The men are playing in some sort of playoff sponsored by a delivery company, where there’s so much money to be won that even Vijay Singh might actually crack a smile.
Singh will apparently win the FedEx Cup if he doesn’t collapse on the practice range, or so say the people who claim to have figured out the arcane calculations that go into the season-ending series. That should excite his accountant, if no one else.
The women of the LPGA, meanwhile, are enjoying a few weeks away from the course, studying hard so they can learn a few key phrases like “You’re away” and “Quit walking in my line” for their pro-am partners.
And, of course, the Americans are getting ready for their biennial whipping in the Ryder Cup.
With all that going on, the biggest news in golf might be that Tiger Woods is about to become a father for the second time.
That’s huge because this one could be a boy, and we all know that child prodigies run in the Woods’ family tree. Gives us something to look forward to years from now when there could be a Woods on each tour and golf might become watchable again.
It certainly is not now. Not on the course or in the interview room, where the special this week at the BMW Championship brings the well-heeled up close and personal with both players and media.
With TV ratings plunging even before the start of the NFL season and the concept of the FedEx Cup still lost on millions of golf fans, the tour apparently thought that putting a few rows of seats behind mirrors in the media tent so people could watch the sweaty media ask a few questions to equally sweaty players would be a great way to allow fans to bond with their favorite players.
What they didn’t count on was that reporters might not like the idea of being on display like criminals in a police lineup. One packed up his stuff and left, while others are boycotting the interview room all together, taking a cue from players who try to escape it whenever they can, too.
Too bad, because there’s nothing like listening to Singh regale the media with tales of great 7-irons and putts that were so good they had to go in.
What a guy, that Veej, clearly enjoying himself so much that even the folks in the cheap seats could see he could barely tear himself away after five minutes of going over birdies and bogeys to head back to the range.
Imagine telling your buddies about that the next day at the office.
“He was close enough to touch, if we hadn’t been behind the one-way mirrors, that is. You know, I’ve never noticed how he takes his visor off and wipes his brow when he sits down, either. And the look of exasperation he gave when a reporter dared ask him about his three-putt? Priceless.”
Unfortunately, this is what the post-Tiger golf world will likely look like. Boring players who make no effort to connect with the fans going through the motions only because they have to.
They do at least speak English, giving them an advantage over many of the 45 South Koreans who ply their trade on the LPGA Tour.
There’s so many of them that even the best South Korean on the PGA Tour has trouble sorting them out.
“Hard to keep track,” K.J. Choi said earlier this year. “Too many Kims and Parks.”
The influx has commissioner Carolyn Bivens so spooked that she demanded they all learn English — from the LPGA’s official language sponsor, of course — or risk being suspended from the tour.
What Bivens did was so nonpolitically correct that it’s laughable she thought she would get away with it, even if speaking English to sponsors and the media makes complete sense. What was even more laughable is that she took off on vacation when the controversy erupted, leaving her underlings to answer uncomfortable questions before finally giving up and saying she would come up with another secret plan soon.
Here’s a suggestion: Instead of forcing your players to speak English, force them to at least fake having a personality. Is there any difference between South Koreans who can’t speak English and some of the best players on the LPGA Tour (Cristie Kerr comes to mind) who are so into themselves they don’t say anything at all?
The PGA Tour is also filled with players just like that, which hasn’t been a problem in recent times because Woods has been such a dominant personality. Right now, a few English lessons and mirrors aren’t going to change that.
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org.
