The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Nature of the Game

6.21.06 @ 12:01AM

THE PATIENT CHAMP
Re: Quin Hillyer's Stubbed Toes at Winged Foot:

I read with great interest and enjoyment Mr. Hillyer's article regarding the recently completed U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Although it can seem that there is a distressing lack of intestinal fortitude among today's elite competitors, a glance at history will show that the experiences of Mickelson and Montgomery have long precedent in the history of the game.

Witness Arnold Palmer's incredible collapse at the 72nd hole of the 1961 Masters, where a double-bogey 6 cost him the championship and made Gary Player the first foreign champion in that tournament's history.

Witness also the collapse of Doug Sanders in 1970 who needed only a four-foot putt on the 72nd hole of the 1970 Open Championship at St. Andrews. His putt was so off the mark that Sanders almost instinctively reached out to rake it back, much as a 15 handicapper would do in his Saturday morning foursome.

Finally, let's not forget Sam Snead, who skill at losing Opens over three decades would make Greg Norman look like a piker. The list goes on.

The fact is that golf is replete with comebacks and collapses. It's the nature of the game. My grandfather, Bobby Jones, said that that drama is part of the charm of the game, it is what makes the golfer, "the dogged victim of inexorable fate."

On another golf website, I wrote yesterday that Geoff Ogilvy showed tremendous patience during his Open victory. Whether he becomes a great of the game remains to be seen, but for now he is the Open Champion. He showed, more than any other competitor last week something my grandfather wrote about in the 1930s, the virtue of "courageous timidity." In Bobby Jones on Golf, he wrote that "...[courageous timidity is] a most happy phrase, for it expresses exactly the quality which a golfer, expert or not, must have to get the most from whatever mechanical ability he may have. 'Courageous' to keep trying in the face of ill-luck or disappointment, and 'timidity' to appreciate and appraise the dangers of each stroke and curb the desire to take chances beyond a reasonable hope of success. There can be no doubt that such a combination in itself embraces and makes possible all the other qualities which we acclaim as part of the ideal golfing temperament for the championship contender as well as the average golfer. When we have pronounced [that] phrase we have said it all." And so we have.

Thanks, Mr. Hillyer, for an interesting article. And thanks, too, to Geoff Ogilvy who showed the world the patience that it takes to become a major champion and to stand, at least for this one week, at the top of the golfing world.
-- Bob Jones IV
Conyers, Georgia

It's amazing to me how everyone is second guessing what happened at the Open. I've loved and hated the game of golf for over 45 years. It is without question the hardest sport in the world to master. As a matter of fact, no one has or ever will. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and tell the players what they did wrong. It is another to stand in his shoes and "hit the shot." I can guarantee you that each player in his own mind was confident in choosing the shot they wanted to pull off. But golf, being the ultimate humbler, would have none of it. As Bobby Jones once said, "Golf is a game of inches, the five inches between the ears." How right he was and is.
-- D. Mullis
Goose Creek, South Carolina

Great article by Quin Hillyer. However, I have to disagree with the notion that Jim Furyk callously disregarded his routine on the 18th hole at the U.S. Open. What happened to Jim Furyk happens to all competitive golfers at one time or another, whether the stakes are a $2 nassau or the U.S. Open. What happened is that he felt extreme pressure and self-doubt; when he got over the putt to stroke it, something must have told him something ain't right. Pressure can make anybody "choke" and it was enough to make Furyk doubt himself. Hardly a callous disregard for his routine.
-- Michael Palmer

It was indeed painful to watch the 72nd hole meltdowns. I'm printing a copy of the article and mailing it to Phil; maybe he'll read it and, even better, learn something from it.
-- Donald Ward
Walnut, California

SIMPLIFY, MAN
Re: Brandon Crocker's Techno-Civilization and Its Discontents:

Modern technology is fine. Accept what you choose of it into your life. And discard all the rest.
-- Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida

Kudos to Brandon Crocker for noting the ultimate lack of necessity for the techno-gadgets we elect to enjoy.

In his paragraph commencing "I am one of the "bridge" group…," Mr. Crocker perfectly sketched my own aloof relations with modern toys. Only significant difference between him and me: I still haven't broken down and purchased a cellular telephone contract. My willful rebellion against the telephone zeitgeist annoys my mother in law no end -- not the least of my many reasons for holding out.

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