The Masters
I don't watch much golf on television. This is perhaps because I don't play golf. I tried once, and it was predictably slapstick. My father and both grandfathers played golf, but they never took me out, so now I'm limited to playing LinksPro on the computer.
For some reason I ended up watching almost the entire final day of The Masters on Sunday. It was a lazy day, and golf on television is almost like white noise--you can do all sorts of things while it's on, whether it's paying bills, cleaning up around the house, or doing a crossword puzzle. The hushed announcers' voices are like lullabies, and if you stare at the set and imagine yourself in the lush sylvan surroundings, you find yourself in a nap in no time.
I watched, though, and stayed awake, despite the fact that it was some god-awful golf going on. The winner was Trevor Immelman, a boyish-looking South African who'd I'd never heard of before. This was huge news because it was not Tiger Woods, who is now expected to win every tournament he is in, and because every sportswriter in the world, along with CBS, the network that covers the Masters as if it were a mass by the Pope, was waiting with breathless anticipation that this was the year Woods would win the Grand Slam, which no one has ever done.
Woods is manna for golf, because he is such a huge personality. I root against him, though. I have nothing against him personally, he seems like he'd be okay to live next door to, but rooting for him is like rooting for Exxon. He's got the money, the girl and the fame, so I'd rather root for the underdog. So I yipped with joy on Immelman's good shots and on Woods embarrassingly short putt misses.
The coverage of golf on television is like a relic, and the Masters is the quaintest. They have a tight hold on who covers them--CBS's Jack Whitaker once made a slightly irreverant comment and was banished, and ESPN's bumptious Chris Berman didn't show up this year, and he sniffs out big sports events like a pig after a truffle. Instead we get Jim Nantz, who is certainly the right guy for the job because to listen to him the result of this match is the most important thing in human history, and Woods is some sort of demi-god. And I'll take golfers seriously as athletes when they don't grouse at cameras clicking during their back-swing. Can you imagine David Ortiz shushing a Yankee Stadium crowd when he's up to bat?
I watch a lot of golf on TV, and like you I tend to root against Tiger. But I thought Sunday was not very exciting for the same reason that watching Tiger is usually not very exciting - it was one guy playing with a big lead that no one was seriously challenging.
ReplyDeleteImmelman's not well known, of course, but he's not as out of nowhere as last year's winner, Zach Johnson (although even Johnson had a previous tour victory on his resume). Immelman's had some success internationally, and has also won a couple of times, if I'm not mistaken, here in the US. He's a guy who most analysts thought was bound to break through at some point, although the tenets of sports commentary holds that those same analysts must act surprised when he does.