Sunday

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.

10 comments:

  1. Professional Golfers feuding on Facebook...Never thought I'd see that day.

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  2. Facebook and other social networks are really great for connecting and keeping in touch, but they can also be used in many negative ways. I'm a high school Guidance counselor and I've seen so many cases where kids have been hurt often by behaving irresponsibly on Facebook.

    Now these are two adult men, so it's no big deal... and they probably don't really mind the publicity anyway. But from my experience, parents should have "the facebook talk" with their kids prior to their entering Middle School.

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  3. ah - modern maturity. such an example for the youth of the world.

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  4. I don't know these golfers but just joined the Wayne Riley Appreciation Society because Wayne sounds like a mensch.

    Porter should grow up and concentrate on Q-School. IMHO.

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  5. @jennifer I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. A little while back I remember a news story about a girl who committed suicide over a myspace feud between her and a friend. If I remember it correctly, this girl made some comments about the other girl who in turn told her mother about it. Her mother in an act of revenge, created a fake profile that was a young man, befriended the girl, made false promises, started e-dating the girl, then dumped her. The girl than hanged herself....

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  6. Ah Wayne "Radar" Riley. I'd be somewhat surprised if he did mean it in a bad way. Wayne Riley was somewhat of an under achiever himself. Had a slight temper to contend with on occasions...

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  7. You've got he sexy golf calendar girls and the facebook feuding guys...then throw in "The Shark" for good measure. Australian golfers certainly aren't boring. ;)

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  8. Wayne Riley is a dope. He should focus on his own damn game. To say that Porter has "so much talent that he's an underachiever," doesn't make any sense at all.

    Porter is no better for starting a Facebook group over it. But Riley didn't do any service to his ego by trashing someone else's.

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  9. I'm so pleased to see that men can be a catty as women! What great role models... Silly so-and-so's.

    Really, I'll bet they are loving the publicity. They probably planned it that way.

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  10. I never understood why people got in a riot over the internet... It IS only the internet...

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