Last Sunday (July 22nd) was my wife’s birthday and she was presented with the wonderful gift of a third granddaughter. It is hard to fathom that they are born on the same day and separated by 39 years. Well my wife has been 39 years old and in a holding pattern for the last few years and if it makes her happy so be it.
Our granddaughter entered the world around 6.45am weighing in at 7lbs 12oz which was apparently a routine birth, and therefore I assumed my day would progress according to plan watching the final round of The Open at Royal Lytham & St.Annes. I was obviously naïve. My wife was running around like a banshee preparing to drive down to the hospital to visit her new granddaughter, and I was carried along in the wake created by her effervescent mood.
Not to worry; I decided to record the final round in the faint hopes of not knowing the result before I could return home. Anyone remember the episode of The Likely Lads with Terry and Rodney attempting to avoid a result of a football match in order to watch recorded highlights later that evening?
My plan proved to be very successful for several hours during our visit until we popped into a Mexican restaurant to buy a takeaway lunch for my stepson who had been holed up in the hospital for several hours and was now ravenous. On our return, he eagerly announced that “Ernie Els won!”
The question is did Ernie Els win The Open or did Adam Scott lose it? Ernie shot a final round of 68 while Scott shot 75. More to the point, Scott was leading the tournament by 4 shots, but proceeded to bogey the last four holes. More than any other sport, golf challenges a man’s psyche. It provides an insight into how man can deal with adversity, triumph, disaster in a blink of an eye. Typically, with a few exceptions, majors are won by great players capable of handling intense pressure. When the going gets tough; the tough get going which is my single cliché allowed today.
If we discount Scott Hamilton, Ben Curtis, Stewart Cink, and Trevor Immelman (who?) very good players earn a sumptuous living plying their trade on the various tours away from the media spotlight which brings me to another of my pet peeves. Luke Donald and Lee Westwood are ranked Number 1 and 3 in the world respectively, but have not won a major between them. Tournaments around the world are taken into consideration when the rankings are prepared, but who cares whether Donald or Westwood won the Malaysian Open on their way to exalted positions in the rankings?
English players irritate me. Underachievers like Rose, Casey, Poulter, Westwood and Donald are liable to shoot a good final round when they are no longer in contention and the pressure is off. The most recent example is Luke Donald. He never really threatened to win The Open but finished joint fifth with a final round of 68.
On day when ESPN should have been concentrating on the main sports stories in the shape of the final round of The Open, the forthcoming London Olympics, their breaking news headline for several hours revolved around the removal of the statue of former Penn State Head Coach, Joe Paterno. He failed to do the right thing when his former assistant Jerry Sandusky sexually abused at least 45 male college students over a considerable period of time.
Sandusky was deservedly found guilty of the crimes and will be suitably punished, but Paterno conveniently passed away in January. However the main concern for talking heads in America is whether Paterno’s legacy is tarnished, and not how the lives of several Penn students were psychologically damaged.
We really need to get our priorities in order.
