Steve Elkington

This guy is a complete clown. Last night he tweeted a very tasteless joke about the helicopter crash in Glasgow. Richie Ramsay has a screenshot of it on his page

https://twitter.com/RamsayGolf

Total insensitive idiotic man.

Is he the reprobate who launched a twitter attack on Pakki's during the British Senior Open?? Shame on him.

He made a joke. Not a good one. But not a hanging offence. People joke about far far worse.

ben,
It's getting to be a trend with Elkington though, borderline racist tweets about the President, Pakistanis in Lancashire and now this.

What with the religious crap from Messrs Simpson, Watson etc, and racial stereotyping from Elkington, it makes you wonder how long Flinchem will let the tweeting lunatics represent the PGA Tour.

Stunningly bad taste but free speech is free speech, be it speech or tweet. I've heard a couple of jokes today about it, ugly but to be fair Glasgow itself is one of the world capitals of black humour. Some get through difficult times with humour and 'weegies are no exception.

Correct JAS .. bad taste is quite common. I just wonder what made Elkington decide to do something like this so publicly. I've had texts myself today from Glaswegians making similar jokes - black humour is often the best way to deal with tragedies (ever heard a bunch of paramedics on their downtime?)

Elk should know better though to be so public about it

I've known Elk for probably 30 years now... and while I've commented before on what an arrogant P*** the guy can be at times, I have to give him a pass on this one. At the time of the original tweet, he said he was of the belief that nobody was hurt... as that WAS the case in some of the original reports here. And from my experience with him... like him or not, he's just not a liar. He impresses me as the type that would rather go down in flames than try to lie to get out of something. If he said that was his belief at the time... I'm buying. But hey... that's just me.

Trouble is robo, that's the second time in less than five months he's gone down in flames.
I've always been inclined to like Elkington, love his swing and some aspects of his persona, but this is becoming a habit.

Kwini, the guy's humor is on the edge not doubt.... I'm not defending him... just saying I don't think he knew someone had died in the accident or I doubt he would have tweeted... or at least waited until a bunch of the other "dark humor" surfaced on it...

Like he'd never had a person of Asian descent joke . . . . . .

I agree with you about his sense of humour, but when he goes over the edge, twice!, the defence attorney has a tough time . . . . .

Not sure I would describe anything elk has tweeted as edgy. It would have to be remotely funny to be edgy. Anyone can be racist.

Kwini

Why ban tweeting, I like to know what these guys are really like. Elk and Westwood have already exposed themselves as pretty shallow unlikable people.

Rory seems a little dumb, but essentially a pretty good guy. I like knowing that.

Anyone in the public eye needs to exercise care in how they react to certain situations.  Can't imagine why he would get the idea though that a helicopter dropping like a stone onto a building full of people could have anything other than a bad outcome.

Tom English of the Scotsman is going after Elk today in his newspaper column and also having an exchange of words on Twitter.

My thoughts on this is that if Elk didn't think a report of a helicopter coming down didn't have severe implications and potential loss of lives then why would it be news? Not often you hear news from an incident thousands of miles away to say "Helicopter made emergency landing, everyone's ok". It was obvious there would be injured bodies and he thought he'd be funny and Tweet something. Can't imagine he'll set foot in Scotland again and if he does he can expect a hostile reception.

Still no apology from him which if it does come, will be too late to be accepted.

Mac,
Don't think I even came close to suggesting a Twitter ban - but some of the garbage these guys tweet surely demands a response from the Tour.
Far worse than swearing after a mis-hit shot which will land you a fine all day, every day.

gaelgowfer wrote:Anyone in the public eye needs to exercise care in how they react to certain situations.

Exactly. To do anything otherwise that could be construed as even slightly controversial is blatantly stupid and arrogant.

kwinigolfer wrote:Mac,
Don't think I even came close to suggesting a Twitter ban - but some of the garbage these guys tweet surely demands a response from the Tour.
Far worse than swearing after a mis-hit shot which will land you a fine all day, every day.

Whats it got to do with the tour? Do players sign a contract with the tour that removes their 1st amendment rights? seems unlikely, even impossible.

Tom English quote ... "giving vent to his inner idiot".  I like that.

Mac,
I'm sure that if a PGA Tour Pro, especially someone of say Doug Barron status, tweeted f-off god, jesus sucks, he'd have Flinchem into his bank account in no time.
Racial stereotypes OK though?

I say let the idiots post or comment away. Moron Sergio -- in full racist mode -- made the fried chicken comment and he's still paying the price. Welcome to the stage, which as independent contractors, they can choose to exit at any time.

What was the joke?

Given the pub was full, it could so easily have been so much worse had the pilot not shown great presence of mind in switching off the fuel line before they crashed.  I suppose some would say his training kicked in but I don't think anyone really knows how they would have reacted in such a situation.  

Seems this helicopter type has 'previous'.

This sort of thing is getting utterly boring. People talk crap all the time, all over the World. What was it? "To err is human..." ? He made a gag (actually, black humour though it was, it made me smile) and some take offence? Never mind...

Anyone would think these sort of comments actually had any worth or made a difference to anything what-so-ever.

nbs ... I can understand why rescue services personnel may feel the need to indulge in black humour as it - presumably - helps them to cope with some pretty awful sights but - a professional golfer?  What's his excuse?

gaelgowfer wrote:Given the pub was full, it could so easily have been so much worse had the pilot not shown great presence of mind in switching off the fuel line before they crashed.  I suppose some would say his training kicked in but I don't think anyone really knows how they would have reacted in such a situation.  

Seems this helicopter type has 'previous'.

I don't get it Gael??? What's the punchline?

Hibbz - punchline?

When I first heard about this incident it was "only" reported that there were a few injured. The reports about deaths came far later.

And can't see what the Tour has to do with this. They're "independent contractors", right?

What offends me about his tweet though, is that it obviously couldn't be true...

Hibbz, Gael was just reporting what had happened. The "joke" was about drinks not being spilt.

I read about the crash several hours after it happened and there was nothing about how serious it was.

It's not that bad a joke, typical over-reaction.

What crash? Ok just caught up with the news. Sounds pretty grim.

Elkington has never had that helicopter view, has he?