Elementary, my dear Watson
Posted: July 18th, 2009 | Filed under: Other Sports | 43 Comments »
I used to love movies. Sure, I still like movies, but as a child, as a teenager, as a young man, I used to love them in a whole other way. A good movie, for me, was like entering another dimension or a state of hypnosis or something … and it’s almost never like that now. Time had different rules at the movies back then — a good movie would last 49 seconds, a boring scene might go on for four days. I could lose track of where I was, who was with me, what I had still to do. There was so many emotions, some which had nothing at all to do with the movie itself. I can remember the bitter dread I would feel when I realized that a movie I loved was coming close to the end. I can remember the awful harshness of blinding glare as I would walk out of the theater.
More than anything, I remember the sad instant the movie ended. The credits began to roll, and I would think, “No, the movie isn’t over. The movie can’t be over.” And all the people around would get up, move toward the exits, rushing to beat traffic or something … you could hear their shoes stepping on popcorn and squeaking on the dried glop of Coca Cola and Raisinets. And more, much more, you could hear their instant reviews. I hated that — hated it. “I thought the couple had no chemistry!” “I didn’t realize it would be that violent.” “I really liked that part in the park.”
Damn, I hated that. I can remember going on dates when she would ask me, the second the movie ended, “So what did you think of that?” … and I could never explain to her why that was like stabbing me. “Just wait until we get back to the car,” I would mutter, with probably an edge in my voice, and she would look at me like I was a crazy person, which I probably was. But I could not help it. I couldn’t talk the moment a movie ended. I couldn’t listen the moment a movie ended. I wanted — I NEEDED — a few minutes of silence, a few minutes to gather myself, to consider the ending of this dark little world I had lived in for an hour and a half or two hours, to brace myself for re-entry. I needed a few minutes to come to grips with the reality that the movie was over and life, which had been on pause, was playing again.
I almost never feel that way now. I don’t see many movies in theaters. And the movies I see — even if they are good ones — almost never seem to take me to that other place, that heightened level. Some might say this is because they don’t make movies they used to. I don’t think that’s it. I would say it’s because the older you get, the harder it is to get outside of yourself, to escape the mundane and the To Do lists and the fact that your daughter’s gymnastics class is at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither. Whatever the case, I almost never find myself in that place where I’m somewhere else, gone, another state, away from the jarring light of the moment.
Saturday, while sitting on my recliner in my basement, Tom Watson took me to that other place.
It’s funny, a sporting event has never done that for me before. Of course, I love them. But I can’t remember any event that simply swept me away like that. Maybe the hockey game in 1980. Maybe the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson fight. Maybe the 1986 ALCS Dave Henderson game. Maybe.
But maybe not. I think it’s hard for a sporting event to take you away … especially on television. I think there are three main reasons.
(1) Sporting events is that they are SO PRESENT, so NOW. They are interrupted by commercials (and apparently ABC must have a rule that they cannot show more than 9 seconds of golf between commercials). They are constantly giving you updates about sporting events in OTHER places, or news happening somewhere else in the world. They are constantly reminding you that 60 Minutes will be shown immediately following or at its regular time on the West Coast. There’s no escaping the moment.
(2) Sporting events — especially great ones — are usually smothered with hype and overstatement. That can destroy the moment. A dream would not be much of a dream if, halfway through it, an announcer shouted: “Isn’t this the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?”
(3) And then, there’s the sobering weight of reality. Truth is that even if something amazing happens in sports, something truly amazing, it almost never lasts. It often seems to me that most enduring mood of sports is anticlimax. The better team usually wins. The half-court shot almost never goes in. The Hail Mary almost always gets knocked down. The aging athlete almost always fades in the ruthless sunlight. We spend much of our time as sports fans talking about how CLOSE we came to a great story, a spectacular upset, a lifelong memory. It has to be this way, of course. Something about opposites. If David won too much, we would start rooting for Goliath.
Tom Watson on Saturday somehow was bigger than all that.
