy life.
GMcD: I guess I donāt know the secret, then. Iād like to win another three or four PGA Tour events and another Major championship. That would be enough.
PK: Youāre sure?
GMcD: (laughs) No, Iām not sure.
PK: Let me quote you some figures from the Golf Digest āTop 50 Money Listā for 2015. Number 25? Graeme McDowell. A very likeable business partner for some big name companies. Few interact with the public and the media as genuinely as he does. Off-course earnings: $4.1m. On-course earnings: $5.5m. Total: $9.3m. Thatās not bad?
GMcD: (laughs) Whereās it all gone? Itās funny, those are always the worst meetings: you sit down with your financial advisor and he throws numbers like that at you. āYou made X on the course. You made Y off the course. Youāve got Z in the bank.ā And youāre like, āJesus! Whereās it all gone? The taxman is a beaut.ā
PK: Youāve been phenomenally successful?
GMcD: Yeah.
PK: So the word āunhappyā should not be in your vocabulary.
GMcD: No, and itās not. I am not an unhappy person. Iāve had the spikes on lately and been a bit frustrated on the golf course, but when Iām with my family, and I have a glass of wine in my hand, I am not unhappy at all.
1 Patriot Games
āWhen it comes to the Olympic discussions, that raises some questions as to who we play for. I was always trying to sit on the fence, again, because I really did not want to have to make that decision. It is an unfair decision to put in the players hands. Youāre always, unfortunately, going to end up upsetting someone whatever side you choose.ā
Interview with The Irish Times, November 2013
PK: You did an interview a couple of years ago, and gave a very good summary about the Olympics, and how difficult it was to choose, before the decision was taken out of your hands.
GMcD: Yeah, itās extremely sensitive. You canāt really understand what itās like to live in Northern Ireland and have a Catholic mum and a Protestant dad. When I grew up as a junior golfer, I wanted to wear the green blazer. Golf was an all-Ireland sport; we wore the red hand of Ulster for the interprovincials and you stuck the green jacket on (playing for Ireland) and never gave it a second thought. But when the whole Olympics thing came up, it just felt like a banana skin where there was no right answer. I, typically, donāt sit on the fence. I try to be honest and give an opinion but I didnāt have an answer.
PK: Yeah, that canāt have been easy.
GMcD: One of the things I love about living in the States is the patriotism. I love going to a football game or a baseball game when the national anthem comes on and people take their hats off. I get goosebumps. Itās cool. I can only imagine what it must be like for athletes to stand on a field and do that because I realise that I donāt have that. Iām not proud of Northern Ireland in many ways, because of what weāve been through, and what weāve fought over, and the things weāve done to each other. Am I Irish? Am I Northern Irish? Am I British? Iāll be honest and say that when I travel around the world I say Iām Irish, because people love the Irish.
PK: But is that how you feel?
GMcD: I donāt feel anything and as I say, I hate my lack of patriotism. Do I want be an American? No. Are my kids going to be American? Well, theyāre going to be American citizens but Iām very passionate about them having a sense of where their dadās from. Iām very passionate about taking them home for the summer and for them to meet their cousins and to understand their history and culture. I love Ireland and I love the north coast where Iām from and Iām very proud of that and the beauty and the people but itās . . . (pauses)
PK: Itās conflicted?
GMcD: Conflicted, thatās the word, itās weird . . . I mean, Iāve got an MBE. Iām a Member of the British Empire.
PK: Yes, I was going to ask about that.
GMcD: I havenāt been to the Palace - my dad wants me to go and get it, and itās a great honour but . . .
PK: You have to collect it?
GMcD: You have your title and have to go to the Palace for a ceremony, but I was kinda thinking I might wait until Kate and Wills are in.
PK: (Laughs)
GMcD: Itās not something Iām massively in a rush to do.
PK: Have you seen the latest Nike ad with Rory?
GMcD: Yeah.
PK: The essence of it is the relationship between a boy and his dad and their love for the game. What if they did the same with you? What would the essence of a commercial about Graeme McDowell be?
GMcD: I guess someone who was always looking at the guy who was one or two steps ahead of him. I wasnāt the guy who looked at Nick Faldo and said, āI want to be Nick Faldoā. I was the guy who looked at Garth McGimpsey and said, āI want to be Gareth McGimpsey.ā
PK: I was thinking something along the lines of David taking on Goliath - this gutsy little fighter who wonāt back down.
