BETHPAGE, NY – Frank Lloyd Wright once wrote, “Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” What the man who became famous for designing Marge Simpson’s hair didn’t tell you was that if you tip the world over on its other side, everything loose lands at Bethpage State Park for the U.S. Open. Because although, it’s been a dismal, dreary spring in New York City, not even three months of leaden-slate skies, dark, oppressive clouds, and rain, rain, rain, can dampen the buoyant heart’s of the region’s proud sports fans. So for this week, all the whoop and crash, pomp and circumstance, and history and regalia that is our National Golf Championship will crackle further with bursts of static electricity only New York City fans can bring.
“I have never played in front of an atmosphere that loud for all 18 holes,” said a visibly impressed Tiger Woods, his eyes widening with sincerity at the recollection of his 2002 victory at Bethpage Black. “Everyone was so excited to have it out here on their golf course, and it seemed like every golfer here has played this course.”
Indeed, the Black is the People’s Country Club, and the locals are rightfully proud. Every New York State resident who has ever picked up a club, and who can scrape together $60 – a paltry sum compared to greens fees at similar courses – anybody can come and play a major championship venue designed by A.W. Tillinghast, the same man who designed classic masterpieces like Winged Foot and Baltusrol, and return home the envy of their golf friends, with stories that last a lifetime.
“It’s the course, it’s the fans, and it’s the city,” explained Kenny Perry. “New Yorkers have a pride and energy, and they reflect it in everything they do. That combination makes New York just a special place to come and play golf, let alone host a major. You can’t help but be moved by it.”
“It really is the city that never sleeps,” added England’s Paul Casey energetically, as he signed autographs. He had to pause for a moment, as the remark brought loud cheers from the huge gaggle of autograph seekers. “The fans here tell you what their thinking, they’ll let you know they’re for you, they’ll let you know they’re against you, and if you don’t take yourself too seriously and have a laugh with them, they’ll get behind you.”
That brought another rousing cheer, but Casey wasn’t done.
“My friend from the Nike truck who lives here told me to go to B.K. Sweeney’s,” he said within earshot of the fans, [Author’s Note: a favorite local Irish pub here in Bethpage] but they weren’t open for breakfast so we hit the coffee shop across the street.”
That brought more cheers. Everyone loves it when the players praise the local spots. Then a fan jumped into the conversation.
“Hey, Paul!” he shouted, “I’ve eaten there.”
An unsuspecting Casey took the bait. “What did you think?” he asked innocently.
“Breakfast was cold, but the waitress was hot. My mind on her hips, I’m sure I over-tipped.”
That did it! One-upped, Casey just smiled, capped his Sharpie, and then waved his arms in the air, imploring the crowd to cheer his witty new friend.
Casey walked away to thunderous applause and a scene only New York could create. Yet Casey’s appraisal was, as they say in England, spot on. Drink deeply from the Well of Life, party till dawn, sleep through the light, wake up to a subway roar, spend money with reckless abandon, live life like a Kamikaze: That’s the New York City way.
That also seems to be the spirit of Rocco Mediate, last year’s gallant, swashbuckling runner-up who looked more like Rocky than Rocco while going 91 holes with Woods. At his media center interview the night before the playoff, he was downright hyper. He couldn’t wait for his shot at the title. If you’d have given him a rake and an Easter egg to play with and pack of matches for light, he would have gone out with Woods right then and there.
“These fans say whatever they feel, and they don’t care who’s listening,” Mediate stated. “That’s what I like about it – they let you have it. They’re with you or against you.” As New York sports fans admire courage and pluck, fearlessness and daring, Mediate is close to the top the list as a local favorite. Large crowds have materialized around him, cheering him on, and he returns with energetic gratitude. This week, his galleries will be just as vibrant as Phil Mickelson’s, who still seems to be New York’s favorite son, even after his spirit-crushing disaster at Winged Foot in 2006.
Isn’t that perhaps the strangest sports love affair in recent memory? Maybe ever? New York City usually likes its sports heroes to be brash, rash, and full of flash. Arrogant, colorful, troublesome, larger-than-life figures not only thrive, but dominate the sports landscape here: Babe Ruth, Joe Namath, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Lawrence Taylor, Mark Messier, Willis Reed…stop me anytime.
