The Haney Project and Hawaii

RUSH: Isn’t it great to be back here, folks? Just wonderful to be back. I had a wonderful time out in Hawaii. I did a lot of videotaping, a lot of shooting of The Haney Project. Boy, did I learn some things about this. Folks, we’ve got about 30 hours — 24, 30 hours — of tape already in the can. That’s probably two episodes, but each episode’s 22-1/2 minutes, and there’s eight of them. The premiere is in January, and they’ve already got enough videotape for a whole season. Now, the first day I’m with Haney in Hawaii is last Tuesday, a week ago today. We’re at the lower course of the Four Seasons on the Big Island. And, you know, I thought things were going well. First hole par, second hole birdie, third hole par. I said, ‘Wow, this is cool.’ Haney is in the cart saying, ‘Wow! I mean, you’re good. You’re good.’ We’re both wired for sound. ‘Man, this will be a great show!’ Then on the fourth hole, second shot, club face wide open, I hit the second shot out of bounds — and the Golf Channel crew jumps into gear. And I finally figure it out. They’re not going to use any video of me hitting good shots. This is all about me stinking.

This is Drive-By golf coverage.

So here I am: Three great holes to start with, and then all of a sudden I hit one bad shot on the fourth hole and the crew goes into action, and they dial up and they get their carts and the cameras are two inches away from me as Hank Haney is giving me instructions on how to fix it. I hit another couple of bad shots, and we finished the hole, and the producer says, ‘Great TV, Hank!’ And I finally figured out: ‘Great TV’ equals me looking bad. (laughing) Great TV equals me stinking up the golf course.

So I said, ‘Well, how long is this going to go on?’ because at some point during the course of the show I gotta show some improvement here. So maybe those first three holes will show up in episode seven, par, birdie, par. (interruption) No, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a reality show, which means it’s scripted. We’re doing three and four different takes of things. ‘We just need another shot of that in the can,’ they say. So you keep going ’til you screw up and Haney gets into gear.

Haney comes alive when I screw up. The whole show comes alive when I screw up. It’s hilarious. After each day’s shooting there is the sit-down interview with me and the producer off camera, and the producer says to me in one of these, either Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, ‘Did you ever dream that you would be on The Golf Channel getting lessons from Hank Haney?’ I said, ‘Well, I think the real question is, did Hank Haney…?’ (laughing) ‘The real question is, Hank Haney gets rid of Tiger Woods for six months with Rush Limbaugh on TV? I’d take that deal. I’d do that any day of the week.’

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me tell you: A reality show just means there’s no union writers. I mean, that’s how reality shows got started, when the writers went on strike. Remember that? But reality shows are just as scripted as… Well, not ‘just as.’ In movies, the ratio is they shoot 20 feet of film for every foot used. Now, high-end TV, they shoot something like, I think, the ratio is 15 to one; They shoot 15 feet of tape for every one foot used. I don’t know what this is going to be.

The real question, though… You know, they asked me, ‘Do you ever think that you’d be on The Golf Channel getting lessons from Hank Haney?’ The real question is: Did Tiger Woods ever dream that someday his former coach would be giving lessons to me? I mean, Tiger must be bragging about that to every woman he meets! Can you imagine what a talking point Tiger’s got? ‘Yeah, my old coach, you know what he’s doing? He’s teaching Rush Limbaugh on The Golf Channel!’ Tiger made the Ryder Cup today. Tiger was chosen by Corey Pavin in the Ryder Cup.