ANIMAL CRACKERS GOLF

ANIMAL CRACKERS GOLF

Golf got off to a flying start at the Olympics.

But long before these 120 golfers rocked up to play golf as an Olympic sport - after an absence of 112 years - there were other players moving in on the space.

The building of the Rio golf course has been, at times, sunk in a quagmire of court cases, environmentalists’ protests, and public mistrust.  It has been a virtual minefield that has courted controversy at every turn and, for a while, it looked like there would be no course and no medal contest.  However, those altercations and back steps went way over the heads of these key players who blatantly ignored the ignominy and zeal of all parties with equal proportions of disdain and disregard.

And who could blame them?  Here was a bunch of guys and girls who knew first hand the meaning of survival of the fittest.  Competition was wired in their DNA and they were designed to adapt.  So, when the IOC, Rio organisers and the architect Gil Hanse designed a golf course that looked like paradise, these punters displayed a very human characteristic, modelled on that old template of frontier pioneers, that manifested itself in the form of land grab.  Lock, stock and no smoking barrels, they seized the opportunity to claim the land.  Such was their sphere of influence that the designers had to restructure holes 13,14 and 15 to conform to the standards set for these invaders.  It was an amazing takeover and one that was purely indigenous in origin.

First on the tees then was the capybara – these are rodents and, as the parent of a son who owned two pet rats (named Verdi Gris and Rat-a-touille) and two guinea pigs (called Edward and Anthony), I am a fan but there’s no taming one of these shrews or easily bagging one to take home by way of a trophy.  The capybara is the largest rodent in the world and likes to live near water in socially gregarious groups numbering about twenty.  They grow to two feet in height and weigh in at an average of 100 pounds.  They will usually allow humans to pet and hand feed them but the latter is normally discouraged as their ticks can be vectors to Rocky Mountain Spotted fever.  And they gave Superintendant Neil Cleverly a massive headache.  Charged with making the golf course happen on the ground but with a less-than-ideal time frame of two growing seasons to do it, he used a strain of grass developed in Texas and known as zeon zoysia.  Right bang on song, midnight at the oasis saw the nightly appearance of the capybaras at the course’s water hazards where this special grass turned out to be a favourite overnight snack.  They appeared at various times during the tournaments too, especially during practice rounds, and the players stopped to photograph them. 

The parity of disdain continued with the infiltration of the burrowing owls.  Oh yes, you have guessed it perfectly right:  their prime role is to burrow – and they just happen to love open areas with low ground cover which is the exact design for the course at Marapendi.  They are also deviant from your stereotypical expectations of owls in that they are active by day.  Long-legged, yellow-eyed, sporting white eyebrows, and head-bobbers when distressed, they like to burrow or railroad themselves into someone else’s underground home.  And love the bunkers they did, digging deep to form their nests.  On the first day of the men’s tournament, a long-legged owl, looking for breakfast as players warmed up, got himself into a stare-off with the elite golfers but eventually retreated to his abode in the depths of the ninth bunker. 

The next set of invaders came in the shape of the gnarly, knobbly caiman – a small crocodile that doesn’t grow much beyond five feet.  But what they lack in size, former English golfer-turned-commentator, Sir Nick Faldo claims they make up in bite.  “You know the way in Florida the gators are always quite sleepy?” he said,  “Well, this one opened its jaws and snapped them shut angrily.  We moved on swiftly.”  Wiesberger joked there were extra hazards on the greens and I’m guessing, Bernd, you haven’t found suchlike hazards gracing your Austrian golf courses.  They were clearly territorial, too, in that they frequented holes 2, 3, 5, and 9 – odd numbers for oddball animals.  Well, Sir Nick, you need to know that alligator pupils are always 90˚ to the horizon except when flipped onto their backs.  This move discombobulates both their vision and balance and causes them to freeze, unable to see, and with no idea which way is up. 

