Tuesday, September 28, 1999
Spontaneous Ryder reaction
was one hip, hip hooray
By Kevin B. Blackistone
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — As his mother, Lois, looked on, Ditto Flagston
pretended in last Sunday's comics to kick what would be a title-winning
field goal through jerry-built uprights he and a friend erected
in the back yard.
“There are only three seconds left!” Ditto announced.
“The whole season comes down to this last kick!”
He made his approach and kicked.
“It's up! It's through the uprights!” Ditto exclaimed.
“We win the championship!” said his friend.
Staring at the unsightly uprights, mom asked expectedly, “Isn't
it traditional to tear down the goal post after the final victory?”
The answer, of course, is yes. Just as it was anticipated that
the Texas Rangers would shower each other with champagne on Sunday
upon winning the American League West. Just as it was expected
the Stars would do something silly with the Stanley Cup, like
tossing it off a balcony.
Unbridled, if not choreographed, enthusiasm in the wake of
winning the big one is something we expect in sports. It's what
the “Wide World of Sports” ital) used to tease us with
every weekend, “The thrill of victory.”
It's also remained something rarely seen in the uppity game
of golf, a contest that has preferred to celebrate self-control
and self-restraint, instead. It's a game where the winner has
been expected to offer a tip of the hat, if he or she sported
one. Otherwise, it's expected to simply wave to a crowd applauding
with all the raucous of library patrons witnessing the expulsion
of a noisemaker.
Whoopee.
All that from practitioners of a game who claim to take it
so passionately that they refer to their desire to play golf as
an affliction, just like love.
On Sunday, we for once witnessed some golfers and their fans
react not like a bunch of automatons, but like humans who actually
had a pulse. How refreshing. It looked as natural and unrehearsed
as it was, no doubt, troubling to the Mr. and Mrs. Manners of
the game.
There was Justin Leonard, having just sunk a dig-out-from-the-grave,
go-ahead 45-foot putt for the U.S. Ryder Cup team, running around
like Jim Valvano after N.C. State upset Houston for that college
basketball championship. Leonard thrust his arms skyward, holding
his putter in one hand while attempting to high-five a marshal
with the other. There came his teammates, as well as wives and
girlfriends, swarming him like we've seen baseball teams do a
pitcher who's just thrown a no-hitter.
Leonard and his U.S. teammates violated every rule of golf
etiquette, especially given that European team player Jose Maria
Olazabal was on the green trying to line up a 30-foot putt to
tie.
“Sad to see,” said Olazabal after missing. “It
was an ugly picture.”
From here, however, it looked like someone on the links was
actually enjoying the game for once. It made for one of most-memorable
moments of this sports year.
It also was what so many pleaded for from the Americans before
this Ryder Cup, too. When David Duval and Tiger Woods suggested
it was high time team members were paid to play the match game,
they were criticized for being greedy and questioned about their
patriotism. The critics wanted to know why the pair just couldn't
play for the love of country. They wanted to know where the pair's
passion was. Now, they know.
Although Leonard and teammates apologized profusely for their
behavior after Olazabal missed and they won, golf shouldn't suffer
from it. Quite the opposite, it ought to benefit.
The Victorian Era passed some time ago, and golf would be wise
to leave some of its do's and don'ts, manners and rules of decorum
with it. That doesn't mean that it should let its players sport
shorts and sleeveless T-shirts to show off their tattoos, but
there would be nothing wrong with allowing them to let their hair
down now and then so audiences realize they're just like them.
Among the reasons, for example, Tiger Woods has attracted so
much more interest to the game is his outward enthusiasm for it.
The pump of his fist after sinking a big putt. His accompanying
scream of exhilaration. A little natural animation never hurt
anyone, save one-time Washington quarterback Gus Frerotte, who
celebrated a touchdown by head-butting a stadium wall, injuring
himself.
Truth is, the most regrettable behavior at the 1999 Ryder Cup
came after Olazabal missed his putt, which made the U.S. team's
record come-from-behind victory official. The gallery of jingoistic
American fans stayed behind the ropes instead of, as Lois Flagston
suggested to Ditto, storming the green, assaulting the flagstick
and carrying it to the nearest drink for dunking.
(c) 1999, The Dallas Morning News.
Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
|
