There\u2019s no shame in being a bad golfer. I\u2019m pretty bad, too.<\/p>\n
But a clueless golfer is something else. Most bad golfers understand why they\u2019re bad. They accept that golf is hard and admire anyone who makes it look easy. If you\u2019re berating Rory McIlroy loudly enough to require a squadron of state troopers, something is missing. You don\u2019t grasp how precise a player needs to be in that environment. Either you don\u2019t know the game, or you don\u2019t really care. When it comes to golf, you\u2019re clueless.<\/p>\n
I have no data to support the theory that the worst offenders at Bethpage Black either don\u2019t play golf or don\u2019t understand it. It\u2019s just a hunch. When asked on Sunday, McIlroy said it was telling that the shouts from the stands\u2014insults about the Europeans\u2019 families, their weight, reminders of the most painful moments of their careers\u2014were not for the Americans but against Europe. There\u2019s a version of this in the golf the rest of us play: the people who hope an opponent tops a ball into the water, or complain about not being given a putt because they don\u2019t want to risk missing. Everyone\u2019s there to win, but these are the players who don\u2019t really want to play the game. <\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t about some outdated ideal of decorum, but a reminder that golf humbles. Play the game enough and it can expose you so thoroughly that you\u2019ll want to spare others the same humiliation. If golfers are reluctant to declare themselves better than anyone else, it\u2019s because there\u2019s always trouble lurking. (Also, I have a rule against insulting any man\u2019s wife, let alone a man who can hit it 350 with a draw).<\/p>\n
I am on the side that golf is too stuffy and golfers are too sensitive. In other sports, we cheer missed free throws and taunt opposing goalies, but in golf we tread cautiously because of the damage golfers can inflict on themselves. The Ryder Cup is an opportunity to test the boundaries. That it creates the same energy as other sports is a big part of its appeal. When Keegan Bradley appeared before dawn on Friday to rile up the Bethpage Black fans, he wanted them to galvanize his players and even rattle their opponents. The raucous energy was expected and would have been fun. But when Bradley\u2019s players fell flat, the mood turned sinister. Maybe a closer contest would have elicited the same response. But in the absence of competition for most of the weekend, it\u2019s clear some sought to score points any way they could.<\/p>\n
You are free to criticize the Americans\u2019 performance on the course, but it doesn\u2019t register on the embarrassment scale compared to what emanated from the stands. Others will note how the behavior this weekend reflected the larger culture, how we\u2019ve become crasser and less civil. Among mental health experts, there is frequent discussion of how people are less empathetic, perhaps owing to the time spent online, and how it detaches us from reality. That\u2019s a bigger problem to tackle, but it ties to my theory. You can\u2019t play this game without developing an appreciation for how painful and challenging it can be. It\u2019s not about who you cheer for, or how. It\u2019s recognizing the game is plenty demanding even in perfect silence. You can call that empathy. I call it understanding golf.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no shame in being a bad golfer. I\u2019m pretty bad, too. But a clueless golfer is something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-180173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}