Limbaugh Stories don't jive! He was a good Celebrity Golfer or a Recluse?

[KoKo]

Here's two different versions of Limbaugh's back problem which supposedly led to his pain killer addiction.

The first: "Newsweek's" portrayal of a loner, a person uncomfortable in Private life, who hated to walk and stayed in his house watching NFL sports from his couch. A person totally different from his Radio persona.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/979355.asp?0ql=c7p


The Second: Up on Buzzlfash right now is a Commentary with a link from a Buzz Reader who says just this year he was in Celebrity Golf tournaments and that he has been in many Celebrity tournaments since his supposed back injury and addiction. http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/sub3

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

BuzzFlash Follow-up:

From a very recent 2003 article on GolfServ.com:

"No slouch with the sticks himself after only playing for the past six years, Limbaugh is visiting
Lake Tahoe for the American Century Championship this year for the first time. Limbaugh has
played in the PGA Tour's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic three times and the AT&T Pebble Beach
Pro-Am twice, making the cut in 2003 and playing on the weekend with PGA Tour professional
Tom Pernice."

And even when lying through his drug addict haze, Rush couldn't let go of his money-making
vile obsession with the Clintons. He's like a junky radio broadcaster verbal stalker:

"The thing about golf, really," Limbaugh said, "is you'll find out what people are all about. You
find out whether they cheat. You find out whether they quit. You'll find out whether they fudge
or cheat. Any number of characteristics that people possess in their personalities will come
out, usually in 18 holes of golf."

"I mean, when I play we don't even call them 'mulligans,'" he added, "we call them 'Clintons.'"

(http://www.golfserv.com/gdc/news/article.asp?id=15650)



___________________________

Which story is the truth? He had to be a decent enough player to be invited to the Celebrity Tournaments, and yet Newsweek presents a pathetic loner, who was increasing isolated from people around him. :shrug:

SPIN? Who's correct?

[zbird]

1. Golf is not a team sport.

He doesn't have to deal with anybody when he is practicing. On the other hand, when he is at the Pro-Am tournaments, he is in his "radio personality" mode. He is playing the part, people are paying attention to him, he is the "star". So, I don't see these two portraits as mutually exclusive. Rather, they do make sense.

[catzies]

2. You did a better job of saying that than the article's author did

And I agree with you - they are not incongruent.

[morebunk]

4. The point is he lied about his back problems being the reason for

taking pain pills. How could he golf with so many back problems?

[Junkdrawer]

3. Drugs amplify character defects...

So a shy person becomes a recluse. And "he could dish it out and not take it" fits Limbaugh to a tee. He would savage Democrats 3 hours a day, but if he felt he was "ambushed" in an interview, he would talk about it for years.

[KoKo]

5. Do any of you who've posted actually Play Golf? How good do you have to

be to get invited to a "Celebrity Tournament" and not be an "embarassment." If you play golf you know how bad it is to be an "embarassment" because at these tournaments you have an audience, and usually media is there.

Golf is very hard to learn and the chances for embarassment are many.

Also: if you read the MSNBC Profile you will see that they portray Rush as a "Couch Potato Recluse."

A "Couch Potato Recluse who "doesn't like to even walk" as a "Golfer?"

It takes many hours of practice to be able to compete in a high level Golf Tournament. If he lies on his couch watching NFL Games.....when does he get to practice his "swing and putts?" :shrug:

[Junkdrawer]

6. Golf takes years to learn and requires that you play AT LEAST...

3 days a week if you're going to be decent. I have a back problem and it takes hours of slow warm up before I even think about going to the driving range. Muscle relaxers could have helped.

[KoKo]

8. Junkdrawer are you saying Rush could have been a good golfer because of

the painkillers?

Were you a golfer "before the painkillers" or after. What I'm getting at is that Golf seems to be a "late life" sport for Rush according to the MSNBC report. And their report has him as so reclusive, I wonder how he learned the game?

But, you feel he learned it and the enormous amount of pain killers allowed him to be proficient enough to perform at the Celebrity Tournaments?

I am a "newbie" golfer....I live in a place where it's not expensive to play. But, I have to get out there and practice. There's no evidence in the MSNBC report about his Golf Tournaments and interest.

What I'm getting at is that the MSNBC report is just a pile of dog doo! Designed to get sympathy for the "Loaner who Crusaded" against the Left...all the while enduring his own private hell of shyness."