(1) The commercials — overbearing as they were — did not interrupt the flow of the day. In a weird way, they sort of heightened the mood at least for me. BMW is still selling expensive cars. People are trying to sell aluminum siding. ABC is still trying to push “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.” Everything seems normal. But it isn’t normal. Tom Watson is leading the British Open.
(2) The announcers, I thought, were stunningly UNDERSTATED considering the moment — I mean, let’s be honest here, Tom Watson is almost 60 years old. He had his hip replaced last October. He hasn’t played golf worth a damn all year. He won his last major championship more than a quarter century ago, and he has not contended for one, really contended, since long before Tiger Woods showed up.
And I will admit it, if I was an announcer I would have lost my mind in the booth. I would not have been able to stop myself. I would have been screaming every time he hit any shot at all: “Isn’t this unbelievable? I mean this has a chance to be the biggest story in the HISTORY OF SPORT. If Watson wins this, he would make Nicklaus’ emotional final Masters’ win look like a Saturday at the Greater Greensboro Open. If Watson wins this now, at Turnberry, 32 years after he beat Nicklaus here in the greatest duel in the history of golf, if he does this … ”
And then I would have fainted.
But (fortunately) the announcers did not do that … they were understated, they were contemplative, they were … well, let’s be honest, they were comatose. Half the time, I wasn’t even sure they KNEW how big a story this was. They kept talking GOLF stuff, talking about how Watson needed to drive the ball well and make his short putts … at times it seemed like like they were talking about freakin’ Brad Faxon or something. I don’t know if it was their intention or not — but this also heightened the emotion for me. Their seeming obliviousness to the moment (except for the video essays of Rick Reilly … that’s a whole other thing) somehow increased the tension and beauty of it all. They almost seemed to be saying: “Look we’re not going to make too big a deal out of this because you know and I know that it won’t last.”
(3) And that was the third part, the biggest part: Watson lasted. He was the oldest man ever to lead a golf major championship coming in Saturday — it was ALREADY a ridiculous story — and yet from his first shot there was this sense about him that he had things under control. When Greg Norman was leading the British Open last year — a great story, though not even the same volume as this one — you kind of got this feeling that after every good shot, Norman was thinking: “Wow! Isn’t that cool? Isn’t this just crazy? Where’s Chrissie? Cue cameras to show Chrissie!” And that’s human, that’s how I would feel if something that unlikely was happening to me and if I was married to Chris Evert.
But Watson had a whole different aura on Saturday. His feeling seemed to be: “You know what? People may think I’m going to fade. But after swinging this golf club a billion-shmillion times, I know what I’m doing here.” He would say after the round that he did not feel as nervous as he expected, and I think that came through the television … he looked to me like an old auto mechanic I once knew, a guy who knew everything about everything when it came to cars. That guy would look at a dead car, and no matter how bad it looked he would say, “I’ve seen worse. I’ll fix it.”
And Watson fixed it. The wind was howling. The rough was growing, almost before your eyes. Most of the best players in the world were floundering. The BEST player in the world was long gone … out on his yacht, maybe, wondering what had gone wrong. And Watson seemed surprisingly sure — he might make a bogey here and there, might hit an errant shot here and there, but he’d fix it. He’d give himself uphill putts. He’d take his medicine when he made mistakes. He’d aim for the middle of the green. He’d fix it.
And he stayed fixed in the lead the whole day. For a couple of moments, late in the round, he fell to a shot back — but then he made a bomb of a putt on No. 16. He wasn’t surprised. He’d been expecting one of those to go in. Watson has had so many putting problems through his life that the last time I saw his office in Kansas City it was still filled with putters that concerned people had sent him from all over America. But those were short putts. Tom Watson has always had the gift of making the long putt. He told me once that to make a long putt you need the imagination to see exactly how it will go in. Watson has always had a great imagination for golf.
