It’s hard to imagine that someone might not know the names of all the Beatles, right? But maybe when you’ve been training to become a world-class athlete since you were in diapers, you wound up missing out on some of life’s more important developmental stages, like getting stoned and listening to your parents’ vinyl collection, for instance. We’re probably being generous.
It’s with a great sigh that we present to you this ESPN segment we’ll call “Golfers Trying to Name the Beatles.” Watch it above and see current Open Championship-leader Rory McIlroy, of Ireland, make pretty big goof of himself when he can’t remember George Harrison’s name and squeaks out “George Lucas” instead. (That competition is at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, near where the Fab Four grew up, hence the questioning.)
As if it needed clarification here, Harrison = Beatle, solo musician, Traveling Wilbury. Lucas = American Graffiti, Star Wars and, later again, more Star Wars (sigh). Though via a kind of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon scenario, it just so happens American Graffiti star Ron Howard will direct and produce a new documentary on the Beatles due out next year. So there’s that.
To be fair, McIlroy did get the first name right and nearly all of golfers queried seemed to have trouble with the Beatles’ dark horse, Harrison. And Bubba Watson didn’t even try with any of their names. So maybe we’re the ones who are wrong for remembering? No… that couldn’t be. Comedy Central’s Ben Hoffman of The Ben Show had some choice words about the segment on his show, as TMZ points out.
“Bubba Watson is 35. How uninteresting is your fucking life that you live 35 years without learning the names of the fucking Beatles?” He went on, “Bubba Watson should be smashed over the head with a 9 iron. Fucking shithead doesn’t even know who Paul McCartney is. … They flew into John Lennon Airport, grabbed their clubs, and went to play golf. No idea who the Beatles were.”
Pretty harsh. We’ll just offer these two words for the golfers: study up.
