Golf Commentator Says Sergio Garcia's Wife Wears 'the Shortest Skirt in the Country' on
With all the attention on Sergio Garcia this past weekend after he beat Justin Rose in a playoff to win The Masters, not quite everyone was paying attention to just Garcia. We here at The Pass Line even mentioned that we immediately googled Garcia's fiance, Angela Akins, when they showed her in her little blue skirt at the 18th hole. I can't confirm nor deny if any comments were made in reference to her skirt by either of us, but unfortunately the same can not be said for BBC golf commentator Peter Alliss.
In a video clip of Garcia winning The Masters, Akins can be seen in the background to which Alliss comments that she is wearing "the shortest skirt in the country." A BBC spokesperson told Yahoo, "While believing he was off air, Peter made a lighthearted remark which he now knows was inappropriate.” So he didn't know it was inappropriate at the time?
(Might need to turn your volume up to hear it better)
But of course since Alliss didn't know his comment about her skirt was inappropriate at the time, he continued to make another statement that shouldn't have been on broadcast television. Alliss says while Garcia is celebrating his win with Akins, "There will be some fun in the hotel tonight!"
The BBC spokesman said that Alliss actually said, "There will be some fun in the old town tonight." The audio is difficult to hear and I can understand how that could be said and then misunderstood, but it is much more entertaining to think that he said "hotel."
Alliss is no stranger to making sexist comments. In 2015, Alliss made remarks about Zach Johnson's wife, Kim Barclay. As Johnson got ready to make his shot Alliss said of Barclay, "She's probably thinking, ‘If this goes in I get a new kitchen.’”
Later that year he made a comment that womens' rights in golf has "caused mayhem". In an interview with Newsweek he was asked what he meant by his comment. Alliss said “If we want to be equal, are you going to get a woman fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world [in] boxing? Are you? Could you? If you want perfect equality. I don’t like to see women punching each other in the chest. I don’t like it. I think it will cause irreparable damage. They talk about footballers heading balls, but punching each other in the breasts for six minutes doesn’t seem a sensible thing to do. There’s certain things that women do that we can’t do, as far as I’m concerned. Those are my views. I think women are more delicate than men. I like holding chairs for women. I enjoy the company of women. I don’t want to be bullied by them. I don’t care for macho women, I don’t care for them very much. And yet they’re prevalent today, and very prevalent in some cases. And very forward.”
Then in 2016 when a Scotland based all-male member golf club voted to allow female members, Alliss said, “If somebody wants to join, you better get married to someone who’s a member.”
In a sport plagued by sexism, Alliss surely isn't helping, but criticism doesn't effect him. It is expected that 2017 will be his last year commentating, obviously for more than one reason. But Alliss told Newsweek when asked how he wants to be remembered, "Oh, I don’t worry about things like that. I just want people to think, ‘He was fun.’”
Fun. Probably not the word I would use to describe him.