The Debatable Land

Onwards and upwards to the Ryder Cup!

OK, one more golf comment... No-one anticipated Europe's crushing victory at Oakland Hills in 2004 and precious few more thought that the 2006 edition of the Ryder Cup at the K Club in Ireland would also end ina European blow-out victory. Time after time hotly fancied American sides have been found wanting even if the rankings and, perhaps, common sense suggest they should have won. Why?

Well, Padraig Harrington's remarks today give credence to one powerful explantion for this success: european golfers care about the Ryder Cup much more than their American counterparts do. This isn't a universal rule of course, after all Kenny Perry, for one, made making the US team his primary goal for the year. Nonetheless, I suspect he is the exception that proves the rule. It was significant that Harrington turned to Ian Poulter, just before he was due to lift the Claret Jug, and said that this was a fine week for european golf that had ensured the pair of them would, barring disaster or injury, be playing in the Ryder Cup at Valhalla in September. If you wanted to pinpoint team spirit, this is the sort of thing you would look for.

Of course Americans want to make the Ryder Cup team, but I'm not convinced any American winner this week would have talked about the Cup in his victory speech, let alone congratulated a rival for having made the team. Equally, I guess that if you polled the top 30 Americans and leading 30 european golfers at the start of the season and asked them what their goals for the year were, I'd bet rather more europeans than Americans would ltell you that making the Ryder Cup was in their top three ambitions for the season.

On which note, it's about time the American press stopped treating supposedly "no-name" european golfers (eg, Philip Price or David Howell or any one of a number of euros you might consider) as hicks lucky to be on the same course as the great talents stocking the US team. It's matchplay and anything, rather wonderfully, can happen. Or, to put it another way, the British press tends not to be so casually insulting of American golfers about whom little is known on the eastern side of the Atlantic...

All that being the case, I expect that the law of averages would suggest an American victory in Kentucky this September...

Congratulations Padraig!

So the old Claret Jug is staying in Ireland for another year. The list of people since 1945 who have retained the Open Championship is: Bobby Locke, Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods. You can add Padraig Harrington to that list. A remarkable feat, achieved in testing conditions on two of the toughest courses (Carnoustie and Birkdale) on the Open rotation. His five wood from 272 yards to within five feet at the 17th was a shot of exquisite class, worthy of winning a championship.

Considering that he contemplated withdrawing from the Open on account of a wrist injury, Harrington's feat is all the more remarkable. What with Tiger's triumph at Torrey Pines, the old maxim of "beware the injured golfer" has never been more apposite.

I supopse some will say that Greg Norman "choked" once again. But that's a needlessly harsh judgement. Yes, he let another 54 hole lead slip but, at 53, this was a different, sui generis, case. In any case, Harrington played so well that Norman would have had to play equally well to have prevailed. And, after three spectacularly good rounds, it was not entirely surprising that he might regress towards the mean today. Instead, as I suggested earlier today, we should celebrate what he achieved this week, not dwell upon the fact that he came up just a little bit short.

But what a great tournament! A reminder that, when played in testing conditions, there's nothing better, in golfing terms, than links golf.

UPDATE: Fairness demands that I acknowlege that Gene Wochiekowski and Damon Hack have each written good pieces today. Norman's effort was terrific and it's good to see that each absolves him of "choking" on this occasion.

Shark Attack

American golf writers are a rum bunch. Here, for instance, is Damon Hack, late of the New York Times and currently berthed at Sports Illustrated:

Norman could be on the verge of turning the sports world upside down and righting a dozen wrongs from his career. A Norman win would arguably top Tiger Woods's U.S. Open triumph from a month ago, and it might even surpass Jack Nicklaus's 1986 Masters triumph at age 46. Nicklaus hadn't won a major in six years when he shot 30 in the gloaming on the back nine at Augusta National and won his 18th professional major title. Norman, seven years older than Nicklaus was then, hasn't won a major in 15 years.

Arguably better than Tiger at Torrey Pines? This is madness: there's no comparison. Surpass Nicklaus in 1986? Why, yes it would. Nicklaus's storming back nine at Augusta (to beat, inter alia, Norman) was startling but it has nothing on this. As for Woods? Yes, he was injured but World's Greatest Golfer Wins Tournament He Was Favourite to Win doesn't seem quite as extraordinary as Norman's Second Coming.

