To Golf and Play Well With Others
The Hainer

Remember when writers and commentators would cast the nearest competitor to Tiger Woods on the leader board as a fragile piece of blown glass waiting to fall to pieces simply from the breeze of an Eldrickian fist pump?

Remember how we were led to believe that even seasoned tour pros would involuntarily micturate in their tailored slacks whenever they heard the mounting surround-sound roars of the marching Bengal pilgrims as they conquered the inward nine on nothing but the fuel of high-octane awe?

Tigris Majorus Mostus is still likely to be considered the best there ever was -- he is ferocious and mentally tough and capitalizes on being who he is -- but please, it’s time to lighten up on the impact that one player has on another. Golfers in contention blow tournaments all the time, even when they’re not subjected to the mettle melting heat of a Paul Lawrie, a Shaun Micheel, or a Ben Curtis breathing down their neck. Golf is hard -- and winning is harder, but anyone in Tiger’s group on Sunday who doesn’t win is often unceremoniously dumped into a den of spastic white cats pouncing after a dangled piece of string that some would suggest is traceable to the puppeteering paw of the invincible jungle cat himself.

I got to thinking about this again several weeks ago. How it was such a crock when Johnny Miller for the most part attributed David Toms’ three putting from 60 grainy feet away with a tough angle on the 72nd hole at Doral to the presence of E. “Tiger” Woods lurking in the group behind him. Despite the fact that it was the type of putt that could easily have been three-jacked by Ben Crenshaw…in his prime…on his own backyard putting green.

Then, at this year’s Masters, there was all the talk of Fred Couples making Phil too comfortable by refusing to be militantly Hoganesque, or Faldocentrically mute, or for not growing a foe-wilting third eye ala The Golden Buddha himself…Jack Nicklaus. Just something - anything - to make Philly’s subcutaneous flesh a little clammier down the stretch. If it had been Tiger in the final group and it was he who had birdied 13 from the forest creek instead of Freddie, what would Phil have done when the imminent haymaking upper cut shattered the atmosphere and reformulated the oxygen such that it could be taken in only through the tiny receptors at the tip ends of cat whiskers? Yeah, that’s right; he’d have been reduced to broken glass and pee with no chance of capturing the dancing piece of string. (Just like Bob May, oh wait…never mind, BM didn’t blink, nor did he have a sudden BM in sudden death at Valhalla.)

Many folks felt that Freddie playing Officer Friendly to The New Born King just didn’t get it, but it was nothing more than Freddie, Joey, Bones and Philly having fun in a fight to the finish, which unfortunately happened to be on fourteen. (Had Freddie hit his iron to nine or ten feet instead of four on fourteen, the toonament may have gone right down to the 18th.) But alas, Phil took the fewest shots and won the Masters.

Again.

And that’s all it was.

Sure, we can speculate all we want on how it would have gone if Tiger had been in the final group, but that kind of thinking ends up being either an indictment on Tiger’s ability to compete in a group or two ahead (like Jack did in ’86) which is preposterous, or a contradiction to the very notion that being in the last group would have somehow impacted Phil, who happens to be as competitive as anyone anywhere. The presence of one does not affect the other adversely. If anything, it might elevate the level of their games. But mostly it does nothing. The guy who’s swinging and thinking well at the time -- and maybe gets a break or two -- gets the prize. Same as it ever was.

We have a couple guys in the Wisconsin Golf Hall of Fame who remain exceedingly competitive and but don’t particularly care for one another. One plays by the rules and the other sees them as something to overcome. Both are very talented and while they would not choose to play together, when they do, neither is impacted by the other with respect to how they play -- good, bad or indifferent. Same as it ever was….letting the days go by. No talking heads, them, when they find themselves paired. They just play.

And you may ask yourself…are the younger players impacted by playing with the Tiger and the Phil, or on our amateur level, do the college kids get bothered by the weight of playing with the Hall of Famers? Well, the answer is…it’s NOT the same as it ever was. These days the kids have taken their games on the road at such an early age and played in so many competitions that they do not even pay attention to who’s supposed to be good or who used to be menacing and who’s worthy of fear. They simply rip high hooks and bang their rollers at the hole and add them up. Sometimes they are stupid good, other time just plain stupid, as it is with a lot of people who play golf.

Of course, at any age and any level, there are good and bad people to play with. This is based on etiquette, personality, integrity and the greatest gift of all – that precious understanding of what not to say. A gift often discovered too late. You see folks who’ve been disagreeable narcissists for 30 years who suddenly turn into Eddie Haskell as a senior in a last ditch attempt at rehabbing their justly earned reputations for being petulant golf course divas or just plain jags -- guys who have said too much or, in rarer cases, not enough. No doubt they’re everywhere and at every level.

But for every golfer that performs worse for having to play with a jag, there is another one who kicks the jag’s ass for the same reason. At least that’s what they’ll say, even if it’s more a case of that just being the way it turned out that day. As for the vast majority, they simply don’t give a damn.

As with anyone who plays competitive golf, whether it’s on Tour with Tiger or with the local hero in wraparound shades, it pretty much comes down to solid shots and made putts and the preparation it takes to make that stuff happen. It is all about playing good holes and avoiding the bad ones. You make it any more complicated than that and you’re just gonna micturate shots away in bunches. Even if you must play with some dreaded others, don’t let them be the reason should they make their way onto your card.

It may make for a beautiful story when, after playing a par three hole, Hogan supposedly pulled the scorecard from his pocket to mark down the score of his playing partner - who had just made a hole in one - and then asked the guy what he had made on the hole. Seriously. The story is meant to illustrate how fiercely focused The Wee Ice Mon was – but such is the more narcotic side of nostalgia. But as often as this fable is repeated, I don’t believe it ever happened.

However, if you happen to believe this story -- that Hogan was too lost in pronation keys to notice an ace in his own group -- then perhaps you very well may believe Phil could have faltered down the stretch in The Masters if 1) Freddie hadn’t been so fist-bumping chummy, and/or 2) Tiger had also been in the last group with Phil -- eyeing him like he was a family-sized Roy Horn.

I seriously doubt it, but we’ll never know for sure. And it is this factual uncertainty that brings to life such overbearing argumentative certainty in many others, for nothing is as passionately debated as that which cannot be conclusively proven. Like a well struck wedge, the fun is in the spin.

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