Conference 7.286::golf

1441.0. "Fictitious Golf On TV" by VERGA::F_MCGOWAN () Tue Feb 04 1992 21:14

    Okay, maybe this really belongs in the TV notes conference, but what
    the heck: One of my favorite shows is Northern Exposure. On last
    night's show, one of the subplots involved a chimneysweep named "Bob"
    who was in reality a former pro golfer named "Larry Coe" (which has a
    very nice touch of verisimilitude - meaning, it sorta sounds like a
    name you'd see on a PGA scoreboard). Good old Joel Fleischman, being a
    golf fan (and avid reader of Golf Digest), finally remembers where he's
    seen "Bob's" face: on television on the 18th green at the Masters',
    some years back, with a 1-stroke lead on the 72nd hole of the
    tournament, with only a 3-foot putt to sink to win the championship. Of
    course, he misses the putt, and from that moment on is unable to face the
    world, so he flees to Alaska and becomes an odd-jobs handyman with an
    assumed name. I won't bore you with any more of the plot line, but my
    point is that all was well until Joel decides to give "Bob" a chance to
    redeem himself by constructing an astroturf green, and setting up the
    final putt, so he can make it this time. It was at this point that the
    believability of Joel as a real golf fan started to fade: He's
    pretending to be the TV announcer, filling in the viewers with the
    situation, and he says "Now Coe looks at his lie..." Come on, Joel:
    what kind of a lie could anyone have on the 18th green at Augusta?
    
    I checked the credits to see if they'd had a technical advisor from the
    PGA, but as you can guess, there was none. Other than that, it was a
    pretty good episode.
    
    
    	Frank