Satire Saturday - Discussing Satire on a Saturday
Seriously ... we're just discussing satire this week, not actually producing it

Recently a satire piece on Phil Mickelson received a fair amount of traffic on the net. The piece, distributed mainly through e-mail, was entitled "MICKELSON'S GAMBLING DEBTS CAUSE UPROAR AMONG AUGUSTA MEMBERS," and had a tag that read "From GolfWeek Insider....." at the bottom. Many Blazer loyalists, including corps members, have questioned whether the Blazer was the one responsible for the prank, which apparently began its circulation on April 1. We've replicated the piece below:


Last week Phil Mickelson was playing a practice round at Augusta and went away from protocol and convinced his playing partners to up the stakes in the usual $1 game. It was Mickelson versus the other three which included some of the deepest pockets among the membership. The stakes: $5000 skins and a pot of $130,000, $100,000 of which was contributed by Mickelson for the low net score - Mickelson would play off scratch.

According to one of the threesome which obviously will remain anonymous, 'everything was going great until the back 9 when Mickelson really could not believe the good fortune of 'chuckie'. He was draining everything on the greens and when he missed the green twice he had two chip-ins.

Phil's lead on the scorecard looked safe but in the clubhouse we added it up and lo and behold, Phil owed $200,000.' And then it got ugly. The stories by witnesses conflict, but in effect Mickelson tried to pass the bets off as laugh on the first tee and insisted 'there was no way he would bet hundreds of thousands on golf.' Mickelson believed the standard one dollar game was in effect.

The threesome was having none of it and before you know it the foursome was sitting in the office of Billy Payne who was none too happy about the loud conversations taking place in the dining room. But even in the privacy of the office, Mickelson was being very difficult. According to the same anonymous member: 'Phil slipped up and admitted that he initiated the stakes and set the terms of the bet. Then he protested at having to pay so much and offered 30 cents on the dollar right then and there, take it or leave it. Billy was aghast and told Phil, you will arrange to pay every dollar or you will never be welcome at Augusta again, take it or leave it.

Mickelson tried to protest and even made a snide remark that Billy couldn't stop him from being wel come at Augusta every April. Billy simply asked are you taking it or leaving it.'

Mickelson later called his accountant with the banking details of 'chuckie' and an arrangement was made for a wire transfer of an undisclosed amount. The worse of this may not be over as the other member of the threesome was upset enough to call the PGA Tour. When contacted for a comment, the PGA Tour declined to comment and would not even acknowledge whether or not they have been contacted about the conflict at Augusta National.
From GolfWeek Insider.....


The Blazer did not write this piece. We agree it was well written, which is probably why the Blazer Corps is among the main suspects, but it is not a good example of satire. Indeed, the author probably didn't even intend it to be received as satire, although it does loosely fit the definition. However, in deference to those who seem to always offer up criticism of the Blazer's satire pieces, the traffic this piece has received gives the Blazer a good opportunity to differentiate between real satire and satire that's meant to confuse.

Satire, in its most basic form, is a literary technique in which shortcomings are exposed by means of irony or other methods, ideally with an intent to bring about improvement. As we can see, the above piece does fall within that contemporary definition. But several things separate this from a good piece of satire, like you might find from the Blazer.

The main difference lies in the operative word in the above definition: intent. The author of this piece most likely intended this piece to be taken seriously, and this is evidenced in three major points.

1.) The presence of the "From GolfWeek Insider" tag
While the capitalized "W" was actually the Blazer's first clue that this piece was bullshit, the fact that the author put this tag at the bottom suggests that he or she wanted readers to believe what they just read, and, lacking credibility of his or her own, borrowed credibility from something more well known, in this case Golfweek.

2.) The satire was not fantastic beyond a reasonable doubt
If you're familiar with the gambling exploits in Phil's past, this piece was actually quite believable. If the Blazer were to have authored a satire piece on Phil's gambling problem (admittedly great premise), he would have likely had Phil wagering his children, an autographed man-zere worn by himself, and/or an evening of bukkake with his beautiful wife. The $5,000 per hole just isn't wild and fantastic enough.

3.) Excessive use of anonymity
The occasional anonymous quote can add to the humor of a satire piece. But the beauty of satire is no one is off limits (as long as they're public figures), so a satire writer may as well juice it up by using the likeness of real people. By hiding the identity of people, the writer makes it seem as if he or she doesn't want to blow the cover of a valuable source, something that often happens in real life. (Deep Throat, anyone?) The Blazer would have had him playing against Pete Rose, Tim Donaghy and some other notorious sports gambler.

The irony of this exploration of irony is while the Phil piece was not great satire, it might actually prove to be more effective satire. Again, the point of satire is usually to bring about improvement. Will the Green Blazer's satire piece on doctors discovering a vagina on Rory Sabbatini make Sabbatini less of a bitch? Probably not, but it was good satire nonetheless. However, will this recent piece let Phil know he's been branded as a gambler and get him to stop, or at least slow it down? Perhaps, if he actually ever sees it...

Stay tuned next Saturday for the Blazer's next offering from the world of golf satire: "Butch Harmon labeled 'dangerous' after having unprotected lessons with multiple partners"