As Sergio Garcia’s putt to win the Open Championship lipped out, an enormous cheer went up from the group of cart boys, starters and golfers that were gathered around the bar of a Maryland daily-fee golf course.
It was a disgusting, unprofessional, puerile display. It sickened me to watch it and believe me I let a few people know about it.
“I don’t like him because of what he did to Tiger” said one fellow. “And I think his clothes are ugly. He dresses like a Euro.”
I’m sorry, I must be confused. Where is it written that we all have to look alike?
“I don’t like him because he’s arrogant – he and all his little hot girls running around. Who does he think he is?” groused another.
“Ha ha!” laughed another, mimicing the voice of “Nelson” from “The Simpsons” fame. “He blew the British Open. He’ll never win a major and he’s second class.”
I wanted to retch at this ethnocentric, vulgar, juvenile and petty display of supposedly grown men. They looked and acted like the quintessential “Ugly Americans.” I wonder if they would have behaved the same way if they were in Madrid…or even Scotland. If so, they are clearly missing a few crucial lessons about grace and class.
You know what? Yes, Sergio has had moments where he has not been gracious or gallant. Maybe he’s defiant. Maybe he’s built a stereotypical image of himself that is larger than life. But the jingoistic, unsavory reaction that has been heaped upon him in the press and from rank and file golf fans has gone overboard.
Golfers do not root against other golfers. It violates the ethos that burns in the soul of true golfers – as opposed to those who merely “play golf.”
There are eight virtues in this world – courage, honor, loyalty, wisdom, fortitude, temperance, justice and compassion. Think long and hard about people you admire in your life and see how many they embody and why. What’s virtuous about wishing ill of a player? What’s virtuous about laughing as a man’s life-long dream is in pieces at his feet? Is there any courage in that act at all? Any wisdom? How about temperance?
Yeah. I thought so. There is not one shred, is there?
Do you want to know how Sergio feels right now? Well pretend for a moment you went into work today and your most important issue – case, patient, student, whatever – was in ruins at your feet and everyone was laughing at you. If you were a policeman or CIA Agent, imagine that just as you were about to capture Usama Bin Laden, with the whole world watching he escaped under your clutches and everyone was looking hawkishly at you and making jokes. If you were a doctor, imagine you were selected to operate on a president or queen or senator…and horribly your moment of triumph turns on you and they die on the table.
If you’re a sportswriter, imagine that you did a huge story and suddenly it turns out you were horribly wrong and now you must not only pay the consequences, but that people were laughing at you’re failure and holding you up as a cautionary tale. If you’re a teacher, imagine that the student you spent all year with to help pass a crucial exam, failed and everyone was looking to your in your moment of your worst failure. If you are deeply in love with someone – the one man or woman you have loved all your life – and then suddenly at the moment you ask her to marry her, she says she’s marrying someone else.
Now it’s not so funny is it? Now you see how tittering behind your hand or pointing and laughing like a donkey at someone else’s failure is despicable. We need more compassion in this terrible world, not less. More wisdom, more temperance.
You want your pound of flesh for the horrible “crimes” of criticizing Tiger, drooling in the cup, and dating hot women? Here it is. Sergio’s lifelong dream lies in pieces at his feet. Everything he has worked for all his life has been dashed from his lips with a four-iron. He must feel like each swing Harrington took landed right in his stomach. That’s punishment enough. If you have ever finished second in anything important, you know how much it hurts.
As for his post-tournament press conference, yes Sergio was not gallant or gracious and he had a “why me” whine that seemed to pervade through the time he spent with the press. But could you have done it? Maybe, maybe not. The pressure did not subside when Harrington’s putt went in, but increased. It crushed Sergio with it’s mundane finality, his golf mortality creeping over him, despair steeling through his veins.
You can stamp his sins “paid in full” – almost. Yet still the media circle. After the tag had disappeared for a while, the worthless talking point “best player never to win a major” has resurfaced it’s ugly head again and was thrown on him. Ridiculous. The BPNTWAM is Colin Montgomerie, not Sergio. Go look it up. Check their career records. Monty has many more years of close calls and agony as well as tournament wins and Ryder Cup appearances. If you say it’s Sergio, you’re just writing to the casual fan, the fan who doesn’t bother to think, who just regurgitates whatever the paper, TV or magazine say that week. In a few months, if player X has a public flame out, it’ll switch to him.
There is a small glimmer of good from all this, however. To make this a happy story, three things need to happen. There must be communication, forgiveness and redemption. Sergio, there is a serious block between the American golf fan and media and yourself. You must do something to quell this public perception of defiance, arrogance and ingratitude. Americans actually like their heroes humble. So I’ll bet you anything that if you called a press conference before the PGA Championship and addressed these issues with grace and humility, alot of the pressure would ease and you’d win the respect of both casual fans and die-hards alike.
Simply be candid and sincere. Yes there are many who act like thuggishly like those disgraceful Marylanders I met – (especially the ones on duty at the golf course), but for every lowest common denominator lunkhead that merely “plays” or likes” golf, there are ten good hearted, upstanding souls that understand the Victorian soul and selfless ethos of a True Golfer (yes, capitalized). Those are souls that will be touched to see your true feelings, to hear how you’re suffering, that will be inspired to hear you say – in your lowest moment – that introspection has helped you find a silver lining and that you’re working on self-improvement in life, not just golf.
Turn your detractors into your friends. If they won’t turn, then just remember that and prove them wrong with hard work and perseverance. Your successes will be enough crow for them to eat.
To the detractors – COOL IT. Act your age.   Stop and think. Pig-piling is for high school kids. Act like Ladies and Gentlemen (again, capitalized). Act like humans, with virtue. The world needs more courage yes, but it also needs more temperance, wisdom and compassion.
I take no solace in Sergio’s grim defeat this weekend and neither should you. It’ just a game – to us, but it’s life to him. The “S” stands for Sergio, not Superman. If you cut him, he bleeds. He’s young, yes, but he knows he’s also old enough to be making the requisite changes in his life to get to the next level. That’s upon him. If he doesn’t learn from his mistakes and makes more, then be it on his head. But hating him for his loud clothes? Because (gasp!) he criticized Woods? Because he dates Norman’s daughter or models or tennis stars or whomever maybe hotter than people you dated?
That’s not Golf and you know it.
Sergio is not perfect. Sergio needs to make some changes. Nevertheless, lets see if terrible loss and repeated mistakes make him a better man. It’s been known to happen before. Crushing Sergio under the weight of this loss purely for sport makes us look much worse than any petty crimes you may perceive in Sergio.
“To have class, to always have class. – Bear Bryant
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