GMcD: Yeah, I guess Iāve always had that in me. I remember Paddy Gribben beat me in the North of Ireland one year. I had Bells palsy, sudden paralysis on one side of my face, and had to wear Oakley glasses because my eye wouldnāt blink and was streaming. I was four down with four to play against Paddy Gribben and I took him down the last. The fighting instinct was always inside me. People ask: āWhere did you get it from?ā And I never really knew until my mum was diagnosed with MS.
PK: Thatās interesting, but youāll have to explain it.
GMcD: The way sheās fought. I always assumed my dad was the strength of the family but in the last 10/15 years Iāve come to understand: dad is the soft, emotional one; mum is as tough as nails and just seeing her dealing with her illness and everything that goes with it . . . sheās amazing.
PK: Are they both born-and-bred Portrush?
GMcD: They are. My dad grew up in a little farming community just outside the town called Islandmore. My mum grew up in a little council estate called Glenmanus. Mum was Marian June Murphy, dad was William Kenneth McDowell, and that certainly presented challenges when they started to date. Dad was a member of the Orange Order club and got a letter saying he would not be welcome back because he was seen walking into a Catholic Mass with mum.
PK: How did their families feel about it?
GMcD: Embarrassingly, I donāt know. I canāt imagine it went down well. It was a very sensitive time. Weāre talking late '60s/early '70s, the height of the Troubles, so it couldnāt have been cool.
PK: How many siblings did they have?
GMcD: Dad has three sisters and two brothers. Mum has three sisters and a brother, decent-sized families both of them.
PK: Did you connect with both sides?
GMcD: Absolutely. Christmas day would be mumās side of the family; Boxing Day would be dadās. We were close to both sides, especially our grandparents.
PK: Where was home?
GMcD: A three-bedroom terrace house in Dhu Varren, not one of the classier estates in the town but a great place to grow up. You were aware that there were some wealthy kids in school but you never felt like you didnāt have much. Portrush never struck me as a particularly wealthy town, even the wealthy people werenāt mega-rich, but you were always aware of the class divide at the golf club. The āhavesā played at Royal Portrush, the āhave-notsā played at Rathmore. But the golf ball didnāt know that.
PK: What about school?
GMcD: Carnalridge Primary School in Portrush and then Coleraine Inst. Luckily, I was fairly academic and the career advisors wanted me to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. I wanted to play golf and follow my friend, Ricky Elliott, to the University of Toledo but I didnāt have the money, and couldnāt get a scholarship, so I ended up doing mechanical engineering at Queenās.
PK: Did you like Queenās?
GMcD: No, I didnāt. It was probably one of the few times in my life where I felt like I was wasting my time. I passed all my exams but I felt like I was treading water. It wasnāt what I wanted to do. And then the stars aligned for me. A guy called Chris Devlin from Ballymena gave the coach at UAB (University of Alabama) my number and I got a call one day. āWould you like to play golf for us?ā I went to the Dean of Engineering and explained what I wanted to do and he gave me temporary withdrawal from the course for the year. And away I went.
PK: What year was this?
GMcD: I left in August 1999 and felt like a fish out of water. I didnāt have a car or a mobile phone. I was renting a room and sleeping on an airbed and didnāt have a lot of kit or a lot of money. But there was plenty of golf to be played.
PK: And that was enough?
GMcD: I remember standing there one day in January or February, hitting bunker shots in my shorts. The sun was shining and I was really happy. I thought, āI am so far ahead of the lads freezing their asses off back home.ā I won my last college event in May or June before I flew home in the summer. I didnāt realise the change that had occurred in me but I was a different person. I was about 15lbs heavier because Iād been eating nothing but chicken fingers and beer but I had changed mentally. I had much more confidence. I always felt confidence was frowned upon in Ireland; wanting something or being motivated by something was like, āWould you have a word with yourself! Donāt forget who you are.ā And then you go to America and (meet) these lads who are brash and are winners and . . . something flipped inside of me. I had much more confidence. I also had a really bad Alabama accent.
PK: That was my next question.
GMcD: Yeah, that had changed. I came home that summer and got abused for being fat, and abused for having a really bad accent, but I put them in their place pretty quickly. I won the āSouthā and the āCloseā and the Leinster Youths and the Irish Youths and finished second in the European am. It was a huge turning point in my career and I canāt put my finger on whether it was standing in the bunker that day, or winning that tournament at the end of the season, but I went home and put myself on the map.
PK: Stick with the accent for a second.
GMcD: (Smiles) Okay.
