First thought: I'm so happy for Stewart Cink! I'm bummed out his first major win had to come at Tom Watson's expense (and in the year 2009), but aren't we all?
OK, seriously. It's 10:30 p.m. and I just finished watching the British Open. I DVR'ed it... and made every effort to avoid popular media all day so as not to spoil the ending for myself. I talked to my parents this evening, and the conversation started like this: "DON'TTELLME HOWTHEBRITISHOPENENDEDIRECORDEDIT!!!
My closest spoiler moment: my regular freelance writing gig, with www.comicbookresources.com, called in a favor around lunchtime (yeah, there are breaking stories in the world of comic books, just like in the world of turf!). So I jumped on the "interwebs" for the first time all day. My iGoogle account revealed to me that Watson was "hanging in" at the British. I shouted at the iGoogle, which I usually praise, for being the one and only (slight) spoiler all day.
So ... I record the British, fully expecting Watson to start off bogey-bogey-bogey and thus taking away the drama. Not so! Instead, the drama mounted. And that's another thing I love about golf ... rarely does the drama just get blown away. Even if someone starts scoring, that's still drama... will said player keep up the tear? Or will he have a blow-up and let everyone back in?
Hear me out... in basketball (my favorite sport), the 4th quarter can either be close or not. And even if it is close, a lot of times you have too many fouls, or a star player in foul trouble... messing up the drama.
In football... a team falls behind, they start throwing the ball too much. Unless they are wildly successful, the drama is lost.
I could go on, but I enjoy watching golf when these guys all experience a similar pressure, and they all have a similar golf ball and clubs, an identical course and conditions, and there's no referee or anything to mess it up. Possibly obvious to you, but keep in mind, I'm relatively new to watching golf, having only started watching the sport around 2000, when I got my job with GCM. Before that, you couldn't pay me to watch golf. Turns out, paying me to watch golf is what got me addicted...
Being relatively new to golf, I'm not real savvy on how great Tom Watson is. Sure, I've read up on him since, even read the book about Bruce Edwards. That doesn'tmean I know anything about Tom Watson, since my window of watching golf excludes Watson...
But he is a Kansas City guy, and he has supported my Laugh Olympics charity, so yeah, I was like everyone else, and pulling for him.
But, wow, that putt on 18? Ugh.
Too bad I selected "record an additional 30 minutes on my DVR," and missed the ENTIRE FOUR-HOLE PLAYOFF. Yup, that's me. Hi. I'll try to learn.
Stewart Cink... I've interviewed him before, and he's a heck of a nice guy. I'm always pulling for him to win, even though he seems to be just too nice to win. It's like in the movie Swingers (which I somewhat loathe) -- he's never the guy with the fangs, he's always the nice guy, the bunny. He's got the game, it just seems he lacks the killer instinct. Well, that putt on 18 was killer. And I loved how he was celebrating before the ball even dropped. That adds cool points to dropping that putt in my book.
Was it a contractual obligation for ESPN to add their logo to the screen when the final group hit No. 18? I'm watching, feeling good about the unobtrusive ABC logo at the bottom right-hand of the screen. Then, it was like an executive with ABC/ESPN was like, "Oh, damn! We forgot to put the ESPN logo on this morning! Put it up, quick, near the golfer's heads!"
Was the entire broadcast crew trying to jinx Tom Watson? They had him crowned as he walked up 17! It was a done deal! I was nervous about Watson's putt on 17! (Maybe I know more about Watson than I thought...) The broadcast crew talked about his par on 18, and how this was such a historic event... flash up the "significance" graphic one more time! (Thankfully I could blast through it, with the power of the DVR. Commercials and stupid graphics, you are dead to me!) The entire broadcast crew owes Watson an apology, because they were doing everything they could to jinx Watson.
Is it just me, or were there not that many people at Turnberry? Especially when they showed the way-back footage from Watson's win in 1977... people seemed to be everywhere. As far as majors go, this one looked like to me a major where you could actually get a decent view without too much work on Sunday. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'll be hopeful for views like that at Hazeltine next month!
I grabbed the photo from Stewart Cink's Twitter page. In case you were wondering. I like following Stewart Cink on Twitter. Sue me.
Stewart Cink was in a lose-lose situation in the playoff. He's like the guy who has to guard the girl at the pick-up basketball game at the rec center. If you D-up too close, you're being a jerk, but if she scores a point, you just let a girl score. (With apologies to sensitive women pick-up basketball players everywhere... but it's true, even if you truly are the best player on the court.)
Imagine walking back out on to the course if you're Cink. "Great," you think to yourself. "If I win, I defeat the would-be oldest major champion ever, a man who is universally loved here, and ruin the big story of the weekend." And if you lose? "I lose another shot at a major, this time as the guy who lost to the oldest... major... champion... EVER."
So, good on ya, Stewart Cink. You did the best thing you could in a lose-lose situation. You convincingly won.
I told you these were random thoughts on the British, didn't I?
Comments