If you’ve ever been near players prior to a sporting event, you know exactly what an autograph hound is.
They’re those guys — usually in their 30s or 40s — who battle with small children to get the autographs of professional athletes. These guys come with books and books of autograph material. And unlike the kids, they’re there to make a profit.
Well, if you’re one of those guys, proceed with caution around star golfer Jordan Spieth. On Thursday, Spieth went off on one of these lowlives during the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. Aside from confronting this man, the 23-year-old golfer went on a long-winded rant about autograph hounds:
Yeah, and it’s not necessarily worth me spending time arguing. But I just, I’m not appreciative of people who travel to benefit off other people’s success. And just, we’re out here to — I enjoy signing and sign for kids whenever we get the chance. And when these guys have these items that you’ve already seen online and people, we have — our team keeps track of that kind of stuff. And these guys that just have bags of stuff to benefit from other people’s success when they didn’t do anything themselves. Go get a job instead of trying to make money off of the stuff that we have been able to do. We like to sign stuff for charity stuff or for kids or — and if you ask anybody universally it’s the same way, it’s just, they frustrate us. And so I turned around and they, one of them dropped an F-bomb in front of three kids, so I felt the need to turn around and tell them that that wasn’t right. And couple of them were saying you’re not Tiger Woods, don’t act like you’re Tiger, I mean it’s just like, whatever, guys, so. You’re still trying to benefit off me and I’m not even Tiger Woods. So, you know, what’s that say about you?
So, anyway, yeah, here and there get into it a little bit. Normally I let Michael get into it with them. But when you see guys that follow you around the entire round, they’re saying afterwards, “We’re huge fans.” A lot of other people did follow the entire round and so I want to make sure I sign for them, if I didn’t get them out there. So I was just a little frustrated at the end and I didn’t appreciate the language that was used and just some scums that just, it just bothered me.
It’s hard not to be 100 percent with Spieth on this one. These guys ruin autographs for everyone. It just gets to be obnoxious. As a kid, I loved trying to get autographs. But people take it way too seriously, and I’ve been turned off by the whole idea for years now. I think a picture is a much better way to go.
