As the light faded on a heady day in Georgia, Butch Harmon, the veteran golf coach and Sky Sports pundit, was musing on the unique individual challenge presented by golf. “You’re out there completely on your own,” he said. “It’s just you and a stationary little white ball. You alone can move it. No one is there to help you.”
We had just seen Rory McIlroy, the best golfer in the world, crumble under the pressure, regather himself, crumble again, and finally, a solitary man with the eyes of the world on him, summon up enough strength of mind and purpose to win the US Masters at Augusta and become only the sixth man in the history of the sport to win all four major tournaments, completing golf’s grand slam.
Harmon’s meditation would have connected with anyone who has ever played golf. It is a sport that, at any level, will test one’s mental and physical ability like no other. Darts and snooker require similar reserves of nerve, and tennis comes close in terms of individual pressure points. But in tennis, you are beaten by someone else. In golf, your greatest opponent is yourself.
And what made McIlroy’s struggles, and his eventual accomplishment, so compelling yesterday was that it was utterly relatable. He can hit a golf ball more than 350 yards with unerring accuracy and there he was, leading the field and seemingly cruising to victory in the tournament, when he was presented with a simple 86-yard shot over a creek to the green.
When I say he could have made the shot blindfolded, it is no joke. He could have done it left-handed. I know a 10-year-old girl who can hit a golf ball 86 yards with reasonable accuracy. But McIlroy, gripped by the enormity of the occasion, put the ball in the water. And at that moment, as he bowed his head, every golfer in every corner of the world, maybe everyone who’s ever played sport, or even made a business decision under pressure, could empathise him. Who hasn’t failed for the want of succeeding?
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“Oh Rory. What on earth was that?” exclaimed Nick Faldo in the commentary booth. But he quickly answered his own question. “That was pure nerves,” he said. Only sport can lay bare the frailties of the human spirit like this. And golf can do it with such regularity and cruelty. Minutes later, McIlroy, unbearably, missed a short putt on the 18th green that would have won him the tournament there and then.
That he prevailed at the first extra hole was a morality tale of redemption, and this wasn’t lost on McIlroy in his remarks after the tournament. Addressing directly his four-year-old daughter, Poppy, he said: “Never, ever give up on your dreams. Keep coming back, keep working hard and if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.”
It was a moment to melt the flintiest heart. But, despite the drama and the outpouring of emotion, golf is a sport that, still, fails to capture universal appeal. Yes, it is relateable, but also elite. It is ostensibly inclusive but not diverse. Look carefully at the crowd round the 18th green who greeted McIlroy’s triumph with such enthusiasm. I couldn’t see a single black face. And this is in a state where one in three of the population is African American.
The Masters champion gets a green jacket to wear, but moments after the wildest of sporting dramas, we are transported to a sterile room where four white men are sitting round a table while the jacket is presented. Tradition is commendable, and I’m not suggesting the winner of the Masters should go on a lap of honour, but if golf has an image problem (and the sport will die if young people are not attracted to it), it can be seen right there. The searing excitement of the moment killed by a scene that screams exclusivity, and can only be off-putting to the prospective enthusiast.
For those of us who love golf, and of course those who don’t, these things matter. And it is exactly at a moment when the sport can rightly bask in the achievements of its greatest current practitioner that a little self-reflection may be in order.