PK: Did you play golf as a kid with a commentatorsā voice in your head?
GMcD: No.
PK: Because the impression sometimes when I hear you talk is that youāre in ābroadcastā mode?
GMcD: In the beginning, when I first went to the States, I remember trying to order a sandwich one day in a Subway shop. There was an old black girl behind the counter. She says (mimics a southern drawl): āHoney I love your accent but Iāve just no idea what youāre saying.ā Or Iād call the college to register for a class and Iād have to repeat myself 10 times. So Iām not sure if I felt I had to project my voice differently, or if I made a conscious decision to do it to make my life easier. Whatever happened it stuck, and now I have this mid-Atlantic thing that people love to abuse.
PK: (laughs)
GMcD: But if thatās the only thing they have on me Iām happy with that.
PK: You spent three years at Alabama?
GMcD: Yeah, in my second year I won twice and played in the Walker Cup. And when I went back after the Walker Cup, I started winning nearly every time I teed it up.
PK: How did it feel being the No 1 college player in America?
GMcD: There was a sense walking into tournaments that everyone was looking at you, and that you were the one to beat but itās funny, I donāt remember much about my mindset or what I was like. I was definitely a fairly rotund little fella with a really bad hairdo, I was bleaching my hair with peroxide and looked a right state. But I was good on the golf course. I just had so much belief and so much confidence in what I was doing; I had learned how to win and it had become a habit and it was a habit that rolled into my start on the European tour.
PK: You turned pro in June 2002?
GMcD: Yeah, made my debut at Slaley Hall (Northumberland) and remember being really nervous. I snap-hooked it off the first tee and missed the cut. It was a big step in my life.
PK: But not quite the start you wanted?
GMcD: No, but I think I played at Fota Island in the Irish Open a couple of weeks later . . .
PK: It was a week later. You finished tied-27th.
GMcD: Yeah, I made the cut on the number and my dad drove through the night and slept in the car park when he got to Fota. I shot 66 on Saturday to thrust myself into the middle (of the field) and played with Big Darren (Clarke) on Sunday.
PK: What was that like?
GMcD: It was intimidating. We had a decent-sized crowd and I didnāt play very well and I think I won . . .
PK: Fourteen grand.
GMcD: I was going to say thirteen.
PK: A month later you win the Scandinavian Masters in your fourth start as a pro.
GMcD: I was a late invite. Chubby (Chandler, his then manager) did a deal with Denis OāBrien, who owned the course at Kungsangen in Stockholm and they managed to wangle me an invite. It was my 23rd birthday, the Tuesday, and I was sitting in Gatwick airport delayed. I got there in time to play nine holes and I hit it all over the place. I wasnāt in the pro-am the following day, and walked the back nine, and shot 64 in the first round. Then the old (winning) habit kicked in and I managed to hang on. What was it? Two hundred thousand sterling?
PK: Three hundred thousand euro.
GMcD: Yeah, it was a door-opener, a life-changer.
PK: Where was home at that stage?
GMcD: I was still living in Dhu Varren with my parents.
PK: Really?
GMcD: Yeah, it was mad. I bought my parents a new house. I said, āRight, weāre getting out of here.ā And taking my mum house-shopping was probably one of the coolest things Iāve ever done.
2 Man in the middle
āI had texts from Greg Norman. Arnold Palmer sent me a message. Ruud Gullit and James Nesbitt have been all telling me Iām a legend. The website has gone mad. The world has gone mad. And Iām stuck in the middle of it.ā
His diary in the Sunday Telegraph, October 2010
PK: The first time we ever met was at the Tavistock Cup a few years ago. We were standing on the range at Isleworth (near Orlando) and you were hitting balls towards a fire hydrant that, bizarrely, would play a small but significant role in your US Open win. Where were you the night Tiger crashed his car in November, 2009?
GMcD: I was in China, playing in the World Cup with Rory and remember reading the news on Saturday night. Conor Ridge (former manager) had met with the guys at Chevron (the sponsors of the World Challenge, an event hosted by Woods in December) about getting into his event but it wasnāt looking good. Then Tiger obviously did his thing, and they asked Conor on the Sunday we were in China, if Iād fly to LA as a reserve. I said āsureā, because it was on our way home, and the next day we got a call saying Tiger was out. I finished second that week. It got me back into the world top 50, which meant I was going to Doral and the Masters in 2010. Five months later, on the morning after Wentworth, I click on the world rankings and Iām still there, right on the bubble at 49, but in the US Open. And if you extrapolate that back, it all began with Tiger.
