Killing Me Softly
Chris Berman just gave Xander Schauffele one of the great golf nicknames of all time
There’s been no shortage of great golf nicknames over the years. The Golden Bear. The Big Easy. The Walrus. Lefty. Rahmbo. Tiger. The list spans generations. It is illustrious. It is gilded with championships and accolades. And yet they all bow before the One True Nickname God, Chris “Boomer” Berman, who, with one casual wave of his wand on Wednesday, gifted Xander Schauffele perhaps the greatest golf alias of all. Check it out.
The clip in question begins around the 37-second mark, when the legendary Sportscaster—best known for penning “He could go all the way!” and “Back, back, back, back!”—welcomed Schauffele to ESPN’s Bristol campus by dubbing him “Xander Killing Me Schauffele With His Song” in reference to the classic Fugees cut “Killing Me Softly.”
OK, so maybe it isn't the greatest golf nickname of all time, but it does boast one the highest difficulty levels. Only Boom could hear “Xander Schauffele,” come up with an instant phonetic connection to "softly" and then tie it all together with a ubiquitous pop-culture reference. This is the triple-word Scrabble score of nicknames. It makes “Kiss From a Justin Rose” look like child’s play. We’ll see if it catches on this week at TPC River Highlands, but if not, you still have to stand up and clap for one of the greatest to ever to do it. And we’re not talking about Xander ...