The American Spectator

IF NOTHING ELSE, THE SHOW DISPLAYS, by inference, how good pro golfers really are. BB participants — at least the ones on Trump National — are scratch players, capable of playing even par golf. Bri Vega, the eventual female winner, won the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur tournament. And they are nowhere near as good as the players you see on the pro tours. Nowhere near.

The men were mostly a sympathetic lot, perhaps because they were older and weathered. The women — well, let’s just say I found Bri a bit of a pill. (I liked Rachel, the goofy-looking girl from Australia.)

As of last night, it was over. And I sat, wondering at myself for having watched the series and musing on what I thought of it all. Something had been tickling at me, something it reminded me of. And then I got it.

The Big Break is Queen for a Day, the old 1950s weeper. On Queen, the producers would select some hard-luck housewife whose daughter was stricken with leukemia and whose husband had lost an arm in an industrial accident, on and on, endless misery. And they’d give her stuff and make a big fuss over her. Back then, the program winner mercifully disappeared with her new washer and dryer and bedroom suite. Nowadays, the winners of The Big Break stick around.

They appear on other TGC shows, like Golf With Style. A few more programming wrinkles, they could make a career of this. Regular golf does not look so promising. When BB contestants take their shot at the pro tours, their prize for winning on the show, they tend to shoot ten over par and miss the cut.

Never fear. The Golf Channel will always report their results. I’m just waiting for the first BB winner to get slammed for income tax evasion.