PK: Thatās amazing.
GMcD: Itās bizarre. Would I have found my way in anyway? Was it my destiny? You donāt know. I won in Wales two weeks later and Iām not sure Iāve ever played better.
PK: And then youāre off to Pebble Beach.
GMcD: It was an interesting week. I played with Rocco Mediate and Sean OāHair for the first two rounds and came off the course at 12.30 on Friday with a three-shot lead. I didnāt play again until 3.30 the next day, so I had a full 27 hours leading the US Open.
PK: Itās a big deal to lead a Major.
GMcD: It was at the time. It still is. Iād never played with Dustin Johnson before and didnāt know much about him. He shot 66 that day, the best round of golf Iāve ever seen. I remember walking off and thinking: āHoly Hell! How good is this guy? Weāre playing for second. If I can stay within two Iāll be doing well.ā We finished late. I did a bit of media afterwards and had a late dinner with dad and Conor.
PK: Was your mother there?
GMcD: Thatās another story. Mum was in Spain with her sister and afterwards, in her naivety and innocence, she stayed down there and missed the homecoming. She thought Iād just won a tournament. She didnāt realise it was a Major!
PK: (laughs)
GMcD: But Sunday was interesting. I had a good moment with dad on the first tee and put my arm around him: āHappy Fatherās Day. Iāve been a bit tied up this week, so I didnāt get you anything.ā He says, āIām sure that silver trophy will do the job.ā And heās welling up, and Iām welling up and Iām thinking āJaysus! Iāve got 18 holes to play.ā But obviously Dustin gets off to the (bad) start (triple bogey on 2, double bogey on 3) and Iām standing on the third green as Dustin is walking back to the tee thinking āIām leading the US Open again.ā
PK: How does that make you feel?
GMcD: I played great the first eight holes and was really under control emotionally but made a bad swing on nine and didnāt get up and down, and made bogey from the middle of the fairway on the next. That was the first time I felt rattled. I thought: āIām throwing this away.ā But I looked at the leaderboard. Tiger - over! Els - over! Mickelson - over! And I was still ahead. I thought āWow! This is hard,ā and just knuckled down. I parred 11, got it up and down from the front bunker on 12 and parred 13. On 14, the par five, I flared my drive into the trap, hacked it out from under the lip and hit a seven iron right down the flag. It was as good a seven iron as I can hit and I thought: āOkay, maybe you are good enough.ā
PK: And thatās interesting, because youāve been a pro for eight years, and won several big tournaments and said many times in interviews, āI think I can win a Major.ā But you donāt really believe it until it happens? Or do you?
GMcD: I donāt know, thereās so much self-talk that goes on in this game: āHow do I feel today? Whereās the swing at? How am I hitting it? How am I rolling it? Do I like this course? Are the greens okay?ā
PK: Thatās the ālittle voiceā is it?
GMcD: Yeah. āAm I going to give it a run this week? Am I not? Am I going home on Friday night?ā You spend five-and-a-half hours talking absolute rubbish to yourself. Itās mad.
PK: Is everybody the same?
GMcD: I would hope so, because if theyāre not . . .
PK: Youāre at a serious disadvantage.
GMcD: Iām bananas.
PK: What happens when you get to the 18th?
GMcD: Iām one ahead. I stand on the tee box and again, the self-talk begins: āMaybe Iāll snap-hook this into the piss.ā Itās just instinct, you learn to laugh it off; I get back into my routine and hit a great drive into the right semi (rough) with a good enough lie. Kenny (his caddie, Ken Comboy) wants me to go for it but all I can see is negativity . . . the left trap . . . the water . . . so I say, āKenny, wise up, weāre laying this up.ā So laid up and I think I had 97 yards for my third shot. I was a bit nervous and hit it past the flag but Iāve two putts now from 30 feet to win the US Open. And I wiggled it down and knocked it in and . . . (pauses)
PK: And what? Whatās the feeling?
GMcD: Itās . . . disbelief. And well into the following week I felt disbelief. I had a good cry to myself on the Wednesday night or Thursday. We were sitting having a late night drink in Portrush and the enormity of it all just wiped me out. Iāve only been that emotional a few times in my life.
PK: What times?
GMcD: The day I was engaged, the day I was married and the day Vale (his daughter) was born.
PK: Okay, I have to ask about Rory. When was the first time you became aware of him? Iāve heard you tell a story about his 61 (as a 16-year-old) at Portrush?