When he birdied No. 17 to take the lead all by himself, well, there would be no anticlimax. My father once told me that there’s a saying for disappointing endings — “Dropping the curtain before the end of the show.” I don’t know if that really is a saying (never heard anyone else say it) but I like it. Dropping the curtain too early. Think how often we see that in sports — rallies that fall short, unseeded players who collapse after their big upset, Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus getting close enough to spark the roars but then, finally, melting away. That is real sports. And there was nothing real about Saturday, nothing logical about it, nothing to compare. Watson made a dead-solid par on No. 18, and he walked off the green to the cheers of wonder, and almost immediately, I was swarmed with emails and texts and Tweets from people wondering: Can he do it? Can Watson really do it? Can he really win the British Open at age 60?
But I wasn’t ready for that. I needed a little silence, I needed a few moments to consider what I had seen and to stabilize myself for the real world. Can he do it? He IS doing it, man. The movie isn’t over.
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Great post, Joe. I wasn’t going to watch, but now I have to.
Circle me…Bruce!!
He was shining on ‘ole Tommy today…
Hot damn, I’m sinking snakes tonight. Mark it, Dude.
I don’t mean to hate, and I’m sure it’s a big deal, but I can’t abide labeling any golf story as the “greatest moment in the HISTORY OF SPORT”. In the history of _activity_? Maybe. But not sport. (A 59 year old doing it kinda proves that, sorry.)
In other news, I humbly request comment on the following unbelievable scenario: in Atlanta, in the first inning, two out, man on second, the Braves just intentionally walked David Wright to get to… yes… Jeff Francoeur. (Who, naturally, obliged by grounding out.) Was that one IBB that JoePo enjoyed? Should Francoeur get at least partial credit for that walk?
This is the stuff that books and movies are made of. If he wins it will push him to even a higher legendary status in the golf world. In any case it has been great to see the master paint his masterpiece one more time.
I’m trying to imagine Tiger in contention at the 2035 Open at St. Andrews (if they keep the current five-year rotation). He’ll be the age Watson is now.
Will the ABC guys turn up the volume tomorrow now that they have An Event on their hands?
This is why sports is reality television. It’s why sports ratings are always at the top of the charts… there are real unknowns that become known before your very eyes.
And though you often know what should happen. You get moments like these where you can hope against hope itself that something unfathomable might happen.
I think the best part of it all is that it can’t be possibly happening to a better guy. To know fragments of Tom’s story — The duel, Bruce, his age, his hip, his will, his focus — and to watch this is just unreal.
As always, great read, Joe.
Great post.
Thanks Joe!
We are lucky over here in Scotland to have the BBC coverage, without advert breaks!
The tension has built all through the week with contenders falling away at all sides, but Tom Watson has stood tall the whole tournament. Today culminated in the most modest, yet self assured, interview after his round – as he says, there is something mystical about Turnberry for him. He was asked if he was trying to get his mind back to 1977. He said that, on the contrary, he has never felt more serene on a golf course than he did today; he has his game plan; and he is sticking to it.
He has five Opens in the bag already, and the pressure is on everyone else, not him. After all, how can a 59 year old, with a replaced hip, win one of the world’s premier sporting events!
I hope he can see it through tomorrow. I am sure he will have almost every golf fan (and others who don’t really follow the sport) in the world rooting for him.
I remember at St Andrew’s in 1984 watching from the stands at the 18th as Seve Ballesteros came from behind to beat him. We were all Seve fans then. However, we are all fans of Tom now!
As we say in Scotland “Go on yoursel’ big man!”
Good luck Tom!
Great post, Joe, and I’m 100% with you on the movie sentiment. I literally can’t remember the last time I saw a movie in the theater.
It seems now that things were so much simpler then(I was almost 25 when Watson last won at Turnberry), and maybe they really were; who knows…
On the commentators being understated- I don’t think it was that so much, as a deep funk setting in, because THE GREATEST HUMAN BEING EVAR(or you’d be lead to believe so by certain announcers; cough*MikeTirico*cough) was not going to be around for them to slobber over. Other than Watson, of course, they were going to actually have to learn the names of the other golfers. What a horror! And on that note, I’ll get off my soapbox by saying this- I hope the Old Man(he’s actually only 3 years older than me) goes out and crushes the rest of the field tomorrow.
