We need fewer photos of golfers, and more of golfers' (potentially hot?) girlfriends. (Quotent Quotables)

If you know me*

*You don't, and you shouldn't. You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel.**

Then you know that I have long railed against the Kerriganization of our sports world -- the celebration of not-quite-winning, i.e., losing, that is represented by the Silver Medal, or worse. I'm not sure when it started -- probably when everyone began treating beating the Soviet Union en route to the Gold Medal as, somehow, bigger than actually winning the Gold Medal that year -- but it's in full force in America (where we previously said we didn't deserve to beat even France,) and getting worse, as represented by Jason Dufner's near-win in the PGA Championship this past weekend -- and as further demonstrated by Dufner's explanation of why he didn't win and didn't care:

I love playing golf, love competition and I want to be as good as I can be. If that's 20th in the world with no majors, or first in the world with 10 majors or never winning a tour event, I'll be fine with it. Coming from where I came from to being in this position, it's a dream come true.

(Source, but don't go there unless you want to see an article beginning with an annoying Dr Seuss reference and follow through with a terribly boring recap of actual golf holes. Turns out the only thing worse than watching golf is reading about someone else watching golf.)

So Jason Dufner is okay with never winning a tour event, which may be news to his sponsors, who were probably hoping he'd at least try, once, in a while.

Look, I'm no fan of the win-at-all-costs school of thought, but we need to balance things out here. We already decided that second-best in economics/sanity is good enough for our House of Representatives and our Republican candidates for president; do we have to have professional athletes who just don't care, too?

The other great quote in that article comes from Dufner's girlfriend (does it seem fair that golfers get girlfriends? I agree: No.), Amanda Boyd, who agreed that Dufner never seems to get excited about golf but does get excited about Auburn football, but said:

That's true... But I can get him worked up, too.

I wasn't able to find a shot of Amanda Boyd. That picture on the post is not her -- it's Miranda Cooper, who was sitting and minding her own business watching golf when Dufner's shot at the Quail Hollow Championship landed in her lap.





** Here's where that's from: