If you have been frequenting this space for long enough, you might know that at one stage yours truly had a golf hole in the back garden. You are probably wondering how in the name of God does he hit a golf ball in the wheelchair?
Very simply. Take the arm rests out and the foot plates off and then belt the ball as hard as I bloody well can! A couple of relations being heavily involved in the sport stoked interest too.
Other than that, the lure to the sport for me was the same as for most people, seeing footage of legends like Seve Ballasteros and Christy O’Connor Jnr and Ian Woosnam and Bernhard Langer.
Until, that is, a young lad by the name of Woods – Eldrid Tont ‘Tiger’ Woods – was spotted in what I think was 1995. Like probably millions of others, seeing what he was doing on golf courses – then aged 15 as far as can be recalled – hooked a whole new generation to the sport, just as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player had done in the past.
Immediately somebody will no doubt say it’s an unrealistic comparison give how much has changed in terms of the demographics of the game and the equipment therein, but, for me, that only magnifies the greatness of the stars of yesteryear. Naturally, I am not of a vintage to remember the Golden Bear or Arnie or Player in their playing days but I would put it to anybody that from, say, 1997 to 2002, Tiger in his pomp would have put it up to any of them if not surpassed them.
But then, as we all know, it all went astray for Woods – pun entirely intended – and so the door was left ajar for somebody to step forward and be the new flag bearer for the sport. Thankfully, from an Irish perspective the sport didn’t have to look too far for the individuals in question. It can probably be traced back to Paul McGinley’s sinking of the winning putt in the Ryder Cup. From there, you had Padraig Harrington garnering three Majors, Graeme McDowell and Darren Clarke also claiming some of the four top gongs before Shane Lowry began his ascent which is still very much in progress.
No, I haven’t forgotten Rory. The very least he deserves is a paragraph or three to himself. Especially as the stars aligned in such a way that he was next in line to step up to the plate wh offside for Tiger.
And, just as the latter had become the yardstick by which all hers are judged. Likewise, when McIlroy was at his zenith – circa 2012-2014 – he was every bit as dominant as were any of the others referred to above.
In fact, expectation would have been that his mastery over his peers would have been a lot longer than has transpired to be the case. Which then, of course, opened the door for another wave of big hitters to have their spell in the sun.
However, perhaps nothing encapsulates the fickle, flippant nature of golf better than the manner in which the likes of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and Cam Smith and, to a lesser extent, John Rahm, have been usurped.
That’s without even mentioning players such as Ricky Fowler, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson and Martin Kaymer. Not old men by any means, but competitors who, for now at least, have been cut adrift by the backsplash from the new wave.
Though ironically, in the dying embers of the PGA Tour season just concluded, both Keegan Bradley and, to an extent, Adam Scott struck something of a blow for the old guard.
Golf is often erroneously ring fenced as a game of innate complexity, but, literally and metaphorically, sometimes it is actually as simple as it looks. Such as the highly simplistic philosophy employed by yours truly, or, of more recent relevance, how far Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffle have been clear of their contemporaries for the last season or so at least.
Now, while I can readily understand giving the player who finishes top of the FedEx Cup standings at the end of the ‘regular’ season some form of tangible reward for doing so, did nobody think that eqee a little bit excessive? Does it not leave the Tour Championship dead in the water before a ball is even teed up?
Of course, there’s nothing to say that even if the field had started off level weights – to qq a bit of horse racing parlance – Scheffler wouldn’t have sluiced away from them anyway, but by giving him (or whoever the leader going into the final event happens to be) a ten stroke buffer, it becomes more coronation than shootout.
Though to be fair, by week’s end, Schauffle and Colin Morikawa and Adam Scott had rallied to such an extent that you feel a breakthrough, if one was to title it thus, for some or all of them may not be far away.
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