I am, to put it mildly, not a golf fan. I can watch almost any sporting event, but I have never willingly flipped to a golf telecast…untill today. While I don’t like the sport, I respect the heck out of Tom Watson, and I hope he can finish this one off.
Another great post, Joe.
I actually have a Tom Watson experience.
It was the summer of ‘84 and I was working at Metcalf South mall as one of those people who stop you and try to do market research interviews.
So we’re looking for men 25-49 or whatever and I see this gentleman walking in the direction of Walgreen’s. I stop him and say do you have time for a market research interview, you get a free bottle of salad dressing.
He said sure, and I brought him to the office, where my 40ish female boss said, “Oh my God, it’s Tom Watson.”
And it was. I didn’t know who he was, since I was 18 and didn’t follow golf, but everybody else was pretty excited.
No exciting story – I showed him a bunch of pictures of Heinz salad dressing bottles and asked him which he liked best. He went along with it, got his free salad dressing, shook hands with everybody, and went about his business.
Since then I’ve always been a fan even though I still have no interest at all in golf.
The way the BBC is funded – a compulsory fee levied on all TV set owners, whether they watch the BBC or not – may be archaic, socialist, unfair, immoral, totally beyond defending . . . but there’s no doubt it leads to far superior sports commentating than commercial television provides.
I spent last night (local time) flicking between the golf and the Australia-England cricket test at Lord’s and the absence of Berman-Morgan-Phillips types, in fact anyone vaguely ESPNish, coupled with the commercial-free environment, certainly heightened the enjoyment.
So thank-you, long-suffering television licence-fee payers of the UK. Your sacrifice is not unappreciated.
Thank you Joe. I thought all afternoon that it felt like the analysts weren’t grasping the enormity of what could happen.
If Watson wins this thing it’s got to be the biggest upset in sports history.
Some of you probably know that the origin of the term upset is actually a horse named Upset who famously beat Man O’ War at Saratoga.
If this happens tomorrow we might as well retire the term and start calling unlikely results “Watsons”
Joe
One of the times in sports that produced the most joy for me was watching Tom Watson at the 2003 US Open having a magic opening round with Bruce Edwards. I can still see in my mind Edwards losing it as Tom kept on making shots. After I saw the post, I went and read chapter 15 of “Caddy For Life” that tells the story of that round in 2003. The story gave me the same chills that I experienced watching it live in 2003.
I am willing to make a deal with the Sports Gods. I will agree to support and follow the Royals for 20 more years of terrible baseball if they will help Tom win tomorrow.
“Some of you probably know that the origin of the term upset is actually a horse named Upset who famously beat Man O’ War at Saratoga.”
First time I’ve heard of this and, sorry, I’m not buying it. Bit of a discussion here . . .
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=2435
I’m so thankful that someone pointed out that golf, in his or her opinion, is not a sport. Thousands of Joe’s readers might have thought that golf was as physically tasking as the decathlon if not for this bit of insight.
Tom Watson winning tomorrow would be one of the most amazing sports stories of all time, right up there with the Miracle on Ice.
Joe – Your writing and the similar thoughts that I sometimes have along with you and many of your posters is wonderful, especially after what we witnessed in Scotland today. Oh, if we can witness more amazing history tomorrow at the same venue….Many thanks!
Great post, Joe. I was sucked in today-to the point of turning on the Wii & pulling up nickjr.com for my two daughters to occupy their time while I sat transfixed watching the Open.
Watching Tom today took me back 30 years when Watson was KC’s “fourth pro franchise”. After the round I found myself choking up watching his sit-down on ABC. Just hearing that he & “Ox” mentioned Bruce coming up 18 had me tearing up, too.
Funny, I’m 39 & every year before their respective seasons I pray that this will be the year I can renew my SI subscription to get the leather-bound “championship edition” book for the Royals or Chiefs. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever figure I’d have that same feeling about a round of golf for Tom Watson. God bless him, & here’s to this weekend & Tom’s ability to make us all feel 18 again.