The final animal to add to the invaders is that snake-in-the-grass, the boa constrictor.  Knocking your ball out of bounds or in the rough carried a hazard that is probably not covered in any rulebook.  Who would want to stand in the sights of a slithering boa constrictor and have a hearty discussion as to the possibilities of a snake being a movable or immovable object?  Who cares?  Professional or amateur: if you’re daft enough to be embroiled in the out-workings of full relief, then the consequences are yours by right of your stupidity.  I, for one, would be so quick off the escape block that there is the possibility that I might smash the legendary Mo Farah’s records.  And right on cue, on the second day of the women’s tournament, volunteers captured a large snake near the eighteenth green – that’s the place where the largest viewing gallery hangs out.  Oh my!

But here’s the thing… the top five golf players in the world declined to turn up at the Rio games, with the exception of Henrik Stenson from Sweden, and represent their countries because of an animal.  It wasn’t any of the miscreants above - who had slid quietly into residence by the back door of the Reserva di Marapendi - but the culprit for Rory, Jason, Jordan, Dustin, and a subsequent whole-flock more of no-shows, had flown in by the front door in the shape of the Zika-virus-carrying Aedes mosquito.  Thanks to Rory, this virus has now gone viral to infinity-and-beyond and he has done more for raising awareness of this health issue than the World Health Organization. 

As excuses go, however, it was lame…

…and Pádraig Harrington summed it up neatly when asked if those who were not competing misread the situation.

“I think completely, yeah,” he said.  “I would have to say there was a lot of sheep in this decision.  They kept just following each other out the door.”  Well done, Pádraig, that’s the correct animal to nail their mass defection with.

Pádraig Harrington grew up in Ireland so he should know a thing or two about sheep.  He might not be of sheep farming stock, given his origins in Rathfarnham on Dublin City’s Southside, but his knowledge of that animal probably springs from that famous theory of Six Degrees of Separation.  Frigyes Karinthy first proposed it in 1929 in a short story called “Chains” and it theorizes that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries.  If you live in Ireland, you don’t need a short story, written by a Hungarian, to tell you this.  Sometimes, we can’t breathe for interconnectedness and I’m sure Pádraig knows someone who knows someone, in two degrees of separation and over a pint of Guinness, who has told him how sheep behave.  Sheep will follow the leader sheep even if it’s heading off a cliff or to the slaughterhouse.

Which is why he had plenty to witter on about when leader sheep Rory McIlroy decided he no longer wished to represent Ireland in Rio.  Rory was having none of it and he cited various reasons, chief among them being the desire to avoid a close, blood-sucking encounter with a mosquito carrying the Zika virus.  The rest of the players jumped on this excuse bandwagon.

But here’s a thing.  While Brazil undoubtedly registers “High” on the advisory health sites, Florida is also documented on the same sites as a “Moderate”.  Appearing in the Olympics required only a seven-day stay in Rio but a high number of professional golfers base themselves in the US and, in particular, in Florida where the exposure risk is moderate but for much longer periods of time.  Would I be wrong to propose that the greatest reason so many golfers withdrew was not the flimsy fears of a disease-bearing mosquito but more to do with that potential infection of which golfers live in particular life-smothering dread: the absence of a large monetary prize at the end of seventy-two holes?

I have an animal to describe that sort of behaviour: chicken.

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RIO! A NEW DEPARTURE FOR GOLF

I like getting something off my chest and when I do, I like it to be early doors.  Don’t want anyone labouring under any illusions as to what I want to say, so here it is: my take is that golf doesn’t need showcasing in the Olympics.  It’s become a dirty business.  Not golf.  The Olympics.  The IOC has derogated from its responsibility in dealing with performance enhancing drug users in many of the participating sports and has done so at the expense of good, clean athletes and viewers alike.  I have become so cynical that I found myself watching the “horse dancing” and wondered if the mounts themselves were “on” something.  How bad is that?

