Golf Can Forsake Just for Sake of It

I am indebted to my friend and colleague, Rick Reilly, for an article in Sports Illustrated calling attention to Whatever-Happened-To-Ian-Baker-Finch?

It has been baffling golf buffs for years. Compared to it, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is an open-and-shut case.

Baker-Finch is the elegant Aussie golfer who dazzled the world shortly after his first full year on tour in 1989, winning bushels of money ($649,513 in 1991) and culminating in a wire-to-wire win in the British Open that year.

From that point, the world’s only hyphenated top golfer went into a free fall without a parachute, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Lucifer. Baker-Finch ended up in golf hell where he couldn’t break 90 and, in fact, threw a little 92 at the course in the ’97 British Open.

He couldn’t keep the ball in the fairway, he couldn’t putt, he couldn’t chip. He couldn’t play.

It happens in golf. It’s the most diabolical game ever invented. When a ballplayer suddenly can’t hit the curveball any more, there’s usually a good reason. Old age, failing eyesight, a sudden injury to a muscle, too much night life. Ditto when a quarterback suddenly can’t get the ball to his tight end. His line is, maybe, porous.

Golf doesn’t need a reason. It suddenly leaves you, like a foundling on a doorstep with a note on his jammies. One day you’ve got it, the next day you haven’t. Jimmy Hoffa is easier to find than your missing stroke.

Happens all the time. Back in ‘81, Bill Rogers won four tournaments, including the British Open. He was player of the year. Then he hit a wall. He was suddenly as long gone as the buggy whip. Couldn’t break 80. Couldn’t make a cut. In 1981, he made $315,411. In 1989 and ’90 he made $0. Seve Ballesteros won the ’88 British Open. He never won on the PGA Tour again.

What happens? Well, golf happens. It’s a game where the bleeding is internal, doubt is never more than a chip shot away. Bobby Locke once explained why he never practiced. “You hit 30 good shots. Then you hit one bad shot. Now, you have to hit 30 more good shots to get your self-esteem back.”

The longest, most difficult shot in golf is the one from ear to ear. Louse that one up and the rest will follow. Eagle the first hole and the round is a parade with balloons and calliopes. Take a buzzard on the first hole and you’re a basket case by the turn.

People don’t understand this about golf. Some years ago, the great Danny Kaye, whose contempt for golf was long-standing (“What? Just hit that little white ball?”) was lured out to a first tee to demonstrate its simplicity. He promptly hit the ball 250 yards down the middle and turned and threw the club to his audience with a mocking leer. Two weeks later, another group wanted to see him do it again. Sure! said Danny. He marched out to the tee, swung mightily. And the ball shot straight up in the air and came down and almost hit him in the head. A foul pop-up to the catcher. He frowned, teed up another ball. The ball went screaming dead right and smashed into a cart.

Danny got the message. Welcome to golf, sucker. He then dug in and became a master player. But only after years of practice and hard work. He learned to respect the game the hard way.

Americans turned the game into the pressure-cooker it is today. We invented the term par. We also invented birdie, bogey, eagle. And medal play.

Before us, the Scots who invented this devil’s brew of a game used to play it as match play, head-to-head, hole-to-hole competition. Like a prize fight. You played your opponent one hole at a time, not 18. If you won the first 10 holes, the match was over, 10-up with only eight to play. Medal score didn’t matter. You could win at match play shooting a 78 against a 68. You just had to win the most holes.

Americans couldn’t stand this. Too leisurely. We had to find a way to have a guy standing over a 20-foot putt worth half a million dollars. We had to make sure the pressure was about that of standing on the floor of the ocean with a faulty hose. Russian roulette with the nervous system.

It’s a game for which the public at large has no clue. It looks so easy. I was not at all surprised that the judge who ruled in the Casey Martin case the other day was a non-golfer. Figured.

A golf course can become Dracula’s castle at midnight. A walk to the electric chair. Even the great Hogan suddenly couldn’t make a short putt any more at the end of his career--even though that was the only kind Hogan ever had. Curtis Strange won back-to-back U. S. Opens, 1988-1989. And hasn’t won since. Chip Beck hasn’t made a cut in 11 months. He made $916,818 in one year once. Second on the money list. He made $10,653 last year, 267th on the money list. He’s only 41. You play your best golf in your early 40s.

That’s the nature of the beast. And the tour arrives in Los Angeles this week for the Nissan Open at Valencia, 140 golfers all eager, all avid, dreaming of British Opens, Masters, double-eagles, birdies, course records. They’re like Little Red Riding Hood walking into grandma’s bedroom. There will come the day when they realize that all those teeth and fur don’t belong to grandma at all but to the timber wolf that is golf.

This is the tournament where I first saw Ian Baker-Finch in 1991 brimming with confidence and optimism, shooting respectable rounds of 68-75-69-68. He was to win the British Open that year.

A lot of guys out there this week better hope they never make that mistake.