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This U.S. Golf Open Was as Good As Sport Gets
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
Golf has no business being so exciting. It’s golf, not baseball or football or even basketball, the competitions most of us think of when we conjure up epic sports happenings. But this 108th U.S Open Golf Championships the past weekend ranks with some of the all time sports events--at least in my mind.
Tiger Woods was at the heart of it, of course. The two eagles--or was it three--he pulled out Saturday produced memorably rousing reactions, not only from him, but from the spectators ringing the last three holes.
NBC replayed those shots--long eagle puts, and a popup out of the rough off the flagstick into the hole--so many times, TV viewers had a chance to note not only Woods’ gyrations but the fist-pumping and jumping of the fans behind him..
Those shots were replayed into the night on television Saturday and doubtlessly will be replayed through the years as part of Woods’ legacy. ESPN was shrewd with its Top Ten highlights feature Saturday night. It played Woods’ three shots as highlights three- two-one.
This was Woods on those last three holes:
* A double pump when the putt dropped into
hole 16.
* An embarrassed giggle when the luck was with hin on the ball
that hit the flagstick on 17.
* A single pump, bending his knees when he sank the long putt
on 18 that gave him a one-shot lead going into Sunday’s
fourth round.
Watching the fans jumping and cheering, it was as if they felt they were making those shots themselves. As the play continued into Sunday and then the playoff on Monday, my mind went back time and again to the Saturday action. I began to think that if Woods didn’t win this tournament, he would always have that Saturday just as John McEnroe always had that 18-16 tiebreaker tennis victory over Bjorn Borg in 1980 even though he didn’t win Wimbledon that year.
It often seemed as if Woods was in the woods because he scrambled so often. Every time he got in trouble, the aura about him made you wonder what heroic he would pull off to escape trouble. And that is why he is one of the great television attractions of this era.
Rocco Mediate was a big part of the drama, of course. He was the “Most Happy Fella,” ever smiling, ever cheerful, ever looking like Everyman who was having the time of his life at the old-for-golf age of 45. He sported the peace sign on his belt buckle and an NBC voice said at one point., “Guys named Rocco don’t get their name on the U.S. Open trophy, do they?”
Mediate was like Lee Trevino of yesteryear, because he gabbed and joked and let people see his humanity every day. Trevino used to ramble so much that when I followed him on the course I filled up a notebook with his comments after only a few holes and wished he would stop.
There was concern in some quarters that Mediate’s yakking would upset Woods the way Trevino finessed Jack Nicklaus with humor in a playoff one year. It didn’t happen because Woods was a Tiger even though hobbled by a tender knee..
The week’s remarkable happenings demanded a sudden death following the playoff. And Woods gave it to the Torrey Pines crowd and the millions watching on television with a birdie putt on 18 for the tie. When he hit a good shot on the way, Mediate was seen in replay clapping for him.
Mediate was ever cheerful, always available.
When he spoke to the press before the playoff, he pointed to
Woods and joked, “Look he’s nervous.” It would
have been just as good a story if the guy named Rocco had his
name put on the winner’s trophy.
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One of the many idiocies of the political campaign is the flap in which a Fox network yahoo likened a Barack Obama fist bump to a terrorist action. The people who took this seriously have never seen athletes exulting with celebratory fist bumps after big doings.
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Major league baseball is beginning to get out from under the tyranny of umpires by instituting instant replay for limited controversial plays, specifically whether long drives into the stands land fair or foul. While the poobahs are at it they ought to reverse the policy of not showing controversial plays on stadium scoreboards. TV viewers are provided with multiple replays of controversial situations, but the umpires won’t let the paying customers in stadiums see these plays in replay. Why? Because they fear riots by hometown fans when a call against the home team is shown to be incorrect. Fans would soon get used to TV calls for good or bad. The umps ought to start living in the 21st century.
©2008 by Stan Isaacs.
The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration
is a staff artist's conception of a news photo. This column first
posted June 17, 2008.
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