I suspect it’s all about fat-cats in fat positions on fat salaries and fat track promotion of their own fat lifestyles at the expense of honouring naturally gifted, clean athletes.  After the last samba of Rio has stuttered to a halt, the drumbeat of “Carnaval” has been silenced, as sure as the leanness of Lent follows hot on the heels of the traditional Fat King (King Momo) and the Carnival of Rio, there will be a backlash of malcontent that will turn the rollicking riot of Rio into rot.  Not merely for the participants of the Games but also the inhabitants of the shantytown favelas: the unpicking of the event is yet to happen.  Already, the promised fat purses to aid the favelas have never materialised and the city’s coffers are reputedly empty.  Fat chance of justice then – but the jury is yet to convene.

Against this background, golf has dropped itself back into contention after a 112-year absence and onto a course that was designed by Gil Hanse, ably assisted by LPGA Hall of Famer Amy Alcott.  Pocket-sized description says it’s wide off the tee, imaginative, fun and a smattering reminiscent of Castle Stuart in Bonnieland.  (That means Scotland for those not familiar with the local lingo.)  The Castle Stuart comparison is simple: it was also designed by Hanse.  There is no rough.  There is no need.  Stray balls will be punished by out-of-bounds in underbrush policed by snakes.  After the last light has been switched out on the Rio Olympics, this Reserva de Marapendi course will revert to public use and is thus designed to accommodate the dabbling hacker or professional golfer alike by keeping them engaged and hopeful with wide fairways, multiple approach shots-to-green options, and short-grass recovery shots.  Seventy-nine bunkers - featuring local and indigenous sands – rumpled and dimpled fairways, brush and bush in the absence of trees, dunes and the omnipresent afternoon Atlantic winds form the defences of this course: 7128 yards for the men and 6245 yards for the women at par 71. That’s the play so far.

And the natives love it, moving in with alacrity to possess the space.  As the course is situated way out west of the pulsating heart of Rio, it is not your usual city slicker type who has taken up residence.  These residents would be more at home sharing a screen with naturalist Sir David Frederick Attenborough.  Yup, I’m talking wild and wonderful in the shape of capybaras, three-toed sloths, burrowing owls, boa constrictors and caimans.  And the soccer mad country of Brazil does not really understand golf: witness a spectator who briefly picked up Justin Rose’s ball on the final day of play after an errant tee shot.  Happily, she dropped it again and Rose was given a free drop.  When it comes to majors, golf is used to being the biggest show on the advertising planet but now it is one of 39 sports or disciplines.  The first two days’ attendance appeared to be thin on the ground but Saturday and Sunday attracted a capacity crowd and, for that reduced compliment of followers who made it to the first couple of days, there was the added reward of getting up close and personal with the participants.  Nobody was complaining.

Sixty players took to the course to play four rounds over four days. The player with the lowest score at the end of seventy-two holes would win.  It was never a team event.  Each competitor was representing his country – although clearly American Matt Kuchar arrived in Rio under the illusion he was a member of Team US Golf and only found out he was playing on his own at a press conference before the tournament.  But Kuchar came up smelling of roses: he was the only medal winner of the four-man entry from the US, walking away with bronze.  Kuch, you’re a man after my own haphazard disposition.  Neat work.

Saturday saw the separation of the leading men and then the final day went down to the final hole.  Mr Iceman met Mr Nice Man and the gambit for gold got under way.  Mr Nice Man - Justin Rose - played wonderfully throughout.  A staunch supporter of golf’s inclusion in the Olympics, he played for his country with his soul.  It mattered.  It mattered from the second you saw the selfie with Andy Murray at the opening ceremony.  It mattered when he turned up at various venues, posted more selfies, and supported Team GB, all the while building lifetime memories.  It mattered when he claimed the first hole-in-one on the first day of the tournament.  And it mattered as he stood on the eighteenth hole, putter in hand, to tap in that decisive birdie from three feet to finish on a composite score of 268 and 16 under for the gold.  The future’s bright, the future’s Rosey.

But it was no walkover.  Mr Iceman, in the form of Henrik Stenson, was firing on all four cylinders.  Hot off the high of his phenomenal win at The Open, Stenson had the passion to represent his country and was well supported by Swedish athletes from other disciplines turning up to cheer him on in his quest for gold.  Gold was almost his on the final green but he missed his chance to hole out from twenty feet.  He also missed the return putt for par and his was the silver.  Despite my reservations about golf in the Olympics, I was with the action all the way.  It was brilliant.

