(Sort of OT) - Pipe Dreams on The Golf Channel

[Mike Sweeney]

Just curious if people have been following this show. I honestly don't know what to make of it, but I seem to keep finding it every week. While Mark is trying to make it on the Senior Tour, there have to be some interesting stories out there of architects and aspiring architects who have turned their personal lives upside down to build a course:

http://www.thegolfchannel.com/pipe-dream/

Golf is a passionate pursuit for sure.

________________________________________
The beginning of his story may not be glamorous, but Mark Burk is out to change the ending. This winter on Golf Channel, follow one man as he leaves the past behind and works toward his dream of playing professional golf on the Champions Tour. Burk, a 53-year-old scratch golfer, once had riches, but a sudden twist of fate turned his riches to rags, and with nowhere left to go, Mark was forced to take shelter in highway culvert pipes.

Now down, out and homeless, watch as he confronts the enormous challenges facing other amateur tour players on their journey to Q-school, all the while, Mark is struggling to get off the streets and rebuild his life. Mark’s goal may not be unique, but his story is definitely remarkable and the demons he must face are far from ordinary. Watch as the tale unfolds every Tuesday at 9:30pm ET on Golf Channel.

[PCCraig]

Mike:

I've seen it a couple of times, and think it's much more interesting than another Hank Haney / Barkley-Romano-Rush or Trump show. While I don't know what to make of the main guy, I think the show is an accurate depiction of the less-than-glamorous side of the golf world and the many men who want to make a living off of it.

[Jim_Coleman]

    What was his so-called "twist of fate?"  Why is he living in a pipe?  There's lots of people who lost their jobs out there, but they're not living in pipes.  I don't understand why we're supposed to feel sorry for this guy.  And I'm not sure why the Golf Channel keeps imposing pathetic stories on its viewers, looking for sympathy for unsympathetic people.  The self-pitying John Daly show was painful to watch

[PCCraig]

    What was his so-called "twist of fate?"  Why is he living in a pipe?  There's lots of people who lost their jobs out there, but they're not living in pipes.  I don't understand why we're supposed to feel sorry for this guy.  And I'm not sure why the Golf Channel keeps imposing pathetic stories on its viewers, looking for sympathy for unsympathetic people.  The self-pitying John Daly show was painful to watch

From what I gather he is in a court battle with his ex-wife who has accused him of battery.

[Keith OHalloran]

What I don't get about the show, is his compenation for being on it. I am assuming that the Golf Channel did not go around to abandoned pipes in California looking for a show. I therefore also assume that this guy had an agent, or friend or contact that pitched this show. He now has a TV crew following him, documenting a show. I can not imagine that he is doing it for free. So what is the compensation and the agreement? Did golf channel tell him that they would only pay him after the filming because if he vacated the pipe duting "Pipe Dreams" it would not be as interesting? I just can not get over the fact that I feel  it is all a set up.

[Dan Boerger]

I, too, watched a couple of episodes that I recorded on TIVO. My first thought was get a friggin' job! But then the more compassionate side of me figures this guy, who evidently never held a job, is just a deer in headlights in the workingman's world. Very sad.

How staged is it? Who knows, but if this guy does in fact sleep in the pipes, that I'm convinced there's a lot of reality to it. (BTW, I was on an HGTV show where it looked like my wife and I were re-doing our bathroom, but as soon as the cameras stopped rolling we walked away.)

So a senior scratch golfer wants to make it on the Champions Tour. Good luck! As Tom Paul once opined ... if you couldn't beat these guys when you were younger, what makes you think you can do it today?

[Jim Eder]

I have found this show very interesting for a few reasons.  The psychological aspect of it (he has no doubt been affected by what has happened in the past especially the death of a loved one), the fact people can "have it all" and lose it all (how many people in this country are truly on the brink and a lost job away from being homeless sadly), to be so fixated on a certain goal, the fact that it is hard to fight for some people and get that job and fight back, the fact that people can accept something like being homeless or abused etc, family (or the lack of one), and on and on. I think one can take this show on the surface or dig into it as a view onto what many people in this country are sadly going through. I recently saw a piece on a school in San Diego for homeless children, just heartbreaking. I have found this show very intereting in a lot of ways and it surely has caused me to step up a bit more in giving to the church and homeless organizations and foodbanks and shelters so that just maybe those in a very difficult position can find a way out. I hope that I am not alone amongst the shows viewers. I don't think I am so therefore the show is doing some good for more than just Mark. The show also makes me appreciate how truly lucky I am something I can take for granted sadly.

[jeffwarne]

So a senior scratch golfer wants to make it on the Champions Tour. Good luck! As Tom Paul once opined ... if you couldn't beat these guys when you were younger, what makes you think you can do it today?

So true-and the gap gets wider as the touring pro is only gaining experience and doing all the right things with all the advantages
I'd rather watch a show about a homeless caddie living in two worlds grinding it out to put food on the table for his family

[Michael Moore]

One of the greatest Harvey Penick anecdotes is called The Dreamer Meets the Real Thing. I have repeated it to dozens of people.

It concerns a wealthy and tanned 43 year old 4 handicap who comes to Tinsley Penick and says that he has sold his company and is ready to move to the Austin Country Club and dedicate the next seven years to preparing for the Senior Tour. It ends like this -

"Let me tell you about one of our club members," Tinsley said. "Like you, he's forty-three years old, and he's made all the money he'll ever need. He has a handsome wife and family. He practices golf every day, and plays golf almost every day. He's getting ready for the Senior Tour in seven more years. At this tough golf course, his handicap is plus-4. He is your competition. He is the player you are going to have to learn to beat if you are going to go on the Senior Tour. I really don't want to spend seven years of my life trying to help you do that. Not for any price.

"There's the man I'm talking about - he's sitting over by the window, eating a club sandwich."

Tinsley gestured toward Tom Kite.

[Anthony Butler]

I guess the underlying issue is here is that Burk has been accused of domestic violence by a woman who seems to have a history of making such accusations at the end of her relationships... Chris Noth was sent into entertainment industry purgatory for about 5 years after this woman (ex-model Beverley Johnson) accused him of the same thing. I believe she's also known for throwing charges of racism around pretty freely... so it's kind of strange that all her exes seem to be white guys.

To some degree that explains why he's homeless (Burk ended up being convicted of B&E because she threw him out of her home and immediately got a restraining order against him. He returned to the home to get his possessions.) No doubt there was some confrontation. I imagine that asking Beverley Johnson for your clothes and clubs back when you're no longer her boyfriend would provoke the same reaction assistants got from Naomi Campbell when they asked her to re-confirm her preferred departure time on the Concorde. (Unlike Noth Burk didn't have the resources to mount a decent defense to these charges).

I think that started the spiral... but since the show doesn't address that, it's hard to understand his predicament just by watching the show. Beverley Johnson has now resorted to slandering him and the Golf Channel through the pages of the NY Post for having a TV show documenting his attempt to put his life together.

Apparently Beverley Johnson would prefer that once she fakes a few photos of DV and submits them to a court you "be gone and stay gone..." Entitled nutcases like this don't realize they make the issue of DV much harder for people to take seriously when it's really happening.

And it happens a lot.

[Bob_Huntley]

Has anyone read 'Down and Out in Paris and London', George Orwell's first published book? Burk at least lives in a warmer climate.

Bob