‘There’s action, and then some. But when it’s drizzly springtime in Delft, with that familiar aroma of cheese, mildewed sheets and raw sewerage festering under a leaden sky, you know it’s time for world-class golfing action. Yes folks, welcome to the 400 Dutch Masters, live from crappy Holland! And a warm welcome to my co-anchor, Bob Weinberger.”
‘Thanks, Chuck, great to be back. Boy, there’s nothing like it, is there? The polders, the cows, the clogs. Just this morning I was cutting the complimentary cheese in my hotel bathroom, and thinking how much we love this tournament.”
‘We sure do, Bob. Of course this year’s Dutch Masters is, as always, brought to you by Pieter Stuyvesant: just one draw and you’re hooked. I sure do like them golf puns. So, take us through the line-up.”
‘Well this year we’ve got a couple of new faces. Gerrit Dou has been making waves on the Leiden tour, and he’s shooting up the money list thanks to big wins at the Queen Christina Open in Stockholm and the Medici Classic in Florence.
‘Some controversy about that last win, though, Chuck: it turned out his Lady at her Toilet didn’t feature an actual toilet scene.”
‘That must have come as quite a disappointment to ‘Kinky’ Cosimo de Medici, Bob. Well, moving on we’ve got young Anthony van Dyck and veteran Pieter Rubens. What’s the word on these two?”
‘Gee, Chuck, I don’t know. I guess they’ve just never kind of kicked on. Both brilliant golfers, no question, and there was a time they looked set to take the green jacket off Rembrandt, but in recent seasons they’ve maybe just been a little too focused on their driving and concepts of divinity. Huge shots, often with biblical themes, and I reckon they just forgot about the short game. Rubens especially. He tore up the European tour for years, looked totally unstoppable after The Apotheosis of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency of Marie de Medicis on May 14, 1610, but then I guess he kind of got the yips.”
‘Sorry to interrupt, Bob, but we’ve got a disturbance down at the first tee, a huge crowd of kids, maybe 50 or 60 … oh, it’s the Vermeer family. And there’s Jan himself, stud golfer of Delft and mullet pioneer. Gee, they sure love him here.”
‘And he loves them right back, Chuck. Those 50 kids are just the ones we know about. But we were talking about short games, and this guy has the best short game in the world. Sure, he’s pedantic and slow, but holy crap, what a winner.”
‘Is it true that Girl with a Pearl Earring was originally called Girl with a Perlemoen Nose-stud?”
‘Sure is, Chuck, and let me tell you it was a mess, that big old green sack of slime hanging off that pretty little face. Luckily he changed caddies, and the rest is history.”
‘We’ve just had a viewer e-mail us a question about the big white ruffs that everyone’s wearing today, both the golfers and their models. Is this some sort of 17th Century Flemish fashion item, Bob?”
‘Great question, but no. Those are just to keep people from licking their stitches.”
‘Such vibrant sanitary habits here in the Low Countries. And now to the guy that everyone’s been talking about all week. Okay Bob, tell me this. He’s got the longest drive in the game, a putter that’s always on fire, unrivalled brush technique, he’s won about half of the last 400 Dutch Masters, he’s second in the money list behind Pablo Picasso, and yet those who know him say he’s a deeply unhappy man. Why is Rembrandt van Rijn looking so glum?”
‘Well, Chuck, it’s hard to speculate, but I’d say it has something to do with his wife and three of his four kids dying. He’s also just declared bankruptcy. And you must remember that life can’t be easy for someone whose middle name is Harmenszoon. I mean, think about it. It rhymes with ‘poon’ and ‘loon’.”
‘And ‘spoon’, Bob. And ‘June’.”
‘Yes, but those aren’t really —”
‘And ‘noon’ and ‘croon’.”
‘Never mind. The point is, I think his performance at the Masters last year, where he carded a self-portrait and St Paul at his Writing Desk, showed someone deeply aware of his own failings, and unflinchingly documenting his misery. He still putted like a son of a bitch, though. Let’s join the action on the first tee —”