I don’t know about you, but the surge of excitement for yesterday’s TaylorMade Driving Relief, this Red Bull-like adrenaline jolt for the return of LIVE GOLF!, lasted only slightly longer than when I’ve discovered a swing thought on the range and am giddy with excitement to test it out on the course.
By the time Bill Murray delivered a laugh-less performance and spoiled coverage of the fourth and fifth holes, I was fading fast. In my circle of friends, I was hearing of flipping over to watch CBS’s replay of Tiger winning the 2000 PGA Championship, switching to Nascar, and clicking off to read a book. On Twitter, Hank Haney of all people (a former TaylorMade ambassador, so take it with a grain of salt) summed up the sentiment: “I asked myself: How am I watching this? This is four hours of my life I can’t get back?”
Sure, it was refreshing to hear the familiar voices of Rich Lerner and Paul Azinger – part of the soundtrack of the game – calling the action, to see some of the best golfers in the world lugging their own bags and Dustin Johnson marking his ball with a golf tee. It was fun to watch Matthew Wolff belting bombs while wearing his colorful shoes and pros choking over wedge shots. And once again, golf remains undefeated in raising charity dollars. Awesome stuff. I won’t bother to nit-pick all the reasons that the broadcast fell flat for me. You may have loved it. To each his own, but can we all agree that save for shutting out the clowns that love to yell, “Baba Booey” and “Mashed Potatoes,” it wasn’t the same without fans? The four-man charity skins competition, if it did anything other than raise money, confirmed that a Ryder Cup without fans would be an epic fail.
European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington has me concerned that they may go ahead with the event sans riotous, razzing fans after he made comments to The Times a few weeks ago that the Ryder Cup may need to “take one for the team.”
Please, no. Don’t force it; don’t bastardize it; and whatever you do, don’t slay the golden goose. We all know that it is going to come down to a business decision – it’s always about the Benjamins – but don’t make it solely about the European Tour’s murky financial fortunes or the PGA’s budget counting on its cash cow. PGA CEO Seth Waugh is a golf guy and a savvy businessman and I trust that he will realize that the game is better off waiting an extra year for a Ryder Cup done right than a watered-down version. With the European Tour schedule in tatters due to the worldwide pandemic and the PGA Tour holding its breath that it can resume play without fans in mid-June, the team selection process is going to be a mess. But without any fans at Whistling Straits in late September? All the electricity will be sucked out of one of the best bucket-list in sports.
So, what should the PGA and European Tour do instead that weekend? Here’s a suggestion: The Ryder Cup originally was conceived as a goodwill exhibition, so why not stage a rematch of one of the great Ryder Cups. There’s none better than the Battle at Brookline in 1999, but Payne Stewart is gone and the rest of the players are getting a little long in the tooth. No one’s aching to see Jarmo Sandelin come out of retirement or Jeff Maggert don the stars and stripes again. But what about replaying the 2012 Miracle at Medinah instead? Do you think Keegan Bradley would like to unpack his suitcase finally, or Jim Furyk to have another shot at Sergio Garcia? Could Nicolas Colsaerts and Ian Poulter channel whatever they found eight years ago? Would the U.S. jump to a 10-6 lead again and would the ghost of Seve Ballesteros inspire another rousing comeback?
Such a rematch would have Tiger (vs. Frankie in Sunday singles) and Rory and Phil and Sergio. It wouldn’t be the Ryder Cup, but it would be intriguing nonetheless. A one-off rematch would be the Ryder Cup’s version of the U.S. Hale America Open, which was contested in 1942 as a fundraiser for the Navy Relief Society and the USO during World War II. It was every bit the U.S. Open, which was canceled due to the war, so much so that winner Ben Hogan counted it as his fifth national championship.
The integrity of the biennial competition is at stake. Save the Ryder Cup for 2021, and put on a fan-less exhibition instead, but one that we’d all be willing to watch.
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