Thought for the Day:
Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened
With a whimper, not a bang
Considering that one of the most important attributes for any sports person is that of timing, almost none of the greats get the timing of their retirement right. In golf, there are only two who quit while they were ahead and it now looks odds on that Tiger Woods will not join them. When he limped out of the Farmers Insurance Open, no longer able to swing a club and barely, it appeared, able to walk, it signified the end of a great career. A terse statement on his website which said that he was withdrawing from tournament golf for the foreseeable future has been updated with one saying he will return and added: ‘I am committed to getting back to the pinnacle of my game.’ The number of people who think that this is possible seems to start and end with one.
Some years ago that wise and prescient American writer Dan Jenkins said of Tiger’s ambition to beat Jack’s record of 18 majors: ‘The only things that can stop him are a bad marriage or injury.’ Never one to do things by half, Tiger has succumbed to both.
One of the many attributes Tiger has shown in his career, and initially the most exciting element of his game, was the ferocious, almost savage intensity with which he attacked the ball, especially with a driver in his hand. It was thrilling to watch and the results were so often of a quality that would take your breath away. But that same violence has proved to be the man’s undoing and a body that has been pushed beyond reasonable limits for many years now is just giving up. Tiger is only 39 but he famously started swinging a golf club at the age of two, so that’s a lot of years of physical stress.
Incidentally, the only two champion golfers to get it right were Bobby Jones and Byron Nelson. Jones, of course, did what no golfer has managed before or since and won all four majors (for which he was eligible to compete) in a single season and then walked away, at the age of 28. Nelson, who always found the tension of competition stressful, was happy to leave tournament golf at the age of 34, as soon as he had enough money to buy the farm he and wife Louise craved.
Here in Britain one of the greatest jockeys who has ever lived, Tony McCoy, has just announced that he will hang up his riding boots in April. He said: ‘I wanted people to ask why I was retiring, not why I wasn’t retiring.’ He is one of the very few, alongside Jones and Nelson, to end his career on a high.
It doesn’t look as if Tiger’s name will be added to that short list.
Unfair and unwarranted
The R&A, and its outgoing chief executive Peter Dawson, have come in for considerable, and considerably ill-advised criticism for their decision to end the BBC’s monopoly of the Open Championship. From 2017 it will be shown live on Sky and the Beeb will have a two hour evening highlights programme.
But the writing has been on the wall for some time. In May 2012 we wrote here: ‘A bit of news that should bother us all is that the BBC is losing the rights to cover all golf except the Open and two days of The Masters. It recently showed the BMW PGA from Wentworth but that’s going, and so too the Barclays Scottish Open from Castle Stuart.
We went on to say: ‘More worryingly, at a press conference a few weeks ago, Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, said of the Beeb: “They have to keep up with the advances in technology in broadcasting, and they know we’ve got our eye on that for sure.” The BBC’s current contract to screen The Open runs until 2016 but I interpret Dawson’s words to mean, in effect: If you’re not regularly showing golf, you cannot keep up to date with how to best do it. And the result of that would be to lose the contract. It is a significant shot across the bows but one wonders if the BBC has the financial muscle any more to respond.’
And in passing I think it should be noted that Dawson and his negotiators not only got a significantly increased pot of money, which will be distributed throughout the game, but also persuaded Sky to limit its advertisement slots to four minutes per hour.
Like most people I regret that the BBC can no longer afford to cover these flagship events but that’s not the fault of Peter Dawson and the R&A.
Lest we forget
The European Ryder Cup captain for 2016 was announced this week, and after being the strong front runner it’s Darren Clarke. Two years ago Darren wrote a letter supporting the candidacy of his friend Paul McGinley. He then did an about turn and decided to put his own name into the mix. When it became clear that he didn’t have a great deal of support he withdrew but if that volte face wasn’t enough to stick a knife in the ribs of McGinley, he then publicly endorsed the unrealistic aspirations of Colin Montgomerie, on the spurious grounds that Europe needed a captain with ‘huge presence’. Monty was never going to get the nod and it was extraordinarily dim to think he stood a chance.
In my view the betrayal of a former friend should debar Clarke from being even considered as a possible captain but memories are short.
Quote of the Week
Too much ambition is a bad thing to have in a bunker
Bobby Jones