GMcD: I think Iād heard of him before that but only fleetingly, and was like: āYeah, yeah, these kids come and go.ā And then in July (2005), around the Open, someone said, āRory McIlroy just shot 61 at Portrushā and I said āWhaaat?ā Because it was in the āNorthā and the course would have been set up reasonably tough, so it was a proper 61. But my first memory of meeting him would have been at the Dunhill Links the year he turned pro. What year was that?
PK: 2007
GMcD: Yeah, we played St Andrews on the Monday or Tuesday and had a little money game - I shot 68 and lost! We went to Carnoustie the next day and I had to lend him a pair of golf shoes, he forgot his shoes, and he took the money again. So I remember being instantly impressed by him, and you canāt help but be impressed by the way he hits the golf ball. And he has such a good way about him and attitude to the game. We spent a lot of time together I suppose, early on, and used to play practice rounds all the time. Iād be on the range and JP (Fitzgerald, McIlroyās caddie) would walk on and stick his bag next to mine, when golf was all we had on our minds and there wasnāt the A-list commitments, and women running around. But itās inevitable that life explodes.
PK: I get a sense of . . . regret is probably too strong a word . . . sadness that things are not the same now?
GMcD: Thereās not sadness. I think its just reality.
PK: Does he still plant his bag next to yours on the range?
GMcD: No, thereās not that humorous inseparability any more, things have changed. Heās his own man, the No 1 player in the world. The dynamic in our relationship has changed. It was actually McGinley who helped define it for me, when he compared it to him and Harrington. When they played in the World Cup, McGinley was the big brother guiding the young pretender. And then Harrington turned into a superstar and the chemistry wasnāt the same.
PK: And itās the same with you and Rory?
GMcD: I felt it for the first time at (the Ryder Cup in) Medinah in 2012. It wasnāt the same as it was in 2010 when Iād let him hit first in the better-ball to free him up, knowing I was coming behind. In Medinah, he didnāt need that, I felt I was hanging on to his coattails, and I guess that was one of the (reasons) we didnāt play together in '14. It wasnāt anything to do with being friends or not friends or the perceived ātroubleā in the media.
PK: Was it a perception?
GMcD: Mostly. It was uncomfortable. I was stuck in the middle of something I didnāt want to be stuck in the middle of. On one side I had Rory, who I respect a huge amount as a player and a person, suing the management company that I had effectively introduced him to. And on the other side I had Conor and Colin (Morrissey), two guys who had done so much for me, and were my friends. So it was a no-win situation. I said a few things which were construed the wrong way by both parties, when I was trying myself to be neutral. So it was very, very difficult.
PK: A bit like the ānationalityā issue?
GMcD: (Smiles) Yeah, and Iām not good at sitting on the fence. The problem with trying to walk a balance beam when youāre a waffler like me is that you can often fall off.
PK: Youāre not a waffler.
GMcD: Well, I have a tendency to expand on my answers a little too much, and during that expansion I can find myself drifting into one camp or the other, and I didnāt want to be in any camp.
PK: Does it irritate you that youāre asked about Rory so much?
GMcD: No, but it got tedious at times. Iād go into a press conference and thereād be two āmeā questions and eight Rory questions.
PK: Okay, well Iām not going to compound that. Youāre coming home in a couple of weeks for the Irish Open. How do you feel about that?
GMcD: My relationship with the Irish Open hasnāt been great. Iāve a terrible record. I think it goes back to a flaw in my personality that hates letting people down. Iām always trying to give them something and show their support is appreciated, and thatās not very positive from a competitive point of view. So Iāve played badly in the Irish Open, and havenāt enjoyed it because Iāve played badly.
PK: But you feel a duty to play, do you? You wouldnāt consider not playing?
GMcD: Iāve considered it, fleetingly, but I would never not play the Irish Open. Weāre self-employed and can play wherever the hell we want but itās not about owing, itās about giving. People have given me a huge amount of support over the years, and I owe a lot of where I am today to those people. But itās not even about that. Itās duty and giving and wanting and loving to win one. Itās . . . Ireland.
Slightly worrying article in the Indo from PK.
Heād surely make more money and gain some enthusiasm by not writing for a paper that gives away his articles for freeā¦
From what Iāve been led to believe, he was thrown under a bus by that wanker David Walsh at the Sunday Times, and struggled to find work afterward.
I think he is one of the genuinely great sports writers of any era, and getting better.
I really look forward to his articles.