SPECTATOR SPORT
A golfer needs a loving wife
Frank Keating
I'LL TELL YOU what age-old certainty the Ryder Cup has shattered in the past ten years — this one biennial tournament has smithereened the idea that golf's male bas- tion .of a century-and-a-half was female- free.
The US v. Europe Ryder cuppers are back at the Belfry next week. The last half dozen or so matches (in fact, since 'Britain & Ireland' allowed Spaniards and Germans to play) have contrived palpitating finishes, zapped up and zoomed upon by jingoistic television coverage. A blubbing stream of grown men and grey-haired caddies finish- ing up at the 18th green on the final after- noon was one thing, and bad enough. But after their putt had been cupped (or even not, sometimes especially when not), the embarrassingly mawkish scenes of hus- bands being osculatorily savaged by excitably oscillating spouses in gaudy Day- glo designer-sports outfits has announced no further contest in golf's ancient battle of the sexes.
The divorce rate on the top golfing cir- cuit is at epidemic proportions. At the last Ryder Cup match, in 1991, 17 of the 24 competing players had lived through at least one broken marriage. In 1985, amid all those joyous scenes at the Belfry as the golfers were being smothered in spousal sobbing and slobbering, I could not help wondering if it would be the same women doing the whooping even four years hence. I wondered right. In golf, it is tough at the top for monogamy.
It is an equal strain for both sides. The golfer, by definition, is obsessed with golf; his wife becomes obsessed with his being obsessed. As that fount of all such wisdom, P.G. Wodehouse, noted 60 years ago, 'His handicap was down to 12. But these things are not all. A golfer needs a loving wife to whom he can describe every aspect of his day's play all through every long evening.' Around the same time, Henry Cotton (him- self survivor of one long and happy mar- riage) warned, `No pro should marry till in his 30s. It demands a division of interests, and golf demands every minute of man's time.' (What `widow' wed to even the most unco-ordinated weekend hacker would not sigh `aye' to that).
On the other hand, the old US touring pro, Dan Sikes, once confided that in his next life he'd opt to be one of his ex-wives. `I'm on the tee at seven. She'll open an eye at ten, and sleepily ponder her first momentous decision of the day — whether to breakfast in bed or in the hotel coffee- shop. And I finish my 18 holes, and I'm either depressed or on a real high of elation — and she's still in a paroxysm of internal debate as to the eggs Benedict or the waf- fles.'
At the Belfry in 1985, the American Ryder Cup captain was the irrepressible Lee Trevino. When the team arrived, we asked him who was the leading US money- winner on the tour that year. `My ex-wife,' snapped Mr T. He said his recent divorce from Claudia, his wife of many years, had come as a complete surprise to him `although I suppose I should have expected it when I hadn't been home for 18 years'.
Then, out of the blue, he introduced us to his brand-new wife, a delightful and sparky 26-year-old redhead. She was also called Claudia, said Lee — `so I didn't even have to change the names on our towels'.
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