Judge Uses “Caddyshack” to Sink Giuliani's Son Lawsuit

Son of former NYC Mayor was dropped from Duke golf team

Andrew Giuliani's lawsuit against Duke University suffered a blistering rebuke on par with the one voters gave his father during the 2008 race for the Republican Presidential nomination.

Giuliani claimed that the school breached a contract when they kicked him off their golf team in 2008. The school countered that Giuliani's place on the team was a privilege, not a right, and that he lost that privilege as a result of his behavior. Said behavior included throwing an apple in the face of a teammate and disrespecting coaches, and a federal magistrate agreed Tuesday when he recommended that the suit be dismissed. 

That would have been bad enough, but the way Judge Wallace W. Dixon made his recommendation underscored how little he thought of Giuliani's case. He peppered it with golf references, calling one legal precedent cited by Giuliani "a putter" when he needed a "sand wedge to get out of the hazard," and twisted the knife in a sequence recounted by the Smoking Gun

Dismissing one Giuliani claim, Dixon wrote that the misplaced argument "brings to mind Carl Spackler's analysis" from "Caddyshack": "He's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2 iron, I think."

If there's a silver lining, it's that Giuliani has graduated from Duke and advanced to a playoff for the last spot in a local qualifier for the U.S. Open in Connecticut last week. He's also playing on a minor league golf tour, and if all that doesn't work out for him, well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.    

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.

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