Tripp Isenhour is a dumbass

Tripp Isenhour is a dumbass

Sometimes, in journalism, the hardest part of writing an article is coming up with a good headline.  But, sometimes, headlines just write themselves.  This is one of those occasions.

Tripp Isenhour is a dumbass.

Actually, I could have gone with “idiot” or “moron” or “bonehead” or several of George Carlin’s seven dirty words we can’t print in this space.  But “dumbass” really sings, don’t you think?

By now, you probably know that Isenhour is the Tour player who decided to croak a Red-Shouldered Hawk during a video shoot last week.  Apparently, the federally protected raptor was being “noisy” which bothered this pampered prima donna dumbass while he was picking up some pocket change shooting yet another crappy infomercial that might run on the Golf Channel at 3 a.m.  He decided – perhaps half in jest and perhaps mainly because he’s a dumbass – to hit balls at this absolutely gorgeous bird that was doing nothing besides, er…being a frickin’ hawk.

And after a bunch of tries – and according to witnesses who left no doubt that it was intentional – he did it.  He managed to kill a bird whose magnificence outweighs anything this dumbass will ever accomplish with a golf club. Then, he had his manager lie his dumb ass off about what really happened.  Thus began a deluge of bad press for Isenhour and the golf industry at large.

Dumbass.

Isenhour is a “Tour Player.”  He is supposed to represent the same great values that Ben Crenshaw, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus represent.  Instead, after decades of hard work by superintendents, GCSAA, Audubon International and other committed groups to tell a positive story about the golf business, this dumbass manages to send a message to most of America that golfers are dumbasses who just love to kill birds.

Nice job, dumbass.