FOR THE GOOD OF THE GAME …
I have been, and likely always shall be, a public golfer.
I’ve played since my father took me out when I was about ten. During my teen years, I worked at what in those days were called “caddy camps,” summer programs organized with elite private golf clubs on Cape Cod, where boys from the greater Boston area would spend the summer, learning how to caddy properly, while caddying for members and paying room and board.
It was kind of a golf boy scout camp, organized in part to “build character” as one learned the great, old Scottish game.
I’ve never been a club guy; but I have friends who are and play a private course once in a while. I play at least once a week (except when it snows) and generally arrive on the first tee and go off with whoever shows up.
In my caddying days, the camps on the Cape all fielded golf teams, and I was a member of my camp team. Got my letter in golf in high school too. It was great to play on the camp team, because not only could we play our home course, but we played other courses in competition, and in the middle of the day (normal, non-tournament play for caddies was after four o’clock until sundown)! One time I was playing at the Hyannisport Club and noticed Jack Kennedy teeing off a few holes away. Something to remember.
I’m thinking of the tragedy of Tiger Woods, and I feel sorry for him. I wish him luck in healing himself and his family, and do hope he’s back on the pro golf tour soon – for the good of the game.
The Woods story does meet the classical definition of tragedy: the great man (or great sportsman) experiencing a great fall.
But the load of bunk that goes with it has to to with the pro game as it is today: part of the mega-corporate media/sports monster. Tiger’s rank hypocrisy, whatever his skill on the course, is that he cultivated a wholesome, safe, family guy image and linked that to his endorsement contracts. Obviously, he’ll pay a big price for cheating on his wife – a really, really big price, perhaps even the price of his marriage to her. But, given the largeness of the story, the grotesque tabloid quality of it – with the near-dozen bimbos, the trysts arranged by porno “event planners,” priced in the tens of thousands per week-end – the hypocrisy of Woods the man will linger.
I haven’t looked on athletes as “role models” for a long, long time. The great athletes do what they do and provide entertainment and thrills; lots and lots live in gated villas in Florida and have boats bigger than the Long Island ferry. But there are too many stories like Tiger’s to seriously say that jocks are more than jocks these days, if they ever were. I mean, Babe Ruth liked hot dogs and broads as much as he liked hitting home runs. It’s an old story.
Harrrummmmph !!! Say it ain’t so … !
It’s worth recalling though that there was a time, long ago and far away, when pro golf was more pure, more about what went on within the ropes, and less about the creation of corporate personality sportsmen and women.
You don’t have to like golf to appreciate the story of Ben Hogan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDRTqETSIo8
People argue about great golfers all the time, and Woods’ quest on the golf course relates mostly to breaking Jack Nicklaus’ record.
But many people admire Ben Hogan much more, for the kind of man he was, for the kind of man he was forced to become – which left the question of “what might have been” as his career ended.
Hogan did come from Texas dirt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hogan
Hogan literally willed himself into becoming a pro golfer, and most experts say he was the greatest pure ball striker ever.
Hogan’s single-minded development came out of his raw upbringing. When Ben was 9, his father, a blacksmith, committed suicide, and some say Ben saw his father kill himself. Amidst that chaos, Ben went to work to support his mother and quit high school before graduating. Along the way, he drove himself into competitive golf, playing scrubby Texas courses to develop his swing, caddying and making money in other ways. He had a very bad swing early on with a vicious hook, but he corrected it, and after a while began to win as a pro.
The Hogan swing is considered a classic in technique and style, and is still a template for modern power golfers. Even Tiger Woods has studied Hogan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0
By 1949, Hogan had won the PGA twice and the U.S. Open once.
Then, in February, 1949, he and his wife were driving on a fog-shrouded Texas highway bridge, and they were hit head-on by a Greyhound bus. Hogan saved his wife by throwing himself across her. As a result, he suffered a double fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collar bone and ankle, a chipped rib, and serious blood clots. He was told he’d never play golf again.
After 1949, Hogan came back and won the U.S. Open three more times, the Masters twice, and, in his only attempt, in 1953: The British Open. Nineteen-fifty-three was Hogan’s “slam” season, during which he won the first three majors of the year, a feat no other golfer has matched (Woods won the last three majors in 2000).
In his career he won 64 times on the PGA Tour. His nine major tournament wins (tied with Gary Player) puts him behind only Nicklaus (18), Woods (14), and Walter Hagen (11).
Hogan did most of that with a very bad back, while in constant pain. He retired in 1971.
A person who’s never played golf, or who may even hate the game, has no idea how hard it was for Hogan to do what he did.
To The Hawk: for the good of the game.
I agree with you and Tiger that golf’s integrity is something that is of great value when taught to young, impressionable children and teens. That is the blemish that could hurt the worst regarding Tiger’s emotional and ego problems.
Tiger’s father was great for instilling confidence and determination to win. I doubt he was very good at teaching Tiger how to deal with his emotions. That is a problem with most cultures today where boys are taught to be men and not cry when hurting either physically or emotionally.
