Gone bananas RYDER CUP STARS LOSE PLOT
REMEMBER when Ian Poulter used to beat his chest like a gorilla as he turned into a man possessed at the Ryder Cup?
Remember when his putter fuelled the ‘Miracle at Medinah’ in 2012 that left European captain Jose Maria Olazabal in tears?
How about when Martin Kaymer was mobbed on the 18th green by the likes of Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell, having sealed the greatest comeback of all?
Sergio Garcia led those famous celebrations, having completed a heroic turnaround to win the last two holes of his singles match against Jim Furyk.
It was an iconic moment which made golf lovers proud of their sport, their team and all those who gave up their time for nothing to help cement the competition as one of the biggest and greatest on the planet.
We thought these blokes cared more about the Ryder Cup than individual success. All those involved spoke of the special bond it created. Treasured memories. Friendships for life and all that jazz.
But it turns out all that cheerleading about how the honour, tradition and patriotism of golf’s greatest competition was the ultimate privilege was nothing more than saying what they thought we wanted to hear.
A decade on from Chicago, all those mentioned above have now written another chapter in the history of the game that proves once and for all where their real priorities and commitments lie.
The incentive of those golfers who have chosen to take the cash of the tawdry and tacky Saudi-backed LIV Tour is to see their bank balances bulge bigger than Poulter’s eyes used to when he took on the Yanks.
These aging heroes have now inflicted a civil war on their sport and the consequences will be dire.
Poulter, Westwood and McDowell still speak of being allowed to have future roles in the Ryder Cup, despite having their tour cards suspended as punishment for getting into bed with a regime like the Saudis.
This lot speak of how a greater good might somehow come of golf ’s new venture, how it will grow the game rather than leaving it in the gutter, while attempting to justify taking all the millions by insisting it’s to secure their families’ futures.
“We’re running a business here,” said McDowell. “If Saudi Arabia want to use golf as a way to get where they want to be, I think we are proud to help them on that journey.”
It’s the sort of rhetoric that has now become as naive as it has tiresome.
Do the likes of McDowell, Anthony Joshua, Formula One drivers and Newcastle supporters think we will one day live in a world in which Saudi women are allowed to live in a democratic state, homosexuality is accepted, migrant workers are not killed or journalists who endeavour to expose the brutal truths of such a despicable regime are not hacked to death with a bone saw?
“Scary mother **** ers” indeed, Mr Mickelson.
Golf has had its own problems of discrimination in the past, both in the United Kingdom and America.
It has claimed to be a paragon of virtue. One of the last bastions of honesty and sportsmanship. But it hasn’t been.
Yet golf’s Ryder Cup also made the likes of Poulter and Westwood. It wasn’t the other way round. These two never won a Major title and all the highlights of their careers came in the unified uniform of Team Europe.
And nothing can airbrush all those glorious things they achieved out of history, but what can still be erased is their chance to ever captain their continent in the future. The same goes for Garcia and McDowell.
That’s the price this mob should now be forced to pay, but don’t worry.
They can afford it.