Sunday, April 22, 2007

Butch Harmon is Phil Mickelson's Coach. Oh, Sweet Revenge!

"Oldboy," a movie directed by Chan-wook Park, is one of my favorite movies of all-time. The second movie of a revenge-themed trilogy, "Oldboy" is a brilliant tale of the tragic consequences from revenge breeding upon itself. In other words, revenge begets revenge which begets even more revenge, so on and so forth.

If Mr. Park decides to make another revenge flick, he can simply base it on the recent pairing of Butch Harmon with Phil Mickelson. According to the Kojak of Golf, Tim Rosaforte, "...sources have told Golf World the Mickelson-Harmon alliance will be made official before the EDS Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, Texas." While the coaching change is meant to fix Mickelson's wayward driver, it also satisfies the thirst for revenge.

Here is a short summary of the vengeance undertones found in golf's newest coaching relationship:
  • Butch is seeking revenge against Tiger Woods for leaving him in favor of Hank Haney
  • Mickelson is seeking revenge against Tiger Woods for the countless times that he has finished behind the world's #1
  • Butch is seeking revenge against Rick Smith for giving swing advice to Tiger Woods at the 1996 U.S. Open when Harmon was still Tiger's coach
But the story may not stop here. Of all the coaches that Mickelson could have chosen, he couldn't have picked one that would have irked Rick Smith more than Butch Harmon. They like each other about as much as Kobe and Shaq. Interestingly, Rick Smith could exact revenge against both his former pupil and his coaching arch-nemesis by teaming up with Tiger. Such a scenario would also enable Tiger to exact revenge on his former coach and his top rival. It sounds almost too good to be true, but with rumors circulating that Tiger may now be unhappy with his swing under Haney's tutelage, don't count it out!

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. But one thing is clear, the proverb "revenge is a dish best served cold" still holds true.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's cut out the melodrama. Revenge? Phil's looking for a way to fix his swing. And coaches need pupils. It's simple enough.

Anonymous said...

Even without Rick Smith as swing coach, this pairing gives Tiger more motivation to beat Phil. Sometimes the guy needs a little motivation.

Anonymous said...

Love your soap opera scenario - could be the best golf film evah! Can't we get their sports psychologists involved also?

Rosaforte sucked up to Phil's alibi for missing pro am but didn't explain why everyone else made it okay - that subcutaneous brain just keeps on givin

woundedduck said...

Tiger may view Phil's hiring of Harmon as sloppy seconds. However, isn't there a sense of inevitability that whatever Phil does to chase Tiger, it won't matter?