Bubba Watson this week unveiled a jetpack golf cart that can climb up to 3,000 feet and reach a speed of 50 mph.
And who says this sport is as out-of-date as the last remaining can of Jolt Cola?
“We’re not just boring people,” Watson told the Golf Channel. “We’re having fun with the game. We’re coming up with innovations. Hopefully, it’s bringing a light to the game and a more fun atmosphere.”
And, in the specific case of flying golf carts, bringing the possibility of air traffic delays or something worse, California among the many states where a person can be charged with DUI while operating an old-fashioned, grounded golf cart.
Watson admitted the jetpack version – he nicknamed it “Bubba Air” – remains in the “experimental stage” and noted that operating the contraption will require extensive instruction.
“You’re going to have to go through training, just like a pilot,” Watson explained. “It’s going to be a process, like flying an airplane.”
This isn’t terribly reassuring, seeing how I, like most golfers I know, can’t even safely land a pitching wedge from 100 yards out.
But, hey, I don’t see anyone trying to bring jetpacks to football or baseball, golf truly on the leading edge in terms of attracting younger people, all of whom will certainly take notice if they ever stop playing Pokemon GO.
This sport, as a matter of fact, never has been more cool, what with young stars like Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy proving you can succeed without being as square as a golf ball is not.
And now, the game is about to make its return to the Olympics, a gathering with the decidedly hip sports of beach volleyball and BMX to offset the awkward, arthritis-inducing, orthopedically-tragic endeavor that is race walking.
But there is, of course, a problem, Day, Spieth and McIlroy among the many athletes who famously have pulled out of the Olympics because of concerns about health, safety or just general well-being.
I can’t fault anyone for deciding not to venture to Rio de Janeiro next month given the unstable conditions there, the situation summed up by disgruntled, underpaid policemen and firefighters greeting people at the airport with messages promising calamity.
“Welcome to Hell” read some of their signs, according to reports, many of which included mention of the body parts that recently washed ashore near the venue that will be used for beach volleyball.
These stories are, indeed, disturbing and much more significant than the incident last week when someone rushed the Olympic torch relay and tried to douse the flame with a fire extinguisher.
Watson, however, will be in Brazil, representing the U.S. and doing so as the highest-ranked golfer in attendance. Henrik Stenson, Rickie Fowler and Danny Willett will be there, too, assuring that the winner will have to earn his gold medal.
The 2016 Games will end, at 112 years, the Olympic reign of George Lyon, the most recent golfing gold medalist.
Lyon won in St. Louis in 1904 at the age of 46, which sounds incredibly old for a golfing champion until remembering what Phil Mickelson nearly did last weekend at the same age.
Unlike Mickelson, however, Lyon, a decorated multi-sport athlete, didn’t even begin playing the game until he was 38, only then taking up golf because he was getting too old to do anything else.
And, unlike whoever wins in Rio, Lyon doubled as an insurance salesman.
Yeah, the Olympics were a little different back then, the lineup of sports in St. Louis including tug of war and something called roque.
Making the Olympic golfing field 2016, required achieving a world ranking of notable distinction. In 1904, it required paying an entry fee of $5.
The United States totaled 239 medals in the St. Louis Summer Games and no other nation won more than 13, Russia clearly not yet turned on to the power of performance-enhancing drugs.
Lyon, a Canadian who later was inducted into the country’s sports and golf halls of fame, also was presented a silver trophy for winning. At the awards ceremony, he celebrated by walking the length of the dining hall on his hands, something I’m guessing Mickelson couldn’t do.
But today, by comparison, we have Olympic golfers soaring through space. Times certainly have changed, especially for a sport that has been waiting more than a century to spring ahead by chasing down its five-ringed past.
“If we stand still, we’re backing up,” Watson said this week. “I’m always going forward, always thinking forward.”
Always jetting forward, “Bubba Air” taxiing for takeoff, strapped in for a flight he hopes is gloriously non-stop.
Contact the writer: jmiller@ocregister.com
