All of a Sudden, We’re Getting Beat by Country Mile

Wait just a darn minute here! Hold it! Time out!

What’s going on with the United States of America?

Let me ask you something: Didn’t we used to win international athletic events with monotonous regularity? Didn’t the rest of the world have trouble keeping up with us? Didn’t we used to win Wimbledon, U.S. Opens, golf and tennis. British Opens, French Opens, auto races, foot races, Olympic Games? Like clockwork?

The rest of the world got sick of hearing “The Star Spangled Banner,” right?

Well, take a look around you. What’s happening here?

A guy whose name you can’t pronounce without a mouthful of marbles, Jose Maria Olazabal has just won the World Series of Golf, our World Series of Golf, by--get this!--12 shots.

That wouldn’t be so bad--but a Briton won our Masters tournament this year. An Aussie won our PGA.

A Swede won Wimbledon and will probably win the U.S. tennis Open. Unless, of course, a Czech or German does.

A Dutchman won the Indianapolis 500. Our race, for cryin’ out loud! But that’s nothing. Last year, a Brazilian won it. Tell me something, didn’t these races used to be won by A.J. Foyt, some Unser, guys from Texas and New Mexico? Not from The Hague or Sao Paolo.

What about the Little League World Series? That’s about as American as homemade fudge. But for the 14th time in 17 years, the Chinese won it.

It’s the greenhorning of America. The Yankee Doodles are no longer so dandy. The Yanks aren’t coming, they’re going. Fading.

Think about it: There’s a very good chance our national tennis championship will be played off between a couple of guys named Boris and Ivan. The women’s final will almost surely have a young woman born in West Germany, Steffi Graf, playing one born in Yugoslavia, Monica Seles, or Czechoslovakia, Martina Navratilova.

The United States golf Open was very nearly won by the Brit who won the Masters two years in a row and the British Open. Two years ago, this same Brit--Nick Faldo--very nearly won another Open, losing a playoff to Curtis Strange, whom he regularly outplays of late.

“Majors” used to be won by guys named Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones. Guys named Jack and Arnold. Tennis used to be won by girls named Billie Jean or Helen Wills.

We even lose basketball finals in the Olympics. And we invented that game. You have to wonder if we’re doing the right thing, introducing pro football to Europe. Maybe we better hope it doesn’t catch on.

Watching Jose Maria Olazabal scatter a field of America’s premier golfers--certified tournament winners not scattershot qualifiers--you’re struck with wonder that a guy could get that proficient at a sport in a country where it was virtually unknown a generation ago.

The essence of excellence at anything is competition. You get to be the best by playing the best. How did young Jose Maria Olazabal ever get so good with no one pressing him, in a country where the nearest real competition is half a continent and two languages away? How did Seve Ballesteros do it before him?

Why don’t we develop superior players like these anymore? We have thousands of golf courses, millions of golfers, the finest equipment, competition. We shouldn’t get beaten by guys who have to learn the game hitting pebbles with crooked sticks.

It’s truth that golf is a sport where the opponent is the real estate--or oneself. No one’s throwing a curving ball or a forearm shiver at you.

But, if you’re brought up in the shadow of the Pyrenees, what equips you to step up to a 15-foot putt on an undulating green before a nationwide--or worldwide--TV audience and a sometimes unruly or unsympathetic gallery and calmly can a two-break snake? How do you learn that playing in the sand dunes along the Basque coast with your cousin? Hogan would be ashamed to get bested by someone with that disadvantaged a start.

I don’t know whether Americans are getting softer or the rest of the world is getting harder. I know that, in golf, the good life seems to be taking its toll. I do know the Yanks seem to be knocking the ball in the water in Ryder Cup matches, yipping four-foot putts in major tournaments with increasing regularity.

They can’t even beat each other with any consistency. It’s getting to be like a race between plating horses, a different winner each time they go out.

Golf is so starved for a new monarch, it eagerly hailed Faldo as the incarnation of Jones and Hagen, heroes of the past.

We used to win the British Open whenever we really put our minds to it and sent our best players. When Sandy Lyle won it in 1985, he was the first Brit to win it in 25 years. From 1970 to 1985, only two non-Americans won it--Ballesteros and Gary Player of South Africa. Since 1983, only one American, Mark Calcavecchia, has won it--and he had to stave off two Aussies in the playoff, Greg Norman and Wayne Grady.

Before 1961, when Player won it, no foreigner had ever won the Masters. In the last 11 years, foreigners have won it seven--count ‘em--seven times. It would have been eight if Larry Mize hadn’t chipped in over Greg Norman’s head in a playoff in ’87.

It used to be, if a guy with a funny accent won a major sporting event in this country, it just meant he was from Texas. Now it can be anything from Cockney to Andalusian. It’s OK to buy American--just don’t bet them.