Time To Drive Focus On The Right Course
The Sunday Age
Sunday December 14, 2008
DESPITE three pretty good young players in Mat Goggin, Steve Dartnall and Ewan Porter shooting 65s on Thursday at Royal Sydney, the media focus was on flawed American John Daly.
Here is a man addicted to the lure and promise of the casino, nicotine and alcohol, and with a golf game that is not competitive in either this age or this country. He is, however, a subject of fascination in the manner of Maradona or George Best because so many people are spellbound by the combination of genius and life seemingly out of control.Perhaps he could be a good player again. He is talented enough, but it isn't too difficult to see the vast difference between the way he approaches the task of playing well and the way Tiger Woods goes about his golf.Woods is involved in the never-ending pursuit of the almost unattainable goal of matching the ball-striking control of Ben Hogan. His constant refinement of technique is aimed at striking with the total control of the reclusive little Texan.Daly, in contrast, was dismissed by his coach earlier this year because he couldn't even commit to working sober, let alone hard. What he has done without effort is write his own headlines and so tempt at least one of the nation's leading sports columnists to write about him day after day during the Masters at Huntingdale.But Daly is merely a symptom. Perhaps a bigger question is the future of golf writing in the media. Do people really want to read about the game and the insights of good writers the way past generations have? Do those who play it really care about golf?In the past month, Thomas Bonk of the LA Times, Lewine Mair of the UK's Daily Telegraph, Ed Sherman from the Chicago Tribune, John Strege of Golf World Magazine and Jim McCabe of the Boston Globe have all lost their jobs. Are those who direct the writers to the stories that sell papers only concerned with the money shot of the camera being hurled against the tree? One would like to assume there is less interest in that than in the beautifully faded three iron that leader Steve Dartnall played on Friday morning at the 17th at Royal Sydney, one of the most difficult short holes in the country.A column on the architectural strengths and weaknesses of Royal Sydney would be met with a great yawn and how many readers really care about the modern ball and the way it has distorted the original architectural intent of our finest courses? If someone had trashed the Sydney Opera House to the extent the ball has altered Royal Melbourne, there would be a collective national outrage.Sadly, the majority who play are not truly interested in the game and the issues that confront it.Many bemoan the lack of "characters" in the local game and use it as an excuse for not bothering to almost literally cross the street to watch some terrific golf. Kel Nagle was hardly the life of the party, but people loved to watch him play. Greg Norman changed what was a staid sport into one that attracted those who played and many who didn't know the difference between a wood and a five iron. He is gone as a player the local tour can rely on to pull a crowd but as the US replaced Walter Hagen with Hogan (who was replaced by Arnold Palmer and then Jack Nicklaus and now Woods), we will find players capable of replacing Norman as the headliners.Geoff Ogilvy is the best interview in golf, but we need people capable of asking the interesting questions that pique his interest.The Australian Golf Course Architects annual magazine recently published a long interview with him, which ought to be fascinating stuff - but how many bother to think about what he is saying?Perhaps we should remind ourselves of an old Bobby Jones quote and apply it to the game in general: "The more I studied the old course at St Andrews, the more I loved it and the more I loved it, the more I studied it."That's the way ahead.
© 2008 The Sunday Age