"I don't know, some people are never happy. Even Tiger Woods isn't good enough, what with all the squealing in the rags about his occasional outburst of profanity, and whacking of the velvet sward with his implements. `What kind of a role model is that?' I hear them whine derisively. "Well, he's a pretty darned good one as far as I am concerned, even if it might seem that my schnozzle is a little brownish. I don't care. I've seen enough throat slashing, end-zone gloating, and coach choking to last me a lifetime, and no self-righteous, hypocritical, toad-like person is going to tell me that what we see when Tiger is in full swing isn't worth the price of a few four-letter words.

"In fact, I think that anyone who can get through 18 holes of golf without yelling at the Almighty, or spitting out the occasional fornicatory verb, should take up a sport where they are isolated from the rest of us normal human beings. Like yachting. Yes, yachting would be great. And I hope you get boarded by a foul-mouthed gang of horny, one-legged pirates, and jolly well . . ." (ahem).

That, boys and girls, is the inimitable David Feherty, writing last week in his biweekly column at golfonline.com. The "rant", as he calls it, was prompted by "the flak that the golden child had to take over his well-publicised decision not to attend Payne Stewart's memorial service at Pebble Beach".

Feherty, of course, has proved to be a wonderful commentator for the American networks (am I the only heretic who thinks a little bit of Gary McCord can go quite a long way?), and you can enjoy his never-less-than-forthright opinions at this site.

Joe Culley can be contacted at jculley@irish-times.ie