HAS ANYBODY ELSE NOTICED WHAT THIS GUY HAS DONE SINCE HE ENTERED THE MGA 15 MONTHS AGO? NOT SINCE THE DAYS OF ’09 BENOIT HAVE WE SEEN THIS SORT OF SUSTAINED DOMINATION BESIEGE OUR PROUD ASSOCIATION. IT’S KINDA REMARKABLE… KINDA INSPIRING… KINDA IRRITATING…
THE INTERNET, CA – As everyone knows, we here in the MGA will gladly acknowledge good golf, but you better believe we’re not going to encourage it. Whether Ittner realizes it or not, he’s toeing a fine line right now between admiration and absolute hatred, disgust and condemnation.
All one needs to do is look at the tragic case of Todd “Benoit” Benoit. Anyone who has ever met Benoit is well aware that he didn’t earn his “Most Hated Man In The MGA” title because of his personality. No, it was definitely his incessant winning that turned the MGA against him and made him public enemy #1… for now.
Ittner may soon be in the running for that title though. Leading up to this year’s FORE Championship, he had won his last seven events.
Seven.
In a row!
Perhaps he could sense something was up coming into this year’s FORE! Championship though. With Spokane MGA pulling full fields this year, his name was floating near the top of the Global Money List after winning the first two events of the year. Maybe he could feel the jealous rage bubbling up from the other 1,900 MGA members who would like a little attention of their own. Or possibly (and far and away the least likely option) he simply had an off day and opened the door just wide enough for one of his “competitors” to slip through.
However it came to pass, we can all rest easy now knowing that Matt Ittner didn’t win the richest tournament of the year. We may now go back to liking our World Champ and relating to the struggles and inconsistencies of being a mediocre golfer. After all, who can’t relate to winning seven in a row, only to shoot a god-awful 90 in your bid for eight and fall one position short?
That’s right. He didn’t win, but he did finish second. You’re clearly not getting it Matt. We want to like you. You seem like a good guy and you do a nice job putting pictures of The Belt up on The Champ’s Instagram page. But how are we supposed to relate to someone when all he does is win win win no matter what?
Perhaps the only silver lining of this story is that The Champ was dethroned on his home course and it’s pretty mediocre to blow a win streak on a course you know like the back of your hand.
He was dethroned by new folk hero Andy Benson who’d had a solid, if unremarkable, season up to that point.
The fact that Benson is in his rookie season may have actually played to his advantage. Having only witnessed two Ittner victories in a row instead of seven, Benson lacked the scar tissue the rest of the Spokane MGA is currently dealing with. We reached out to Benson to ask him how he was able to topple the giant.
“I’d like to give most of the credit to my caddy, John Jameson, for the perfect combination of ice water and ethanol in my veins to overcome the World Champ. “ Benson slurred. “It’s been a lifelong dream of mine for the past 4 months to win a MGA event…”
The Benson victory sent shockwaves through the Spokane MGA. Those who know Ittner best were concerned for his safety after such a dramatic loss. One of those medios, Scott Kaulig, was there that day and may have saved Ittner’s life.
“Not having seen Matt lose in such a long time it was quite an eye-opener.” Kaulig said. “I was one of the last ones to leave the course that day and I saw Matt’s truck still in the parking lot. When I looked in the window to see if he was okay I found him lying in the backseat in the fetal position crying like a baby. I tried to console him but nothing was working. So I had to go to an old standby that I knew would make him happy. Chicken strips and french fries it was.”
For those unfamiliar with Ittner’s affinity for the strips, you’ll want to check out his post-round Ittnerview from MGAWC17.
After the crushing defeat, Ittner took a month off from competitive golf to compose himself. He returned to the Tour refreshed and focused for the F.U. Open and well, he won it, obviously.
He shot his second best competitive score ever (85) and jumped to second on the Global Money List at the time, only $0.010000000 behind Pinellas County’s Mike Robin.
Then one month later, he shot a 79 at the Bratish Open for his first ever DQ, likely ending his run at the 2018 Global Money Title. You know what I have to say about that…
Congrats. Now go join the Web.com Tour asshole.
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If you or anyone in your chapter think they have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping Ittner from repeating at MGAWC18, please go to MGAWC.comand get yourself registered for this year’s World Championship. We must all band together to restore balance to the mediocre universe.
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