Then here comes Phil Mickelson: a dopey-grinning, chubby, waddling, honest to a fault, feelings on his sleeve family man, whose open-book life is more like a Lands End catalog than a salacious gossip column. Yet, Mickelson is golf’s approachable, affable, admirable everyman. It’s not just NYC that loves Phil, but true golf fans around the country. Tiger has the casual fan, but Phil has the base, the beating heart. That love affair first peaked here in 2002, at purely public Bethpage, the everyman’s country club…and the vibe just gained momentum from there. That’s why the attraction makes perfect sense.
Then he won the Masters of the decade – maybe longer – and wrote himself forever in golf lore. He followed that with a major win in New York, (the PGA at Baltusrol in ’05, for those of you scoring at home), and another Masters win. With a full head of steam, he barreled into Winged Foot, charged to a dominant late lead, and then shockingly, unbelievably, collapsed, breaking a whole city’s heart as well as his own, and became another horror story in the Gothic golf history of Winged Foot, another well-decorated golf legend condemned to grim internment in the Graveyard of Champions that is Winged Foot West.
Now he returns to New York, but not like Buckner walking back into Shea. Phil-mania still reverberates across galleries nationwide. Yet, it should be especially supportive here and now, at public access Bethpage and at one of Phil’s darkest hours, the uncertainty over Amy’s cancer.
With all that as the backdrop, now is the time for Woods-Mickelson. That’s always the easy, lowest-common-denominator “buzz” at every major, a buzz that always fizzles because, inevitably, one plays well, but the other struggles. But here, this week, under these circumstances, in this atmosphere every bit as rough and tumble as the Roman Coliseum itself, we could see the stuff of legends.
It’s the right time and the right place. This is a venue, town, and fan base like no other. It’s a town so vibrant, players actually will go out and see the sights, do the town, even though they are competing in a major. Jim Furyk went to last Saturday’s Yankee game and David Toms, Stephen Ames, Steve Stricker, and Adam Scott are all hoping to go after the tournament. Angel Cabrera and Eduardo Romero will sample the regions outstanding Argentine parillas. Cabrera went to Buenos Aires restaurant in Huntington, and may try Forest Hills’s Pampas Grill later in the week.
It’s a venue and fan base so outspoken a portly fan can yell out to Camilo Villegas during his practice round, “People say I have the body of Camilo Villegas. If you knew what I was doing to it, you’d be madder than Hell.”
He got an autograph.
Sure, there will be some lugnuts running around in drunken bravado, and please don’t encourage them. You know the type. They’ll heckle players they don’t like. They’ll boast, “I partied hard with Tiger, but the photo didn’t save.” They’ll brag about their prowess on the Black. Well, there are two items of news for them. First, as my pal MC Lars says, beating Wii golf doesn’t make you Tiger Woods.
Second, remember those dire warnings I gave you in my cybergolf.com piece about how behavior will be monitored more closely than in 2002? The police presence at the Open is huge and ubiquitous, almost ominous. While most police has stopped “teaching people a lesson on general principal” for some time, on Long Island, they still relish the heavy work. In no state prison are the inmates more closely watched. Cross the line and you’ll be gone in a New York minute.
Still, the fan base expected at Bethpage – the supportive fans, the respectful fans – that fan base is representative of one important golf virtue – egalitarianism. Golf still is – at its roots – totally disconnected from social advantage. The game does not discriminate on the basis of birth or wealth, of upbringing or homeland. It is, instead, excepting chess, the most clinical test of personal merit the sports world has yet devised. As such, perhaps there was no greater poetry done by the U.S.G.A. than to honor the public roots that grew so deeply at Bethpage with our national championship.
What a setting that would be for a battle between our generations greatest golf titans. We could see a touch of golf destiny. So get ready, the open starts tomorrow, at the People’s Country Club. And as they say on Delta flights, please keep your seat belts fastened, we may experience turbulence.
