Dr. V's magical putter

Look, I'm sympathetic to LGBT issues, and I say this with absolutely no disrespect intended to anybody...

But is it really "wrong" or is it simply not the way transgendered people would prefer to be framed? Because I don't know how Dr. V felt about her gender in the earlier stages of her life, but I know she was biologically a man, married to a woman and having children. To act like it's offensive to suggest a married father is a "he" seems more than a bit silly to me.

Was Mike Penner a woman both before and after the period as Christine Daniels?

 

I don't see how - in this Age of the Internet - that you can report, research and fact-check this story without including the transgender portion. Once he found out Dr. V's previous life, it was either spike the story or run with it.

 

I admit I don't know that there's enough parallels in life to compare to how we would/should refer to someone who is transgender, but in any other case of personal identity, would you ever think it's right to call someone something they prefer not to be called?

The only situation I can possibly think of in the sports world — and maybe this is totally wrong to compare it to — is the ignorant people who stubbornly insisted on calling the boxer by the name Cassius Clay long after he changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

Yes, he was known as Cassius Clay for many years and he also self-identified as Cassius Clay. But that doesn't mean you can't refer to him as Ali even when you're writing about his childhood. Obviously, you have to tell the story about the name change. But people write all the time about the first "Ali-Liston" fight, don't they? He's Ali now and you're writing now. Why would the same principle not apply to a transgender person?

 

I have no issue at all with calling a transgendered person by whichever pronoun they currently identify with. That seems reasonable. Making it retroactive seems a bit ridiculous to me, and I don't think we can label it wrong or ignorant to suggest someone was a man long before they gave any outward indicators that they identified some other way.

Similarly, I would use Cassius Clay or Lew Alcindor or Bobby Moore to write about Ali, Kareem and Ahmad Rashad before the name change. I don't think it's insensitive that Lew Alcindor is in the UCLA record books. That's who he was at the time, even if it's not who he is now.

 

BTW, what is the evidence she "bilked" anyone?

Did she not put the investor's money into building the putter, and the company? Even if his return on investment turns out to be $0, that doesn't mean he was "bilked".

The putter exists, and so does the company. You can buy one right now from their website.

As the article points out, most companies like this don't make it. Others have blown up. Sometimes, they struggle for some time, before a single event -- like a pro winning an event using their equipment -- puts them on the map permanently.

It sounds like Yar flirted with this kind of success. And, the investor still might even see a return on his investment. But, certainly he knew the risks involved, and I think it's still too early to declare he'll never see any of his $60,000 back.

 

Sounds like business as usual at the Algonquian Round Table.

 

No ones defending the lies.

But, "bilked" sounds like she stole the money, and put it into her own bank account.

As far as I know, she wasn't running a Ponzi scheme. She didn't sell grater than 100% of the company. These are classic scams.

It sounds like she put the money into the company. She produced a product and was selling it. That sounds to me like she was trying to make money at it, and if she did, her investors would have shared in the company's success.

 

Kristina Kahrl thinks "140 characters is too limiting" to discuss it on twitter.

MacGregor has retweeted the tweets of some folks who have criticized the article, but hasn't been able to find the strength to comment on it himself.

If you look at Bill Simmons or Grantland's feed, you wouldn't know there's any controversy.

 

Interested to see MacGregor's take.
Don't care what the two parrots think.

 

ESPN statement:


"We understand and appreciate the wide range of thoughtful reaction this story has generated and to the family and friends of Essay Anne Vanderbilt, we express our deepest condolences. We will use the constructive feedback to continue our ongoing dialogue on these important and sensitive topics. Ours is a company that values the LGBT community internally and in our storytelling, and we will all learn from this."

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rvvd45

 

Still, do investors invest if they know her real story?

 

Doing the background check on the focus of a feature is just good journalism. Do I think he set out to out her? no. Do I think he would have kept her identity a secret had the rest of her story checked out? I like to believe so. Even if you are not going to focus on, in this case the scientist, it is important to check out if the science matches up. And if the person claiming to be a scientist is not really a scientist with the prestigious resume she claims, then yes, that becomes part of the story. No longer can you really just write about the science behind the club if the science does not line up. She sold a bill of goods to Hannan, to investors and to customers. The likelihood is that the putter works more because of the placibo effect than anything. The scientist becomes a large part of the story, especially when you have McCord going on national television and espousing the virtues of this putter and the scientist behind it. Had he just written the story without doing the background check and it came out later that Dr. V was a fraud and the putter was worthless, then we'd all be on here saying how lazy he was, and as a journalist at the highest of levels with months to write a story, there is no excuse not to do the background check.

A big part of my thinking the science is false is because none of the big golf companies are copying the putter in science or design. I'm sure there are patents out there, but how long did it take before every company started making the hybrid clubs? not long at all. There are hundreds of millions of dollars spent on design and production of clubs. I can guarantee you the big companies have multitudes of scientists and engineers who know something about physics. Are they all completely dim? Also, how many pros use the putter? A couple. Aaron Baddeley used it for a couple of weeks and went back to his old putter. Dr. V can claim it was because his sponsor pressured him back, but there is no proof of that. She also exhibited large amounts of paranoia and clearly her mental health was not altogether. She was clearly an unbalanced person, as exhibited by the attempts to take her life previously and the lawsuit she filed in Gilbert, Ariz.

When you agree to talk about the science and only the science and the science proves to be faulty, then it is tough to stick to that agreement. Yes it is difficult to say she bilked investors, there is a product that you can buy. By the same token, it is tough to argue that you get bilked when you hire a contractor who faked his credentials and he turns your house into a shit show that looks pretty. There's a product, it looks good, but there is nothing there to back it up -- it's lipstick on a pig. You're buying the putter because you believe it will work because of the science and the scientist. But none of it is true.

The story then becomes about the person.

He probably focused too much on the shock that Dr. V was originally a man -- it did come off kinda Jerry Springer-esque in the story -- but outside the investor and maybe McCord, I'm not sure he outed Dr. V to anyone else that knew her. Even her own former brother in-law broke the news of Dr. V's death by saying “Well, there’s one less con man in the world now.” There was not a lot of confidence in the character of Dr. V before or after her transition.

The story goes from being about a putter to about the con artist, and it was damn interesting.

Without seeing a note, without really knowing Dr. V, it is impossible for us to really know why Dr. V committed suicide. Was it because she was about to outted as transgender? Was it because she was about to be outted as a con artist? Was it because her putter company was not taking the world by storm like she hoped? Was this just one more failure on top of a life of failures? Was it due to other mental issues?

I have little doubt the story certainly played into it at some level, and if Hannan has a soul, he cannot feel great about it. But I cannot fault him for writing the story, pursuing it or even doing a background check. He cannot be held responsible for the actions of others. He didn't get interested in the story because Dr. V was once a man. He got interested in the story because of the con. This was not schoolyard bullying. You don't want to have people poking around in your shit, don't try to con them or take advantage of them.