I hope I can get my 7-year-old daughter to understand the magnitude of this. The last time we shared a moment of “historical” significance was watching Ric Flair’s final wrestling match @ Wrestlemania XXV. I was describing his career & how the match was going & looked down to see her bawling as he was “knocked out”. Sure, it’s wrestling, but it showed me the power of a great story. And this is a LEGENDARY story.
Go Tom, & Ox, & his family, & Bruce. I hope we all get carried away to a place we haven’t been to since we were younger tomorrow-a place where athletics comes through with more than we’d ever could have hoped or imagined. A place where the good guy wins-and carries us along for the ride.
Great post, Joe. Thanks.
The movie thing — I think it’s because the more movies you’ve seen, the harder it is for any new movie to do it to you again. Especially because so many movies are derivative of other (better) movies.
@Graphite, the BBC is partly funded by the UK TV licence – but this is not a licence to own a TV set.
You only need a licence if you actually watch live television, not to own one. Owning a TV for watching DVDs or playing video games does not require a licence.
[...] here for that reason and to chronicle the [...]
I’d say Watson has a really good chance because I am in a hotel in Portugal attending a conference and almost certainly won’t be able to watch. Damn.
Great post, Joe.
I always enjoy Joe’s columns, but in this case the “stunning” 3rd round lead posted by Mr. Watson is simply conclusive evidence (as if we needed any) that golf is just not … a real sport.
I mean, come on. In what real sport would a 59 year old man have a chance at winning a championship? Could a 59 year old win an NBA title? Lead his team to a Super Bowl win? Bring home the gold in the decathlon? Hit a home run off Tim Lincecum?
Golf is more like … well, let’s see … table tennis, maybe. Or horseshoes. Maybe Donkey Kong. There simply isn’t any athletic skill involved here.
Paul
Graphite (16) – Interesting link. I guess I have to say that the Upset over Man O’ War race popularized the term upset rather than coined it.
That snopes link details six usages of “upset” in the NY Times in the 30 years prior to the race at Saratoga.
In the 30 years after Upset’s upset there were over 33,000 usages. So it can’t be entirely urban legend.
Does golf require the skills of an athlete? I don’t believe so. But at the highest levels, it sure as hell isn’t a contest for old men. Yet Tom Watson, hip replaced and nearly 60 years old, is doing something extraordinary.
So no, it doesn’t require an athlete’s skills to excel on a golf course. But the skills that are required to execute these shots is something that only a tiny fraction of all humans alive can execute. Factor in Watson’s age, and how in the hell can anyone be motivated to exclaim “SEE? If a 59 year old can do it, its not a real sport!”
Satchel Paige pitched three scoreless innings as a 59-year-old for the Kansas City A’s in 1965.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B09250KC11965.htm
TVLicenceInfo (#21)
OK, I’ll concede a few TV set owners who can prove they watch only DVDs or videos may escape the licence fee. But someone who never watches the BBC but has a set that is capable of receiving their signal is still liable to pay.
We used to have a licence-fee system in New Zealand but so many people refused to pay that enforcement became impossible and when compliance dropped below 75% or so the fee was scrubbed.
Paul (#24)
Is golf a real sport? Of course it is.
Here’s what is not a real sport – American football.
Each team has 11 players on the field, I believe, yet they bring what looks like 80 to each game. When a team switches from attack to defence, they pull everyone off the field and send a different 11 players out there. What? That’s definitely not sport.
Get a kick at goal and out trots some guy, all togged up in kevlar, helmet on, and kicks the ball. Then off he trots. That’s all he does. Suited up to play . . . but doesn’t play, just takes the kicks. You’re not telling me he’s an athlete, a sportsman.
Coach stands on the sideline. All miked up. Has about 25 assistants, all staring at clipboards. The guys on the field don’t play the game as they see it; they carry out instructions, follow orders. That’s not sport; that’s business.
And then there’s all that body armour. Jokers plated up like Star Wars storm troopers. That’s not sport.
