Home > Furman Bisher > Archives > 2008 > May > 20 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USBob May gets no respect
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bob May is not a name that pops out of your memory bank just like that — pfffft! In fact, it’s not a name that has popped up anywhere lately. You have to go back to the year 2000 to find him in a headline, and then that was because he lost. And, to whom you ask? Tiger Woods, of course. We’ll get back to that later.
Bob May just passed through town last weekend and I’m not sure anybody even noticed.
He posted three rounds in the 60’s in the AT&T Classic. He may as well have been playing in the Siberian Open, for all the attention he didn’t get. There was a time when he did have to leave for a foreign land to get attention. He played on the European Tour and when he won the British Masters in 1999, they dusted off a place for him and invited him back home, like, “Gee, Bob, where you been all this time?”
He was rolling in 2000 when his name popped up in the PGA Championship at Valhalla. When Tiger checked in with a final score of 270, still the record for the PGA, May tied him and they went into a playoff. Now, we come to the sinister part of the story, on the tee at the 18th hole. Tiger tees off and his ball appears to disappear down an unpaved utility roadway, then mysteriously reappears on the fringe of the fairway. It has been replayed over and over again on television, and the puzzle is how it was re-directed from its line toward the forest to its position by the fairway.
One witness has told me that he saw a boy kick the ball. Stands by his story without flinching. The ball was headed hell-for-leather into deep trouble, but checking replays over and over again, there was never any visible evidence of interference. Surely nothing to implicate Woods in any way, but a mystery that still persists. May has never cried foul. From where he stood on the tee there was no way he could follow the flight of the drive that could have changed the course of his career. Nor would he have been plodding around the course at Whitewater Creek Monday trying to qualify for the U.S. Open, to be played at Torrey Pines in June.
This was a local qualifier, the back door to the Open. Make it there, you move up to the regional. May lives in Las Vegas, but being here for the AT&T, this is where the USGA booked him. He had little leverage. He’s playing on a Minor Medical Extension after two years off the tour.
“I was teeing off in the Byron Nelson in 2003 and something popped in my back,” he said. He had to start all over again in Q-school. “You’d think that playing for the championship of your country you’d get more consideration than that.”
It gets worse. He has to earn $540,000 in four events to be upgraded to Major Medical, and that’s like climbing Mt. Everest barefoot. But, whatever, loading his clubs and giving a wave, it was back to the Nationwide Tour.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By Indydawg
May 20, 2008 10:10 PM | Link to this
So it was Tiger’s fault some boy may have kicked the ball…
I think it was O.J.
By mart
May 21, 2008 8:06 AM | Link to this
Should we have noticed that Bob May passed through town last week?
By Rich Simpson
May 21, 2008 12:25 PM | Link to this
Indydawg, If you will go back and read Furman Bisher’s column you will see where he wrote the following: “Surely nothing to implicate Woods in any way.” Some of you Bulldog fans work off emotion rather than fact and logic. Calm down and re-read the column.
By Observer
May 22, 2008 8:00 AM | Link to this
Great column on a true class act in the world of professional golf. Good luck and Godspeed to you Mr. May.
By eric
May 22, 2008 10:07 AM | Link to this
I specifically remember Tiger’s ball changing directions very fast. It came flying backwards down the hill at a rate signifying it had to have hit a tree or the edge of the cart path. You can’t kick a moving golf ball that squarely.
By Oliver Stone
May 22, 2008 2:45 PM | Link to this
Some boy kicked that ball! You know darn well he did! Anyone who says the ball acted alone after it rolled over the grassy knoll must be crazy!
Yes, yes, Zapruder film didn’t actually show anything conclusive after the ball went out of sight…but anyone with half a brain knows that a ball can’t hit anything by itself! Something has to hit it!
It HAD to be a kid! (I think it was actually an alien kid…even creepier!)
After all, Furman used the word “sinister” in this column! That proves it!!! Someone interfered!
And besides, Furman says he has an “unnamed witness!” And Furman’s “unnamed witness” is “unflinching!”
Geeze, people, Tiger Woods may be a fairly decent golfer but anyone who thinks Tiger could beat Bob May in a playoff — without help — is crazy.
Furman, I’m with you on this one! Some unknown kid ROBBED Bob May back in 2000! Thanks for keeping us posted!
p.s. I think Seattle Slew had help in the 1977 Kentucky Derby. If you could check that out and report back, it would be great!
By Bisher Fan
May 22, 2008 4:22 PM | Link to this
This is for the guy that uses Bisher’s name for a comment on every column he writes, and thinks he’s being clever in making jokes about aging. Your time is coming, buddy. Only you won’t be writing columns with a wit still superior to 98% of the population. You will be drooling and talking to the voices in your head in some stinking nursing home with no visitors, because you have been such a jerk all your life.
By Professor Stephen Hawking
May 22, 2008 4:49 PM | Link to this
The only thing that still puzzles me about this world is how Furman Bisher got hired in the first place
By Get Real Bisher Fan
May 22, 2008 4:56 PM | Link to this
Hey, Bisher Fan — The guy is making fun of Bisher because Bisher’s writing is HORRIBLE…not because he’s old. Still, the AJC publishes him.
If you enjoy Bisher’s blathering drivel, you’re in the minority
By Not a Bisher Fan either
May 22, 2008 5:05 PM | Link to this
Bisher’s columns haven’t been worth reading for 20 years. And they weren’t very good back then either
By Michael in Decatur
May 22, 2008 6:30 PM | Link to this
It’s funny how jealousy brings out the worst in people. If not for the internet most of these bozos who never be published.
I too, vividly recall the day Bob May took Eldrick to the wire. Hasn’t been done since, at least not the way Bob May did it.
I wanted to get to watch May during the tournament and was glad he made the cut but I couldn’t make it out early enough to see him. I’m glad he competed and wish him well. Thanks for keeping us up-to-date.
Best Regards,
Michael in Decatur
By Michael in Atlanta
May 22, 2008 9:00 PM | Link to this
If the guy wants to make fun of Bisher because his writing is terrible and all he can come up with are old-age bathroom jokes, then he is pretty pathetic. And “Michael in Decatur”, you are right….it’s all driven by jealousy, but if they claim to be “published” by these comment sections, then they “score” every time they pick up a Playboy Magazine. P.S.——How many of you would take the bet that “Furman Bisher” and “Get Real Bisher Fan” aren’t the same person?
By AJC Reader
May 23, 2008 5:46 PM | Link to this
They should change Bisher’s byline from “Furman Bisher covers the field” to “Furman Bisher is all over the field.”
His columns are filled with disjointed paragraphs, rambling disconnects, and sentences spliced together in a most haphazzard fashion.
Example: The last sentence of this column.
“But, whatever, loading his clubs and giving a wave, it was back to the Nationwide Tour.”
By JackP
May 24, 2008 1:30 PM | Link to this
Tiger did not win that PGA event. Bob May gave it to him. If you check the records, you will find that a high percentage of Tiger’s wins were handed to him because of poor play in the final round by an opponent. Tiger would not have any way near the number of wins if his opponent had not folded for one reason or another. That is why Jack Nicklaus is the best of all time. He beat his opponent rather than receiving a gift from him.