For your consideration, a quick-hit summation of how dysfunctional elite men’s professional golf is right now:
Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, the two true* break-the-mold American golf stars to emerge in the years since Tom Watson won his fifth and last British Open in 1983, are not on the docket to become Ryder Cup captains anytime soon, if ever.
How bizarre is that?
(*Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau are listed here as Works in Progress. It’s getting late for Dustin Johnson.)
Phil got shelved by running afoul of the USGE, the United States Golf Establishment.
Tiger put himself on the shelf on account of (not his words) leading a life more complicated than we could ever know.
This week, we get a break from dysfunction. Here comes the British Open. Any British Open is a good one, but an Open in Scotland, our communal ancestral homeland, is better yet. Here comes the balm for what ails men’s elite professional golf. Phil Mickelson, 54, and Tiger Woods, 48, are playing this week at Royal Troon. Wouldn’t you, if you had a spot in the field? Come Thursday, nobody will be talking about LIV Golf, next year’s Ryder Cup, the TGL series, a TMRW Sports production. We’re here for the Open.
Mickelson and Woods will age out of it eventually, as all former winners do. But they have earned a guaranteed spot through age 60. Watson was 59 when he was tied for the lead through 72 holes when the Open was last at Turnberry, in 2009. If they can play, they’re going to play. They’re playing.
And so is everybody else. Jordan and Justin, old school chums. Bryson and Brooks, former combatants, now brothers in LIV. Los españoles, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm. Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, dynamic (?) Ryder Cup duo. Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington, both still capable of shooting good linksland scores. Sepp Straka from Austria and Shub Sharma from India and Sebastian Soderberg from Sweden. Stewart Cink, while we’re at it. There are 12 amateurs in the field. An amateur could win. It’s happened before.
One golfing soul will walk away as the Champion Golfer of the Year, the grandest of titles in a country that venerates them. And way beyond that, any green-blooded person at Troon this week — be that person player, caddie, fan, broadcaster, writer, constable, course worker, TV viewer and on you go from there — will be changed forever, if you let the experience wash over you. The course rests on repurposed wasteland lodged between a flat beach and a flat road. It’s nothing, really. Nothing and everything, and has been for 150 years. A round at Royal Troon gives you scores of chances to make good decisions. You’re not going to get them all correct.
God Save the Open. Sing to the tune of My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.
The problem with golf (elite men’s professional golf) is that it has become way too full of itself. This week, more than any other week of the golfing year, is a reminder of what the game — the game! — really is all about. Some menfolk in woolen hats took derelict land and turned into a beguiling course with just enough heave. As with many things, you don’t need that much.
Along those same lines, if you make money at golf, it’s a happy accident. How much do you really need? When golfers see other golfers at cocktail parties, the easiest ice-breaker is, How’s your game? Or, How you playing? Game. Playing. None of this is work.
The British Open is golf’s common ground, in every way. (Every Open course has tee times for visitor play.) There are a hundred ways to qualify for this tournament, and it comes down to this: shoot the right scores in the right places. Your job is to play by the rules, keep up, shoot the best score you can, then deposit your check. Unless you’re Gordon Sargent or one of the 11 other amateurs in the field. Gordo will get his checks soon enough. Greed is not good, especially on a links course. Tom Watson will tell you that. Five and a half Opens. Amazing. If Alfie Fyles or Bruce Edwards or Neil Oxman (Watson’s longtime caddies) ever saw a single greedy Open shot, I’d be shocked.
Watson was a Ryder Cup captain. Twice, both road games — one win, one loss. Sam Snead (winner of the Open at St. Andrews in ’46) was a Ryder Cup captain three times. Ben Hogan, one Open win, three-time Ryder Cup captain. Arnold Palmer, two Open wins, two-time Ryder Cup captain. Big Jack: three Open wins, seven seconds, two-time Ryder Cup captain. You know what you do when you finish second, in an Open or in a Ryder Cup? You find the winners, shake their hands and act like you mean it. That’s straight from the Nicklaus playbook. He has said it a thousand times. It’s not that complicated.
Somehow it all got complicated. The never-sleeping, forever-snooping eye of “social media” has not helped. The biggest complication was the PIF money bomb that got dropped on elite men’s professional golf. It revealed golf’s fault lines with ruthless efficiency.
It was bound to happen. The PGA Tour has operated with a certain underlying arrogance, and an unhealthy reliance on the star power of one player, for a long time. The conditions were ripe for LIV Golf or something like it to come in big. The LIVsters are betting there’s a place in the world for a world tour, because professional golf is played all over the world. I see no evidence of that. As all politics is local so is most sport. The World Series, baseball’s ancient best-of-seven contest to end its season each fall, is, of course, a gaudy misnomer. Golf actually has two popular international events, the Ryder Cup — and the Open Championship. The event that crowns the Champion Golfer of the Year, and touches innumerable others with its back-to-basics simplicity. Keep your golf ball under the wind and out of the bunkers, for starters.
Tiger, three-time Open winner, knows all about that. Phil does, too. For a while there, he didn’t think he’d get the celebrated moment: A Sunday night with hands on the jug. But he did, in the summer of ’13. It seems like a long time ago, but it was actually only yesterday.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