I doubt that Tiger has really dealt with his father’s death and a wife who has been pregnant and given all her attention to the children and not Tiger or her marriage. That does not mean that I am excusing Tiger for his adultery and rationalization of needing sexual playthings. It’s hard to believe, but some men do it because they were taught that masturbation is bad or that they are too good to sink to the depths of providing their own pleasure.
I hope Tiger seeks professional help and that he is able to realize why he sought the wrong way to deal with his grief. If he does and learns to free himself from his cultural male socialization, he will be able to learn that all his decisions have consequences and that he must take full responsibility before making decisions.
This is the first time in his protected life, that he has experienced major failure. How he deals with it, particularly if he will at some point share it with the youth and adults who so admire him, is very important to people, and especially men, around the world.
Interesting point about grief.
I can relate to that, within my own relationship with my father and the times he lived in, just after World War II.
Tiger’s father of course was career Army. Nothing wrong with that, although how Earl Woods molded Tiger the golfer has been reported in depth, mostly as a benign thing leading to great achievement.
It is a great story.
But who knows how the “drill” affected this boy as he became a man? How it affects him now?
Interestingly, as you look at Hogan and his formative years, you can see a boy who made himself into a man, by focusing heavily on golf while supporting his mother.
He was, early on, a very distant, even surly character on the golf course; but in the Dan Jenkins clip, Jenkins alludes to the hidden benefit of the accident, which he says actually softened Hogan and increased his public appeal.
Tiger obviously has a different set of problems to deal with.
I think Ben also played even better golf. Makes sense since golf is far more mental than physical. That’s why it appeals to men plus it allows them to focus on that little white ball and forget for a few hours all their emotional problems. Tiger will return to golf fairly soon because that is his mental refuge.
You got a point there; and there’s the rub.
It sounds callous, but most men who play don’t like asking for permission.
They like to just go, and regardless of how one plays, with the right attitude, the game gives back so much.
There was a guy on Ed Schultz talking about Tiger yesterday. He told him to keep playing golf… Just as it has for generations, it provides an escape from the battle ax at home. (Didn’t Bill Clinton start golfing a lot more during his little situation?
I caddied as a kid; working tournaments at private clubs. I loved the courses, but my impression was that the golfers weren’t having much fun. I never felt tempted to swing a club, but I did learn which one to use for whatever situation.
I see Tiger’s situation a bit differently…. Both his taste in women and his “perfect” home life and image show a desire to “have it all,” in the most cheesy, advertising-driven sense of the phrase. So what does the man who has everything want? Floozies, apparently. Lots of them. A tale as old as time.
It is tawdry, but I don’t want to pile on.
Those people you saw who were not enjoying themselves probably subscribed to the Scottish theory of golf:
“Yer hafta stroogle, lad; stroogle and fight fer every stroke. Dig yer spikes inta the ground and plug away! Blast it outta that furrow! Carry on! Try! – Try to stay out o’ the gorse and those pot bunkers. Niver give oop! And, by the way, it’s even better if you play in a squall, with seabirds being blown sideways! It’ll make a man outta yer!”
They don’t cancel play at the British Open for bad weather because the toddies aren’t served until after four. And then, all bets are off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnFbCCgTo4
It’s all about the test.
Hag, you’ve got to play golf to really understand its full value. I haven’t played for many years since a good Korean friend left and returned to his job in Korea. He now lives in Colorado and when I visited him this spring, I hit some balls at a range and actually hit some good drives right off the bat,er… club.
Golf takes a lot of time and money so I really don’t have a desire to return to it. I probably have learned as much as golf has to teach me except to find better technique and longer, more accurate ball strikes. I like new things and new adventures, so once there are significant diminishing returns, I move on.
Well, it’s definitely a Hag sport. Doesn’t mess up the curlers too much and there’s always a bar handy. But like you, rmp, I weigh these things for their actual benefit. I don’t have a battle ax as a push factor, and Portland weather isn’t exactly a pull. Old age also plays a role. If I didn’t learn something when I could read the fine print unassisted, chances are slim I’m going there now. I already have so many things I’m crappy at, why throw something else on the pile?
Great post.
I too got into golf at an early age. As a kid, I played, and caddied, at a public course near my grandparents’ home in Northern Illinois. Later, I continued to play (not very well) at whatever course I could get onto in the Bay Area.
I also enjoyed going to the PGA tournaments to watch the pros. At the Crosby/ATT, I liked going to the practice rounds on Wednesday. There were some golfers who were really fun to follow, primarily because they knew how to relate to the gallery. They would step back from the tee and give a few pointers or tell a few jokes to the crowd. Lee Travino was great at this. Later on, Payne Stewart was even better.
In recent years, I’ve been going to the FBR (soon to be the Waste Management) Phoenix Open. One thing I’ve noticed lately is that there are very few, if any, pros who even try to relate to the crowds. When Tiger played here, he was as cold as ice. I realize that’s just part of the Tiger Woods persona. But still, it would be easier for us to warm up to him now if he would have returned a few smiles back then.
Pro golf has become very commercial. The tournaments are now dominated by corporate tents and post-play concerts. Golf is just a reason to get everyone together.