Game lasts about four hours . . . could be more, could be less, seemingly goes on forever. Nothing wrong with that. But in a four-hour game, some players are getting, what, three minutes. Those guys aren’t players, they’re spectators.
Take those helmets off. Get rid of the kevlar. Cut the squads down to 15 (11 on the field, four replacements). When it’s your ball, you attack; when it’s the opposition’s ball, you defend. Kick at goal? Get one of the 11 to take it.
Then you might be able to call it sport.
I’m the guy in Portugal and just want to specify that I’m not the Paul that followed a minute later with the “not a sport” line.
And, checking the wires, I think I’m glad I missed it. Though I’ll say this, I’d give a lot, at this point in my life, to still be in position to get kicked in the teeth like that at 59. I’ve no doubt that it hurts terribly for Mr. Watson, but that is the risk a competitor takes and I doubt he’d rather be the ceremonial guy everyone claps for to be nice.
But, damn.
As for you 20 somethings who don’t think “old” guys could play a “real” sport, I suggest you check out the careers of George Blanda, Gordie Howe and the aforementioned Satchell Paige.
I’m usually along with the “not a sport” folks on golf. One of the big reasons Tiger is so dominant in golf is precisely because he’s easily the best athlete on tour. You could see him as a great point guard or an all-star ballplayer. (Actually, he could probably start over any Mets infielder right now, save David Wright.)
BUT… it’s hard to figure out how to classify it otherwise. It’s not necessarily an athletically demanding game, and a big negative is that one cannot play defense. But we make an exception on that last point for stuff like track and field. It’s the most basic sport there is to line up and see who can run faster or throw farther. I’d say that golf is the line of demarcation – it’s clearly not billiards or bowling.
And this is still an amazing story. Golf is a tremendous and tremendously hard game. I don’t think it’s fair to downplay Tom Watson’s accopmlishment at Turnberry, and it would have been one of the great feats in competition had he finished it. Maybe the greatest thing about it is that everybody on the links wanted Watson to close the deal – probably even Stewart Cink – but Cink made him earn it by hitting his birdie on 18. Everyone wanted him to win it, but nobody was willing to just lose it to him. Far better for Watson to lose an honest competition than to win one because it would have been a “better story.”
Watson was amazing.
But even more amazing would be if ABC broadcast 60 Minutes!
LOL
One sporting event which certainly took me to that other place was the 2005 Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan. It was one of those games where everything else in life seems to fade and the only thing left was the final. Milan went up 3 – 0 by halftime … and insurmountable lead. They were heavily favored, and to that point in the tournament, Liverpool had largely gotten through by scoring a single goal, and then clinging to that lead by desperately defending for large segments of time. It was not exactly a scenario which engendered confidence in an exciting second half. But then it happened. During halftime, the traveling Liverpool fans serenaded their beleaguered team with “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, the team’s long time anthem. Three quick goals (by this offensively challenged team) within fifteen minutes of halftime ratcheted up the suspense. Then Liverpool’s defense amazingly held the attacking juggernaut of Milan at bay with some memorable saves (Dudek on Sheva? Dudek in the shootout) and equally memorable antics (Dudek’s crazy legs) to finally pull out the win for their fifth European trophy. It was some unbelievable stuff.
How did this otherworldly suspense build and thereby transcend the day to day grind that so invades our lives?
(1) There were no commercials. One of the reasons I love soccer (football). Other than the occasional banner near the time/score graphic (and certainly the ubiquitous billboards and corporate logos on jerseys), there is no advertising, and therefore nothing to interrupt the flow of the game. Nothing to relieve the unbelievable tension and continuous action. Nothing which leaks an ounce of suspense.
(2) Certainly there was hype around a game of this magnitude (to determine the best club team in Europe). However, AC Milan was well (and rightly) favored. As they went up 3 – 0 by halftime, the hype and tension had largely drained away. Then the underdog surged back through 45 minutes of the second half, 30 minutes of overtime (including some miracle saves), and another 10 minutes or so of a shootout. Hype was gone, replaced only by the very real emotions seen on the faces of the players, coaches, and fans of these two stories football clubs.
