Spectator Sport
Remember the Wightman Cup? For anyone under 40, this was the annual women’s tennis tournament between Britain and the US, which eventually passed away, largely unmourned, at the end of the 1980s. The reason? Extreme lack of interest. Not just among the audiences, but the players too. We were all tired of Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver coming over and ripping apart, say, Jo Durie, Anne Hobbs and if memory serves the now lustrously big-haired Annabel Croft. Year after year after year.
Now I don’t want to sound mad but I think there is a real danger that the Ryder Cup, reconvening next week in Kentucky, could go the same way. So here are five reasons why even the greatest Europhiles should want America to reclaim Sam Ryder’s elegant golden goblet.
1. Europe has won five of the last six tournaments, so a victory for the Americans would be a nice change. And it would keep the Cup alive. Our transatlantic cousins tend not to like being underdogs, so they might just storm off in a huff if they don’t win, and concentrate on games nobody else plays — baseball and American football. We owe it to the world to keep America’s spirits up — and the Ryder Cup alive.
2. For the sake of Mrs Doubtfire, who found out via a courtesy voicemail from Nick Faldo that he had not been picked. You would have to have a heart of stone not to hope that a rare smile plays across Colin Montgomerie’s face as he and Gaynor sit in their Perthshire mansion to watch Hunter Mahan, as it might be, sink the winning putt for the US on Sunday afternoon. It was Mahan of course who moaned that the Ryder Cup players were treated like slaves because they don’t get paid and have to go out to endure free slap-up dinners.
5. Grace in sport matters, so it has to be a good thing if Faldo gets stuffed. For all his phenomenal achievements the flinty-eyed European captain is what you might call a hard man to warm to. I can remember watching him once in the matchplay at Wentworth donkey’s years ago when his ferociously overhit second shot bounced on to the green and set off at high speed towards the M25. Seconds later, the ball reappeared heading purposefully back towards the flag, thanks to a spectator. Rather than conceding the hole to his opponent, Faldo putted out to win. What a guy!
3. Any event that can steer the formidable Boo Weekley, one of the automatic picks for Paul Azinger’s US team, to world stardom should be welcomed. Weekley is a fabulously engaging good ol’ Southern boy from Florida who once got knocked out by an orang-utan at a fairground. As he says, he does like a few beers, so what’s not to like? The Ryder Cup is greater for the presence of Boo...
4. ...unlike Tiger Woods, whose godlike status seems to have held back the US for the last few years. The divine one (who actually walks on water in the latest ad for his video game) obviously has to play in every match, though in 2006 and 2004 he only won five out of nine possible points. The Ryder Cup is all about teamwork, and stupendously gifted as Woods is, he doesn’t really seem to care that much. If the US can win without the wounded Tiger, it will show that sometimes teamwork matters more than individual brilliance, and that’s good news for all of us no-hopers, whatever we do.
Nobody likes a boaster, but at the halfway stage in the US Open at Flushing Meadow, always a good time to bet in Grand Slams, I backed Roger Federer at a tasty 9-4 and Andy Murray each way at a generous 10-1. So it was a pleasant night’s viewing on Monday. And Federer was out of this world too.
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