:shrug:

[Junkdrawer]

11. I try to avoid drugs. When my back goes out, I use rest then...

gentle exercise to fix it. My boss (a good friend) uses muscle relaxers and he is up and around faster when his back goes out, but he admits it makes him a little goofy. I don't think Limbaugh would hesitate to use muscle relaxers.

As for that making him a better golfer, nah. But it could have allowed him to play more.

Taking up golf late in life is hard - it's easier to get kids to swing correctly. Older golfers tend to develop goofy swings and then even goofier corrections. But, with the right attitude, it's fun and it does get you outside for fresh air and exercise.

[peaches2003]

10. The Old Rush

If you notice the dates about which Newsweek is talking it is mostly about the 'old Rush' before he hit it big- before he was married to this wife and lived in a small NYC apt. I remember at the time this is the way Rush was described. Since he moved to Palm Beach, though, and became a celeb I think he very much was out and about and in the public eye. He loved being in the limelight these last few years; or maybe he really didn't and that was the reason for the drugs- a little courage. I think his problems are all in his personality and from way back (dominating father, wanting to live up to daddy, mostly being a failure in his early years, etc.) and the back problem is all b.s.

[KoKo]

7. Here's just a "clip" from the MSNBC Story about "Reclusive Rush:"

“ ‘What’s your idea of an ideal day?’ ‘I don’t have
an ideal day,’ he replied, glumly. ‘Well, what if a good friend
came into town one Saturday, what would you do?’ ‘When I
have someone coming into town for the weekend, I get stressed
out on Tuesday thinking about it’.” Limbaugh went on to say
that he hates walking, hates window-shopping and likes New
York mainly because you can order in.
Limbaugh’s own mother remarked on his somewhat
passive-aggressive reticence as a child. Little Rush was “very
quiet,” his mother, Millie, told the Southeast Missourian, a
newspaper. At Halloween, “he really didn’t care much for trick
or treating. He would rather stay at home. I found he was
upstairs and he’d have water balloons. Sometimes when the
little children would leave, he would drop them down.”
Limbaugh’s best friend in high school, Craig Valle, told Peter
Boyer for a May 1992 Vanity Fair article, “You would find him
in his dark bedroom playing with his tape recorder and radio.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/979355.asp?0ql=c7p

[Yupster]

12. Obese school kid

It doesn't surprise me since he was an obese kid, and I'm sure was picked on all the time.

Radio was perfect because he could be away from everyone else. I know he got into radio at a very young age. I could see that as an escape for the "fat kid."

[SiobhanClancy]

9. I have same exact back problem that Rush says he has

Multiple herniated discs,failed surgery,etc. I really,really question his being in all this excruciating pain if he's able to play golf as much as he has. My guess is that when he did have his surgery,he found he enjoyed the pills. All though by no means disabled,my mobility is limited and I am certainly unable to be swinging a lot of golf clubs.

[gmaki]

13. You can't really judge a back problem that way.

For instance I have a very painful back problem. If I stand in one place for 10 minutes or so and then walk away it could trigger it. The pain can drop me straight to the ground.

While selecting a new bike for my son, I threw it out just lifting a small bike at the store. I could not leave the couch for two days.

Yet I carry that same son up the stairs at bedtime every night, I play softball every week, I also play golf on occasion.

If you are wondering I stupidly have yet to see a doctor about my back. If he prescribes oxycontin though, I may jusy try and live with the pain.

[Awsi Dooger]

14. Limbaugh looked pathetic in the Lake Tahoe tournament

Albeit much better than his two players partners in the final round, Dennis Miller and Charles Barkley, who may have the worst swing of all time.

Here's a link to the final scores. Limbaugh very much earned his 5th-from-last finish, spraying almost every shot I witnessed on TV. He arrogantly played to the camera all afternoon, never without a prop cigar. Also no obvious back pain or any mention of it by NBC announcers.

http://www.cptgolf.com/results/2003/results_3_Stable.asp?tourn=tahoe

I attended that tournament a few years ago. The gross scores are obscenely low and misleading. You don't lose modified Stableford points for anything above a double bogey, and even the 8s and 10s are recorded as double bogeys for the gross score. Limbaugh was credited with a 101 on the final round. It looked more like 120 on TV.

Several months ago, one DU poster mentioned in a golf thread that Jesper Parnevik of Sweden had played in a pro-am tournament with Limbaugh, and challenged his political views all day, to the point Limbaugh would no longer respond. Supposedly it delighted and amazed Parnevik's caddy, former tour player Lance Ten Broeck.