Trevino was another great Texas golfer who played on public courses and scratched his way to the pro level.
He was the real thing: a man who knew how he got there, enjoying it all.
Stewart definitely died too soon.
Ah, golf. Been playing it since I was a wee lad — military courses were free — but I was a greenskeeper’s flunky rather than a caddy. Cutting cups every morning, running the sheepsfoot roller, etc. My leftie friends can’t believe that I’d actually play such an elitist game. They roll their eyes as though I’d just announced that I owned a string of polo ponies. They smirk and ask if golf isn’t that game where everyone insists on wearing strawberry and chartreuse slacks, and a single glove like Michael Jackson.
I tell ‘em it’s a bit like Zen archery, and in its pure form, requires the same discipline. That generally shuts ‘em up, although I doubt they believe me. As for inclemencies, I once heard it put this way. When there’s nae wind, and nae rain, there’s nae golf. Tiger’ll be fine, once he grows accustomed to the lack of pixie dust.
Unfortunately, the social choke-hold on the game was really applied in this country, and then it was turned into a corporate moveable feast.
As you know, W.T., the Scottish game is still played on public ground. You can (for a very fine fee) play most of the British Open courses.
Anyway, blah blah. As I say, I walk out to the first tee and see who’s there. I don’t ask about ideology or sociology. Just as you hit good shots and bad shots (usually more bad than good), you meet people you like and respect as players and as people. Or you don’t. Just another “slice” of life, if you’ll pardon the pun.
About your archery image, I once talked to a guy in a pro shop about some clubs I was interested in. I told him how long I’d been playing and said I could still get into the 70s if I played for two or three days straight. We joked about all the chatter about equipment and today’s freak clubs and get-ups, marketed and sold to average golfers. And he said: “Well after all, it’s the Indian not the arrow, isn’t it?”
As I tried to say up top, using the Tiger scandal as a hook, the game, shorn of the rubbish strewn about by people who don’t know it, is exquisite. It’s a never-ending challenge; and it is, playing within the rules, a test of character, where you find quite a bit of philosophy you can use.
Hogan was a pure product of the game, an ordinary man who became great at what he did.
If Tiger were a basketball player or shortstop for the Dodgers, nobody would be the least bit shocked that he was corrupted by the fame and money. We expect it of certain athletes of certain bourgoise games. But to sully the sport of golf? How dare he.
Let’s face it, golf is the last of the elite WASP refuges, a “sport” that didn’t break the “color” barrier and still has few minorities that rise to the top. How dare the first mixed race star sully the sport.
For me, his story is just another addiction story. Same disease, different drug of choice.
Just trying to talk about a game.
Thanks, Retz …
Oh, I totally appreciate your feelings about golf, dirigo. My brother was a caddie and plays with a 7 handicap, my first ex-husband was a scratch golfer, and when I moved to North Carolina, where they play golf practically year-round, I took up golf just to be able to spend time with my then-husband.
My first bag of clubs was donated from my then new mother-in-law: a set of Ben Hogan women’s irons, a driver, a three wood and a five wood (which were actually wood).
After it finally stopped raining the first month we lived in soggy, green Asheville, I submitted to golf lessons from my 3-handicap husband. Not a good idea.
Not only did I have clubs just a few notches above the Flintstones, I didn’t have spikes or the right clothes, and was tossed a few cut or scuffed balls from the bulging pockets of my groom’s golf bag to use during our matches, as he mumbled, “Don’t lose those!”
We played in a golf league together that year. I was only one of two women. Evidently some other poor schmuck was stuck with his wife, too. After the first few rounds I was granted a 30 handicap. This was their first big mistake, but hey, I don’t make the rules.
Toward the end of the season, several of my opponents watched me like a hawk, convinced I was cheating when I would par a hole or two-putt on the green when they routinely overshot the hole. It was really my short game that killed them. While I had very little power off the tee, I could chip and putt fairly well, which I attribute to a particular finesse I acquired from years of tennis, croquet, badminton and wiffle ball games in the backyard. Never underestimate a woman with athletic genes!
We won the league.
Only days before the banquet in September, the committee that organized the league had to make a last-minute change to the trophies. Someone had to run out and buy a new trophy for me with a girl on the top. The buzz around the office was that I was the first woman to win the league in its proud (and now sullied) twenty-year tradition.
I’ll see you on the first tee. At the muni.
Wear jeans. Bring a pair of gloves with your windbreaker, and your beat-up “Lady Hogans”.
Being late in the season, I try to lose all my old balls; and they stay dirty because the ball washers have been put in storage.
We’ll make do.
My golf clubs were stolen out of my garage 6 years ago when I lived in a townhouse with a “shared” garage space. Along with my pull cart, my favorite putter of all time, and my modern graphite “woods”. I still played with most of the Lady Hogans.
My sister and her husband own a century-old golf shop (family biz) in Chicago, so I suppose I could have her replace my set with something pretty economical, but I never quite recovered from the loss and I have been playing tennis instead.
Tennis is good.
Suggested reading …
http://www.thedailybeast.com/beast-board/item/1214/gerald-posner/book/?cid=hp:buzzboardpick2