(3) David did really win, though it was far from convincingly. Liverpool equalized fifteen minutes into the second half, which left more than an hour of football for Milan to attack and finish them off. But Liverpool held firm. They defended, knocking surge after surge by Milan back.
Amazing. After the game ended, I was physically exhausted, emotionally spent. It was phenomenal and unforgettable.
It was a moment in time that transcended the day to day and month to month events in life. For that hour and a half the world stopped an only that unforgettable game existed.
Here’s a 3 minute summary of the game at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzG_ExXsm2M
Nightfly (32) –
Tiger’s not an athlete. He’s a specimen –whose biceps may be too big, as Johnny Miller says — but he’s not an athlete. He can’t play basketball and has never played anything but golf. His Stanford golf teammates used to have an intramural bball team in which they refused to put in the future world’s greatest golfer. So forget about your Tiger’s-great-because-he’s-the-best-athlete-on-tour theory. If that were the case, MJ would be dominating professional golf, as he promised during his NBA career, instead of slopping around the celebrity tour. In golf, as in slow-pitch softball and horseshoes, athletic ability has nothing to do with success. Tiger is, pure and simple, a phenomenal golfer.
Also, Neal D. (34) — I got lost in your tale of European soccer, as if I were in a minute and a half to two minutes of darkness. I caught something about Milan being Goliath and Liverpool being David and Dudek and Sheva and something something. But I have to say, anyone who writes that much about a soccer match must have loved it. Hang onto that memory anytime you need an escape. And then, next time, keep it to yourself.
My dad has a collection of Sports Illustrated magazines from 1983 (the year before I was born). One of them features Tom Watson, with toothy smile and Claret Jug held aloft, below the cover headline “Watson Takes the Fifth.”
Until this weekend, Watson symbolized a lost epoch of sportsmen, a time of duels with Jack, Frank Deford’s features, Ken Dryden’s cerebral goaltending, stock car racers who built their own vehicles, and gentlemen who understood that victory and defeat came each in due season. Watching Tom Watson the symbol become Watson the elite golfer again, all the while golfing serenely and confidently, was a joy I will long recollect.
Nowadays, it’s all about winning and “I… am… Number One…” as Nelly raps. This culture follows Tiger Woods wherever he goes – not to excuse his juvenile tantrums on the course, but to stress the impossible expectations put on his shoulders. Watson didn’t contend with it to such a heightened degree. Tom surprised me by praising Tiger in his emotional post-playoff presser, but it makes sense from that angle.
Tom Watson the competitor hated that he lost, especially standing over one of the 8-foot putts that have bedeviled him for so long. But part of him is glad that he won’t have all the otherwordly attention, the camera crews, the magazine profiles that would have gone with his sixth Open Championship. He’d rather go back to living from within.
If Watson had drained the 8-footer yesterday, would it really be the “biggest story in the HISTORY OF SPORTS”? Just a tad hyperbolic perhaps? We’re talking about the genteel game of golf after all. But just off the top of my head … Jesse Owens winning gold medals in front of Hitler/Nazis in ‘36? USA beating USSR at Lake Placid in ‘80?
I know golf is a “different” sport, requiring specific skill sets. Hey, I love it and very little gives me more pleasure than making incremental improvements on the greens. But c’mon. It’s tremendous surge in popularity over the past 15 years lends mostly to marketing (Tiger Woods+Nike) and money-chasing media outlets (ESPN). And what remains a mystery to me is that Tiger Woods can be named AP Male Athlete of the Year FOUR TIMES but I’ve never seen him run. Or jog. Or jump. Or execute a high five seamlessly with his clubs mule.
I used to LOVE going to the movies, so much so that it almost wouldn’t matter what was on the screen. I loved lining up for blockbuster releases hours before the show, the smell of over-buttered popcorn in the lobby, the struggle to find contiguous seats, the anticipation of the lights dimming before the show, the inane ‘don’t litter’ or ‘don’t talk’ commercials the theaters showed…
Anyhow, my love for the movie experience has palpably declined since I hit my early 20s. And until I read your four paragraphs here, I haven’t been able to put my finger on why. Thank you for that.
