Dottie Pepper calls out Sergio Garcia

Written by: Tony Korologos | Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Categories: Golf Media • PGA Tour
Tags: Dottie Pepper • Sergio Garcia

Lately I’ve had a bit of a middle age crush on Dottie Pepper. Well that just spiked because Dottie called out Sergio for his childish behavior/comments at the Masters. You go girl.

No athlete is beyond making knucklehead moves with the media — I have my own long list of regrets — but you can turn such a misstep into a positive by dealing with it honestly. When you do apologize, as Sergio did two days later, don’t issue a statement that sounds as if another person wrote it. (I can’t recall hearing Sergio use the word iconic before.) Fans forgive those who ‘fess up and take responsibility. Such contrition goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for your own game, a key to succeeding, as Kenny Perry did after just plain ol’ losing the Masters. Sergio will have plenty of opportunity to make amends at the Players. If he doesn’t, I can’t begin to imagine how brutal the U.S. Open fans are going to be at Bethpage.

Love ’em or not, I’d rather have announcers like Dottie Pepper and Johnny Miller who have enough golf balls to call a spade a spade and aren’t afraid to have an opinion. I’d much rather hear that than hear them spewing out a bunch of generic panderous rubbish.