In a heart-warming story said to be restoring much of the
world’s faith in humanity, what’s being called a global brother and sisterhood
of concerned little peoples has come by the millions to the aid of professional
golfer and high-end corporate pitchman Phil Mickelson.
In a wrenching time-out from the rigors of a recent PGA tour
event at La Quinta Country Club in Southern California, Mr. Mickelson
courageously shared with his fellow man and woman all the hardship he now faces
due to a new three percent increase in his California state tax rate and a four
percent hike on all the money he makes over and above $400,000 per year—all the
money, that is, except for all the money he makes money on through investments,
which is taxed at roughly half the rate draining his other moneys.
“It doesn’t work for me right now,” said a somber Mr.
Mickelson regarding America’s efforts to address the economic hardships that
have blighted the hopes of so many.
The global community, though, has responded. In less than a
month the worldwide Save Lefty campaign has raised millions, mostly in
individual donations amounting to a few cents in US currency.
The success of this mission to supplement Mr. Mickelson’s
$150 million net worth by way of rescuing all his well laid financial plans is
thanks largely to the efforts of Adoyo Kiprop, a Kenyan titanium strip mining
laborer who is dying from long-term exposure to the radioactive uranium and
thorium released from the Kwale Sands where according to local legend the
titanium used in Mr. Mickelson’s Calloway driver comes from.
Said Mr. Kiprop when asked what inspired him to lead this
humanitarian effort, “I just had to do something before I die. I couldn’t leave
all my children behind in a world where a great guy like Lefty can’t afford to
buy the majority share of the San Diego Padres anymore just because his country
is experiencing hard times.”
Even by some corporate standards the money being sent Mr.
Mickelson’s way is considerable. Said a spokesman for Barclays, the major
global financial services provider whose brand Mr. Mickelson is helping to
“expand and strengthen” worldwide, “It’s not like Phil’s not going to notice it
on the bank statements we send him.”
And by less corporate standards the money can only be
described as pouring in as it arrives one or two ringgits and satangs and tambalas at a time from
the shovelers along the special beaches where the sand is gotten for the traps
Mr. Mickelson has made such a fortune avoiding or so elegantly extricating himself
from.
It is pouring in by the santeem and the dinar and the yuan
from the miners of the raw materials that go into all the Rolex watches Mr.
Mickelson has sold so many of.
It keeps pouring in from the ground-level extractors and
processors of the rubber and other substances that make Mr. Mickelson’s golf
balls fly so far and true.
It comes in torrents from all the tree-cutters and the paper
millworkers, the fruits of whose labors possibly, just possibly, go into the
issues of Golf Digest whose cover Phil so often graces, or maybe even into the
oversized large checks Mr. Mickelson holds up for the cameras when he’s won
another tour event, and perhaps even the regular-size large checks that
Barclays and KPMG and Amgen and Exxon Mobil pay Lefty for putting so kind and
smiling a face on their corporate undertakings.
Said a lighthearted Mr. Kiprop with a mostly toothless
laugh, “We are even receiving donations from the poor ladies and girls in the
sports apparel sweatshops working over-overtime to keep up with all the ups and
downs of Lefty’s weight.”
In related news, on the set of a commercial shoot in Dubai,
Mr. Mickelson yesterday told reporters, “The support the world’s showing me has
been great. Just wonderful.”
“In all honesty, though, the five or ten million US dollars
these people are sending me is not going to make that big a difference. I’m
still probably going to have to move to Florida or some other low-tax state. It
is very likely also that I’ll soon have to quit the PGA. I can’t really afford
to make so much money that is not money made from other money.
“And actually, the titanium used in my driver doesn’t come
from Kenya. It comes from Mozambique and Sierra Leone.”
In more related news, Mr. Mickelson apologized late
yesterday for any impression his earlier statement may have left that he is
less than thankful for what the Save Lefty peoples are doing for him.
“I really do appreciate the little peoples of the world who
in many ways have made it possible for me to even lay the financial plans that
are now being so compromised by my government.
“And I truly hope these peoples don’t forget to talk to
their brokers about the tax deductions they can claim for their charitable
giving.”
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