First a disclaimer: I am not anti-American. Far from it – I live the sort of life that someone in rural northern California might live. In view of post #29 and the following I thought I’d better put that in.
Americans need to be reminded from time to time that they are part of the world, not THE world. The Phillies are world champions? Only in America. Same goes for the Lakers and the current American football champs . . . only in America. When other countries put on a world championship they tend to throw the competition open to the world. On the same point, that “shot heard around the world” is really the “shot heard from coast to coast”.
MikeC – no one outside of the USA gives a rat’s about that 1980 ice hockey game. No one. On the other hand, golf is pretty much global. So had Watson won, it would have been bigger. Way bigger. Go along with Jesse Owens though.
Nightfly – “and a big negative is that one cannot play defense” reinforces my point about American football. If you play defence only or offence only you’re not a sportsman, you’re a tradesman. I would say golfers play defence; every time they lay up instead of going for the flag they’re playing defence.
Todd — the Liverpool-Milan game was big, globally big, bigger than any superbowl, bigger than any world series. I don’t like soccer; wouldn’t watch more than half an hour of it a year. But I can recognise that it is THE world game; played everywhere.
Todd – you should pick the bugs out of your oatmeal before you eat it; it may improve your humor.
I have seen guys far less coordinated and fit than Tiger who were completely helpless at a sport until they got the necessary practice to get better, and then they quickly progressed. Tiger’s focus isn’t there, that’s all. If he set his mind to some other athletic pursuit he’d get a lot better at it than the average person, I assure you. Had he focused on it from youth the way he focused on golf he would probably be professional grade. He has the physical gifts, especially the coordination, and he definitely has the drive.
As far as MJ – I never said that athleticism is the *only* requirement, only that it gives Tiger a great advantage over the other golfers on tour. Jordan apparently lacks some of the other necessities that make a good golfer great – shot selection and certain club techniques and such.
Neal – that was a great story. Next time don’t force Todd to read the whole thing.
Graphite – good point. I hadn’t thought of shot selection as analogous to defense. To me, defense is someone else getting in your way somehow: returning your serves or breaking up your passes. Maybe I’m a little biased as a goalkeeper.
Graphite & nightfly –
Thanks for responding to Todd’s nonsense in a polite way. I was going to respond to him myself, but there is no way I would have been that genteel about it.
One more observation about American football: its proponents love to tell you how much more action there is in a FB game than in a baseball game. The fact of the matter is, according to several studies, that the ball is in play for more time in a baseball game than it is in a FB game. Not to mention the fact that when the ball is not in play in baseball, things are still happening relevant to the game (baserunners, defensive positioning, etc.). When the ball is not in play in football, it’s just a bunch of guys standing around talking to each other and/or waiting for instructions from the sideline.
And I am absolutely in agreement with the observation about all the platooning in football. Graphite’s observation about being a tradesman, not a sportsman, is spot on.
[...] 20 July UPDATE: I reread both Poz and whitlock’s pieces on Tom. I may have been a bit harsh on Poz, but it was still disappointing his better writing about Tom on his blog. [...]
What I find galactically weird is the notion that a golfer is not an athlete because he would be poor at basketball, football, baseball and so on and so on, any other sport you care to name.
That same argument could be levelled at every athlete, in every sport. “Can’t call Yao Ming an athlete; he’d be hopeless swinging a bat” . . . “Albert Pujol’s no athlete; put him in a swimming pool and he’d drown” . . . ” Michael Phelps is no athlete; put him on a soccer field and he’d get lost” . . . “Pele was no athlete; he’d lose twenty balls playing nine holes of golf.”
That sort of thinking can be put alongside “That carpenter’s no tradesman; he had to get an electrician in to wire his house” . . . “That doctor’s a quack; he refused to fix my teeth” . . . “That maths professor’s a fraud; he can’t sing a note.”