12.10.2009.
Last weekend the IOC announced that golf, with a few other sports, has been voted in to be included in the 2016 & 2020 Olympics. They say it's a return after 100 years.
The fact is golf is older than the Modern Olympics, with written records of more than 600 years.
The follow-up media coverage highlighted the comments made by both exponents, supporters and event-managers of the game who lauded the decision, extolling the feeling of pride for country for players and the increasing worldwide popularity of the sport as justification for its inclusion.
The Olympics long ago abondoned the impractical self-imposed rule of restricting the Games to only "amateur" sportsmen. The arguments are deserving of another commentary. For now, suffice it to say that relative to other newer, more obscure and less popular sports like wushu, karate, softball and curling, golf surely stands out better for inclusion into the four-yearly World Competition.
The ethics and rules of golf, even as it is played socially among friends, are notorious. For starters, in no other sport do players call a penalty upon themselves. For the golf outing among four friends, calling penalty upon oneself because of the infringement of an archaic rule about a "free drop" or a "penalty drop" out of a "bad lie" may mean nothing more than the loss of one hole in a game of over eighteen holes . For a professional golfer during a competition, such a penalty is worth literally millions. Too many times these true professionals have penalised themselves by a stroke, often the difference between winning and losing, simply because the ball that they have "addressed", had merely oscillated in its original spot, not because of any movement made by the player, but because of gravity or wind impacting on that 1.64" ball sitting precariously on uneven grass.
You can cynically say "well, golf makes that rule." The thing is no one knows it except for the player standing directly over the guilty ball. View this in the light of the "dive" many a professional footballer balatantly makes, in front of live tv, and realize the contrasting moral code of conduct exhibited. Surely this alone epitomizes the Olympic spirit.
The main argument in support of golf for the Olympics should really be the fact that in this sport is found the true test of skill, regardless of the size of the competitor, or the food that he eats. In boxing, weightlifting, swimming, atheltics, and gymnastics, just to name a few, both factors of size and subjectivity of umpiring can greatly influence the outcome of the competition. The participants must be of the same weight class, or the bigger sportsman obviously has an advantage. Not in golf. Ian Woosnam was World No. 1 once. He stands at 5' 4" and probably still eats steak and mashed potato. Vijay Singh also was World No. 1 once. He's 6'2" and eats rice (his Malay wife comes from Johore) and the occasional chapatti. A lot of young and small South Korean and Japanese girls are causing consternation in the ladies' tour by rotating wins among themselves against the big American girls in their own backyards. Each golf competition is run over four days, a test of consistency. at the same venue, come rain, shine or stormy weather. And the winner is decided by adding up the total absolute strokes that he makes, including the misses and all the penalty strokes referred to earlier.
Isn't golf a rich man's game ?
It's getting expensive now, that's true, but isn't everything else ?. When I started 22 years ago (wow !) a half-set comprising of 7 clubs including the bag cost RM 300. To-day a good driver (the No. 1 club, not the guy who drives his boss to office) alone costs upwards of RM 2,000 ! But as in all things in life, you measure your own clothes. Why buy a Rolls Royce when a Kelisa will do.
Then there is the playing facility. You can't build your own hockey field and maintain it as well, or your own atheltics tracks. OK, but you say for golf you have to be a member of an expensive golf club. But we now have "walk on" facilities in many clubs, and not all are expensive, and in fact government servants join at government rates. Plus, this country is seeing the beginning of the building of public courses that are a common feature in US, UK, Australia and many parts of the world. For the equivalent of RM 20 you can play at these "munis".
The only possible downside to the Olympics inclusion is whether all the noise made for it ends in a whimper.
Look at tennis. It's already in the Olympics. But the last Olympics gold medallist hardly created a ripple in the tennis world, and no ebullent rejoice of medallists stick out in the media. In fact many professional tennis players were not particularly keen to put aside the time from their rich professional schedule.
All this while, tennis as a popular sport has never quite made a rampage anywhere. Just look at the number of courts and the merchandising. And beyond certain age, you can't run after the ball.
It's different with golf. Practically every big town has a golf club with pro-shops and driving ranges. Most shopping malls in all the major towns have at least one golf shop. And the golfers don't have to run (unless you lost a wager and haven't paid !). John Philip Seow plays 9 holes every day and celebrates his 80th birthday this month.
If the criteria for a sporting activity is the display of an achievable athletic skill unaffected by physical size, then golf measures up.
For Malaysians, this is one world sport that is well within their capabalitities to excel in, as proven by other Asian players to-day. We should welcome the inclusion of this sport in the Modern Olympics.
Get a Malaysian Olympics Champion in 2016. That's only seven years more. There's time.
Meanwhile, I'm off to meet Ong Tiong Meng at the club for our regular 12-4-4. I won't run after the game.
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