Back Porch International Golf

Upon winning his first Asian Tour event tlastweekend, American pro golfer, Bryan Saltus, dedicated his victory to The Grateful Dead. Saltus, 38, celebrated with "This is awesome. I would like to dedicate this win to the Grateful Dead, as they have inspired me all the way," per an AP report.

The Californian Saltus has seen over 150 Dead performances and enjoys similar improvisational music groups according to his rarely updated blog, BryanSaltus.com.

The site goes on to describe Bryan's swing as "reliable and self taught" as well as "completely unique to the game." While Das FanHaus recognizes that every golfer's swing is special and unique like a beautiful snowflake, we'd like to continue to hope that this guy is roaming the Asian Tour like some kind of Zen Master with a Happy GIlmore stroke and a penchant for ending conversations with "be excellent to each other." In absence of this, we would like him to dedicate his next victory to the early works of Phish.

The Asian Tour concludes this weekend with the Volvo Masters of Asia at the Thai Country Club of Bangkok.

In case you lose sleep at night wondering things like, "Can one play golf in Mongolia," the answer is a resounding yes. (Warning: "Mongolian rap song" included in background of this clip includes non-Mongolian English profanities.)

The country seems ripe for golf, being mostly flat grasslands, few water hazards, and only one large sandtrap called the Gobi desert to avoid. (And if you can't avoid a thousand mile-wide bunker, you're beyond any golf pro's help.)

These guys are clearly amateurs in the sport of Mongolian golf, though, compared to Andre Tolme, who in 2004 walked 1,234 miles across the country in the process of literally golfing his way across the length of the country. Tolme lost 509 balls on the way to shooting 12,170 strokes. In case you wondered, Mongolia is a 2,322,000 yard hole that Tolme estimates to be a par 11,880.

The greatest name in all of sports belongs to the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency: the honorable and mighty Richard Pound, known to friends and potential dopers around the world of athletics as good ol' Dick Pound. The funniest things are those you do not have to make up, and Dick Pound's name--which happens to be Dick Pound--is definitely one of them.

We take this excuse, then, to say that Dick Pound does believe Gary Player's claim that someone in the world of professional golf is taking steroids, though he be completely shocked if it were Phil Mickelson. Okay, he didn't say that last bit. But he did say this:

"It comes from one of the icons of golf who has no particular ax to grind out there now, other than to try to maintain the integrity of the sport. It's a wake-up call that has not come in such stark terms to date from the golf community. I don't know how widespread it is because there is no testing."

...which means more work for...hmm...the International Anti-Doping Agency! As objective as a man can get, that Dick Pound, who in addition to being named "Dick Pound" is also head of that same agency. In the meantime, we'll believe golfers are roided up when one of them breaks their club, pauses for a moment, and then hits their next drive by swinging their caddy like a five-iron. Our money's on Daly--that guy is ripped.

Golf's the kind of sport where even nasty glances are considered with the disdain usually reserved for farts in church--a mostly chummy collection of very individual professionals who, when asked to cooperate for even a single event like the Ryder Cup, break out the diva behavior before a single ball leaves a tee..but do so very, very discreetly.

Saying something bad about another golfer or even the sport in general could get you a shunning a Puritan would consider harsh. Unless you're Gary Player, one of the Big Three of his generation of golfers and a lifelong maverick who laughs at your pitiful shunning in talking about steroids in golf.

Gary Player has claimed some golfers are taking performance-enhancing drugs to boost their game and wants random testing brought in as soon as possible. "I know for a fact that some golfers are doing it," said the South African, who won nine majors in his career.

Player's had a long history of being a bit of a maverick. He's a white South African who's championed the cause of rural education for all South Africans, doing so even before the end of apartheid when it wasn't exactly a popular cause with other white South Africans. He's the only golfer to keep a green jacket from Augusta after he forgot it in South Africa and then got into a nasty exchange with Augusta's capo Cliff Johnson. And he's 71, has 20 grandchildren, and boatloads of money he's made as a "serial entrepreneur" post-golf.

If anyone in golf would talk, it's Gary Player. He defied Augusta National--if they couldn't get to him, then no one can.