Humor & Life Quote by David Brenner

Golf on TV is supposed to be the sedative of American sports: soft greens, polite applause, hushed commentary that treats a putt like a sacred rite. David Brenner punctures that mood with a brutally simple complaint: it’s not the sport that bothers him, it’s the etiquette theater wrapped around it. The joke works because it drags an unspoken rule into the light. Whispering, in most contexts, signals intimacy or respect; in golf, it’s broadcast as a moral requirement, a kind of reverence. Brenner hears it as affectation.

The line is classic observational comedy, built on a petty irritation that suddenly feels reasonable once someone names it. “I don’t like to watch golf” sounds like a personal preference. “Because I can’t stand people who whisper” reframes the entire viewing experience as an assault by faux-delicate humans tiptoeing around a ball. The punch isn’t about volume; it’s about culture. Whispering becomes shorthand for a certain country-club sensibility: self-serious, exclusionary, and obsessed with decorum.

There’s also a sly jab at television itself. Sports broadcasts are usually loud, hyped, democratic. Golf demands the opposite, and TV dutifully complies, turning a casual viewer into an interloper who’s expected to behave. Brenner’s irritation is a refusal to play along. He’s saying: if your sport requires constant shushing to function, maybe it’s not a sport so much as a ritual for people who enjoy being told to be quiet.