Then again, American golf writers can't shake the suspicion that Norman is a choker. And there's no greater insult than that, in their eyes. It's un-manly to choke. Hence the determination to remember Norman for his loss at Augusta in 1996. Yes, he shot a 78 that day and yes it was a startling collapse. But there should be some credit apportioned to Nick Faldo who went round in 67 that day.

Anyway, cataloguing Norman's failures is an exercise of questionable utility: it's not his fault that Larry Mize chipped in from 40 yards or that Bob Tway holed a bunker shot at the 72nd hole to snatch  USPGA title away from Norman. Those titles were pilfered from him through little fault of his. There's only so much you can control yourself.

In any case, in the last 30 years only five players have won the greatest major of them all more than once. They are Tom Watson, Severiano Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods and, yes, Greg Norman. Perhaps it is not a complete coincidence they are the five best golfers since 1980. (Granted, all this may need to be looked at again if Padraig Harrington is crowned Champion Golfer of the year again this afternoon, but still...)

But, look: if Norman loses today it does not "reinforce" the notion that he's a choker. This is a glorious one-off that doesn't have much bearing on anything that has happened before. It's something that just needs to be enjoyed for what it is and nothing more or less than that. Or, to put it another way, it isn't going to be the end of Greg Norman's world if he loses today. But what he has done is remind us what a wonderful golfer he was. That's enough.

PS: Please, let's also hear nothing more of this American nonsense about putting an "asterisk" next to this year's winner on the grounds that Tiger Woods ain't competing. In any case, I'm far form convinced that a fully-fit Tiger would be in the final group today. Of course hes the greatest golfer of our time, but that's not to say that he's necessarily the greatest bad weather golfer of the moment.

UPDATE: Commenter Tommy says "but Norman is a choker". Well, sure, he didn't win as many majors as his talent warranted. Five or six would have been a better return. But I suppose I prefer to remember people for what they did, rather than for what they didn't. Equally, I dislike the brash, aggressive tinge to some current golf journalism that writes off players as "failures" and "chokers" simply because they haven't achieved everything they might have. There's an unpleasant boorishness to some of it that comes close to bullying. (Yes, rick Reilly, you're one of the prime offenders.) You know, the sort of stuff along the lines of, "So and So has done nothing for me..." as though that were the player's primary responsibility?

Golf interlude

I was part of the team covering the 1999 Open for Scotland on Sunday - that's the tournament you all remember more for Jean van de Velde's collapse than for Paul Lawrie's victory - and what I remember most from that week was how much the pros whinged about the way Carnoustie had been set up. It affronted their sense of themselves. They had a point in as much as the fairways were narrow, the rough had been watered and a tough course had been protected against benign conditions. But they still whinged, forgetting that they were playing, as they do in every competition, the course not the other golfers. Also, of course, the links was the same for everyone. Davis Love III sneered that the championship got the winner it deserved (ie, the unheralded Lawrie) without ever realising how right he was...

And so there has been much moaning about Birkdale today. Not that the course is unfair, merely that the conditions don't allow one to play golf. For instance, here; ESPN's Gene Wojciechowsi:

"Can't wait to go home," said [American. Ed.] Pat Perez, who looked like someone had sprayed him down with a fire hose. "Be there [Friday] night. I might go out tonight." Perez, who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., shot 82. It's not as if he's a stiff; he's ranked 54th in the world and already has made more than $1 million this year on the PGA Tour. But Thursday's merciless conditions (gale-force winds, highs in the 50s, rain) didn't care about rankings or reputations..."I got to the point where I didn't care," Perez, who has a history of running hot, said. "It doesn't happen often, but I got to that point where you fight, fight, fight, and you know you just don't have a chance.

"I don't think it's golf at all, to be honest with you. I don't see it as golf. It's blowing 40 [mph]. My hands are so cold and everything is soaked. You can't hold on to the club. I don't see that as golf. They do here, but I don't."

Yeah, well, "they" are right. This is golf, matey. Get used to it. And in any case, one has seen it much worse than this. And it is always excellent when it's like this. Or worse.