Of course, I have a stake in Roses’s win.  Sports psychologists will always tell their sporting charges that they must think and speak the language of positive prose.  With that in mind, I tweeted Justin.  There’s not huge scope in 140 permitted characters to ramp it up in the stakes of powerful positivity but I gave it my best shot and Justin Rose responded.  He followed my every tweeted instruction: “Simply brilliant.  Well done”, “Go for gold.  Got my fingers crossed”, “My grandson is following your journey tru 18 today and repeated after your every shot ‘Justin Rose is playing for MY country’ - he’s five”.  And Justin acknowledged those tweets – by giving his all on the course and by responding on Twitter.  Totally rad.

It’s time to get back in my armchair and re-visit that course.  The ladies are just teeing it up and I have another set of contenders to watch as these players begin their hunt for gold, silver and bronze…

FACT: JULY AND THE JOYS OF GOLF

Golf has never seemed more exciting or demanding than it has of late.  Take the last month with two of the four majors of the year squish-squashed into July to allow us the freedom of being able to watch the return of golf to the Olympic 2016 platform after a 112 year absence.  August would have been promising for golf but for two “slight” problems: the world top ranking golfers took a raincheck from Olympic golf, eschewing the Zika virus and the security issues that required you to name your next of kin and your dentist as a matter of course before you even departed for Rio; and that old chestnut which has blighted sports from Armstrong on his bike to the scandals at Sochi is now threatening to turn the summer Olympics into a withered winter of discontent as the international federation and Bach fail to tackle the debacle of those athletes who use performance enhancing drugs.  Much though golf may need all the help it can get to promote it on the world stage, the question has to be asked: does golf really need to be associated with an event that is replete with cheating participants?  Keep golf clean and away from Rio.  Simple fact.

But now, let’s backtrack to the beginning of July when Royal Troon was the talk of the town and our thanks must go to Phil and Henrik for the most amazing show of golf since the 1977 Open on the Ailsa Course at Turnberry, Scotland when vintage Watson won by one stroke over veteran Nicklaus in what came to be known as the “Duel in the Sun”.  Before he and Stenson even got to battling positions on the two last days of Troon, Mickelson had us hanging off the edge of our seats as he sought to end the first day on an insurmountable high by making an all-time record course score which would have seen him as the first golfer to make a sixty-two.  Instead, he had to settle for becoming the 28^th player to score 63 in a major and the ninth to do so at The Open.  Amazingly, as that ball - heading for centre stage in the eighteenth hole - lipped out, we all felt the wow-factor sting of a historical moment lost in the “forever” abyss.  Curse on that hole - simple fact yes.

Day three and four of The Open saw the men separate themselves from the boys.  On any other day, Phil Mickelson’s final score of -17 would have seen him a winner of any major but he reckoned without the steel of Stenson.  For those of you who reckon that Troon was too easy, get a grip.  Why, oh why, would the score of the next eleven places added together not exceed the combined score of Stenson and Mickelson’s gladiatorial efforts?  We witnessed history as Sweden’s Henrik Stenson shot a 63 for a four-day total of twenty under par and set the bar for the lowest seventy-two score in The Open history.  Accurate off the tees, faultless on the fairways, precise with his putter, Stenson swung the back nine in a truly astonishing display of links golf.  Even with Phil on form and thrilling to watch, he could not outplay his rival.  The “Amazing Jewel in the Sun” was undoubtedly Stenson.  Cometh the hour, cometh the Iceman – a simply indisputable fact.

