Aussie Golfers Sour Grapes - A Facebook Feud Gets Ugly

Not long ago there were reports of a Facebook fracas in which Lindsey Lohan called Paris Hilton a pathetic bitch, after Paris created an anti-Lilo Facebook "group" called "Firecrotch" - which one Urban Dictionary defines as, "a tempestuous lady with red hair...down there".

Insults and obscenities supposedly ensued, and reciprocal groups were created, including one that suggested the hotel heiress had urinated in the backseat of a taxi cab. Totally. Not. Hot. Ultimately, the whole thing was revealed to be a hoax, perpetuated by the uber-celeb's fake facebook alter egos.

Right now though, over on the popular social network, there's a feud fermenting that appears to be founded in fact. And it involves professional golfers. Guy golfers.

Wayne Riley and Ewan Porter are two ultra-talented Australians. 46-year-old Riley has won a number of titles including the 1999 Australian Open, while Porter, 20 years younger, picked up his first career win at the Nationwide Tour's Moonah Classic earlier this year.

The scrap seems to have started at the recent Dunhill Links Championship when Riley described his younger countryman as an underachiever. Soon the spat spilled over to facebook, where...you guessed it... a "group" was created. A group called "Wayne Riley is a Grape". A Grape. Yes, you read that right. At first I thought "a grape" must mean something really bad in Australia, but no, it simply refers to the fruit. the subtext however, is not kind suggesting, "He's a grape and should be squashed!!!"









There's much more, including tales of dead crows and rumblings of impending legal actions. It's all in this story by David Riccio that appeared today in couriermail.com.au. Now of course, upon reading the story I immediately logged into Facebook to attempt to find the offending group which according to the article had 144 members including other known golfers and sports stars. In the end though I found no such group. Presumably it was recently removed. Well, it probably wasn't such a good idea in the first place, facebook groups often aren't. Anyway, Reily insists he made the "underachiever" remark because Porter, has so much talent. And, in fact there was a group called "The Wayne Riley Appreciation Society's" where the wall posts are both positive and negative and tell various version of the truth....and the ensuing facebook golf fiasco.