Watching Golf
There is something innately compelling about watching the final round of a golf major when the going is tough and the leader board close. It is a long and intense drama, slow and drawn out and theatrical with the occasional well-timed moment of explosiveness like Goethe’s Faust or The Godfather or Stevie Wright’s Evie or the preparation of Christmas lunch with the in-laws. Heroes are crowned, heartbreak is suffered; violence is threatened, pressure is felt; personal character is laid bare under the glare of the voyeuristic masses.
Professional golf viewing is very much the domain of the committed male sports lover. It is not something easily understood by either the casual sports fan or the typical female.
Females tend to look on with total disdain and stunned bewilderment if you pass six hours from midnight on watching professional golf. It will usually, at first, manifest itself in an off-the-cuff snide remark such as “golf is so boring…how can you watch it?” or “I’m going to bed…am I to assume you won’t be joining me?” It will quickly develop, however, into wild threats of divorce, violence and ballet attendance once she realises how deep the addiction is.
Stories have even been told in dark bar corners and over government funded help-lines about women who will immediately get naked at the very first scent of televised golf, attempting to lure their golf loving partner away from the television screen with the prospect of sex. This form of Pavlovian social conditioning has led to any number of heterosexual men finding themselves in strange and confusing predicaments such as always getting an erection while watching Boo Weekley putt or finding the need to fondle the nearest set of breasts when Kenny Perry plays from the bunker. There have even been tragic tales of once virile, golf loving men unable to muster the goods unless the voice of Jim Nantz is present.
Many wives and girlfriends will seemingly go to great lengths to stop their partners enjoying the pleasures of big time golf. It is a spectator sport that is seemingly beyond reason to the vast majority of the female populace. Watching your footy team is acceptable: it only lasts a few hours and to females it seems somewhat charming that you can commit to a team and stick with it through thick and thin. There is even a possibility that they enjoy the footy as well and at the very least, are somewhat open minded to donning a scarf and cheering loudly. Even cricket is somewhat acceptable. It is the sound of summer and the game of Australia and it conjures images of barbeques and beers, the beach and Boxing Day.
Golf, however, is a totally different proposition. In the eyes of most females, watching golf is totally unacceptable. It is very much a solitary activity requiring focus and time. It is not particularly sociable nor particularly endearing, especially when you wake up at 4am on a Saturday morning to watch the second round of The Masters only to complain that you are too tired to attend the work party of your girlfriend, held at some hard-to-find gallery where the sport-fashion conversation ratio is overwhelmingly against you. That is a situation that will not be resolved pleasantly or without a heavy cost.
Golf is a deeply important pastime for men, however. It tends to symbolize the male human existence and as such we feel a deep and abiding connection to the game regardless of how frustrating or annoying we viscerally find it. Golf is life. An ill-equipped man trying to master a universe that cannot be mastered. Even Tiger Woods has off days. The ball is driven with the hope that you end up at your intended destination but knowing that you rarely do and that your lie could be better or worse or impossible and could be one of 1000 places. Every decision has consequences. Risk equals return. The gambling instinct. The lessons of life and existentialism at its most tangible. You are, essentially, alone, grasping with elements in a pursuit that is fundamentally about survival with occasional smatterings of true joy. Golf is a true test of the male character and most of us are captivated by it, even if only occasionally.
As such we play golf and we watch golf though I use the term play extremely loosely when it comes to your hacking author who considers a score of 55 for nine a good day out and tries to limit his forays on the golf course to an annual affair.
It is important though often we can’t explain why.
And explanations are often required when, as was the case on Monday night, you sit glued to the television until the late hours watching the final round of a compelling U.S Open. Focus could not be broken in what looked set to play out as one of the great sporting finishes of the year.
Two young and relatively unknown bucks in Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover led the way but they were faltering and the big gap they had established over the field was diminishing by the hole. Barnes, the tempestuous former top amateur prospect with the iconic all-American look, broke the U.S Open 36-hole scoring record and at one stage held an eight shot lead but it was all but gone come the final day. Glover, the Clemson football fanatic with the pretty blonde wife and the Elvis southern drawl, was thereabouts but he seemed to be feeling the heat from the chasing pack.
That pack contained many compelling storylines. Tiger Woods was waiting in the long rough of the rain drenched Bethpage and appeared ready to stage one of his renowned championship round comebacks. David Duval, the 2001 British Open winner who dropped off the map for the remainder of the decade as he forgot how to play, was remarkably in contention. Ranked 882 in the world, the once disliked Duval had become a fan favourite, the player who dealt with his demons and was now on the verge of slaying them. The best British prospect since Nick Faldo, Ross Fisher, was never far off the pace (though television coverage, or the lack thereof, would have suggested otherwise).
And then there was Lefty.
History will record the winner of the 2009 U.S Open as the unheralded Lucas Glover, who held it all together in tough conditions on the back nine, coming in at even par to win by two strokes. The real story of the Open, however, was Phil Mickelson.
Two competing and mutually exclusive destinies seemed to be in play for Phil Mickelson on that last day at Bethpage. Only one could come to fruition, only one would be his fate.
In the months leading up to the U.S Open, Phil Mickelson’s wife Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer. The golf world felt for Mickelson and his family while Lefty suspended his PGA Tour schedule to be with his wife and family during such a trying time. Amy’s health picked up in recent times, however, and Mickelson said that he would compete in the U.S Open with the hope of winning it for Amy. Surely The Fates would smile on Phil this time. Do they have no heart?
The Fates, however, have not always looked kindly on Lefty. While Mickelson is the second highest earner in American sports, has been the second best golfer on the planet for nearly a decade and has three majors including two green jackets, The Fates have delivered Mickelson plenty of on-course heartache. That heartache is usually distributed during the final round of the major championships where Mickleson has had more unlikely defeats and close calls than probably any other golfer to ever play the sport at such a high level. Mickelson has had 15 top-five major finishes yet only has three majors. Prior to Bethpage, he has four second-placings at the U.S Open. He has never won the event. In 2006 he blew a one shot lead on the final hole at Winged Foot in 2006, hitting a double bogey after driving into the trees. He has become known as a choker, the Greg Norman of this decade; golf’s answer to the Buffalo Bills and the Cronulla Sharks and Jana Novotna.
The question surrounding Mickelson’s ability to overcome his traditional final round disasters was a compelling one and was an overwhelming draw to watching that last day at Bethpage.
As the leaders faltered and Mickelson birdied nine and twelve and then eagled thirteen to put him in a share of the lead, a fairytale finish seemed to be on the horizon. Mickelson was making some amazing shots and for once he appeared loose down the stretch, the illness of his wife seemingly putting his golf in perspective. Mickelson appeared relaxed, as free in spirit as he had ever been on the final round of a major.
Mickelson, who shortened to as low as $1.70 on Betfair, would falter in the crunch once more, however. He would not win the U.S Open for his wife and he would not exorcise his final round demons. He bogeyed fifteen and seventeen, the latter a shocking result where he missed a simple par putt by prodding it, and would for the fifth time finish second in a U.S Open.
His fate would be the fate assigned to him by the sporting gods for the better part of the last decade.
Old Lefty did exhibit why golf is such an exciting spectator sport, however. He was a story. His character was laid bare. There was triumph and there was despair. And at the end of the day, when the last “get in the hole” has been yelled and the last argument about spending your school nights watching golf rather than in bed with your better half, few who witnessed that last day at Bethpage will soon forget it.