The end of July promised us the PGA Championship at Baltusrol, New Jersey.  And it delivered – but mostly rain.  Sheets of it.  Stair rod rain.  Cats and dogs rain, rivalling anything Ireland can produce.  I was washed out waiting by the telly for play to resume.  And when it did, I should have seen Jason Day grip his 2-iron for the second time on the 18^th, having used it off the tee, and close the second shot of 258 yards to within fourteen feet of the pin.  He putted for an eagle but, despite the Day magic that followed in the fabled footsteps of John Daly and Jack Nicklaus, he lost to Jimmy Walker.  I should have seen it as it happened but all I have had is the opportunity to watch the re-runs because I was in fields afar celebrating my daughter’s thirtieth birthday.  No contest.  Simple family fact.

But the real joy of July came in the rotund shape of the aptly named Beef.  That’s beef with a capital B.  A rumbustiously rollicking lad, a fillet of fun, who endeared himself to a army of golf fans with his straight-down-the-line answer as to how he would celebrate his Spanish Open win.  His response skirted nothing and included getting hammered, seeing his mum and brother, and spending time with his North Middlesex GC friends.  Unlikely candidate and not your usual PR-guided profiler, this warm-hearted golfer seems to unite two nations divided by a common language and, miracle though it is, he is universally understood by dwellers east and west of the Atlantic waters. 

So what makes him the great unifier?

Butch Harmon nailed it when he said, “He’s a breath of fresh air”.  He’s Joe Ordinary, the friendly boy from next door who loves his mum and family.  He delights in spectator encouragement from outside the ropes and warmly responds.  He gives hope to every high handicapper that, somehow, the dream is possible and they can emulate this local lad.  He sports a beard that looks like it houses a nest of stray house martins and one of his favourite rappers is twin beardie Scroobious Pip.  Psst, Andrew, who’s Scroobious?  Simple musical fact: rap and me don’t mix, man.

Recently, PETA UK wanted him to rebrand as Tofu.  Give an A* for effort to “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals UK” but this man is as staunch as the rump of a British bulldog and he’s not for turning.  He has a wedge branded with nine types of beef.  For the butchers and discerning eaters among us, that’s T-bone, ribeye, brisket, sirloin, tri-tip, flank, filet mignon, porterhouse and skirt.

In a real twist of irony, Beef’s nickname has nothing to do with beef.  As a twelve-year-old, his hair was thicker and curlier and it stuck out like an Afro, thanks, in part, to his quarter Jamaican heritage.  Out on the course, an older player had a “Andrew, wot’s up with your hair?" moment and called him Beefhead.  The name stuck and has been with him ever since.  Prophetic in the round simple fact, I think.

And then there’s the chest bump sequence.  At last year’s BMW PGA Championship, he made a hole in one to win a car and he celebrated in Beef style with a fantastic airborne chest-on-chest connection with a mate who was following him. 

He loves his sleep.  Ten hours are requisite to keep him vibrant and he once declined a round of golf with Rickie Fowler because the start time was way too early – 08.30 for those who are interested in this timely fact.  The diehards of golf will be tut-tutting all along the fairways by now.  Tradition dictates you must be on the first tee by cockerel call - otherwise, you can’t be serious.  He’s not, of course: a Christmas tree still lurks at the back of the sofa, home fridge is full of chocolate and beer, he is a comfort eater by his own admission, plays burgers off his practice tees, eats a Caesar salad twice a year as a cap-tip to a healthy diet and rates John Daly as his hero.  Indisputably simple facts.

Summer is his five-year-old niece and she is his number one fan.  She followed him round Troon and proffered hole-by-hole support for her “Uncle Beef”.  He has his heart stolen by her and wallowed in relaxing evenings far from fairway play by indulging in games of “Top Trumps” with her.  Top family fact that.

But make no mistake: this young man is serious about golf. His late father introduced him to the beautiful game at an early age.  He is a joy to watch plugging away on the course and my simple prediction says he will never become a simulacrum of his homely self as fame and fortune grow.  He has already amassed a massive cult following that is undoubtedly deserved and, although he looks like he should be working at the local Tesco, he makes golf appealing.  I suspect his homespun mannerisms will do more for the exposition of golf on the world stage than any inclusion in an Olympic format.  He is a prime cut of Beef.  Fact, pure and simple.