Tour chiefs and players veer off-course after McGregor’s on-course death

YOU may or may not have heard about the furore over the European Tour’s decision to carry on with the Madeira Islands Open last week after caddie Iain McGregor suffered a heart attack and died on the course while manning the bag for Scottish golfer Alastair Forsyth. In short, McGregor dropped dead on the ninth green during the shortened 36hole tournament, but after some brief deliberations among the players and the Tour chiefs the tournament continued, albeit after a brief and collective pause to mourn the sudden passing of the Zimbabwean bagman.

Subsequently, the European Tour has come in for strong and widespread criticism for not abandoning the tournament, with the Tour’s chief executive, George O’Grady, feeling compelled to issue an apology this week to anyone and everyone “hurt and upset” by the Tour’s decision to carry on regardless.

At this point it should be noted that of the 75-man field only three players – Peter Lawrie, Thomas Pieters and Alexandre Kaleka – withdrew there and then. You will have noticed there that Forsyth, whose clubs McGregor was carrying when he died, was not one of the three, instead choosing to finish out his round, saying he “felt this was what Mac would have wanted.”

Whatever their reasons for carrying on, the fact is that 72 golfers – and their caddies – decided to play on while McGregor’s body was being ferried to a nearby morgue, which surely leaves that group every bit as open to criticism as O’Grady and his colleagues.

In sport, as in showbiz, (is there a distinction?) the usual mantra is that the show must go on, and there have been several examples of that being applied even in the most tragic circumstances.

Twenty years ago this month Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed at the Imola Grand Prix – Ratzenberger during a practice session and Senna during the race. The race was not stopped and was continued to its natural conclusion.

In 2003 Cameroon footballer Marc-Vivien Foé collapsed on the pitch in a Confederations Cup semi-final and it was clear he was is grave trouble. Off the field efforts to revive him failed, but as the then Manchester City player fought for his life the remaining 27 minutes of the soccer match were played out. Chuck Hughes remains the only American football player to die on the field during a NFL match. In 1971 while playing for the Detroit Lions he suffered a fatal heart attack during the final minutes of a game against the Chicago Bears. Team mates and the opposition knew he was in serious trouble, but those final few minutes of the game still went ahead.

The point is that, for right or wrong, these decisions are made in an instant and those who make these decision have to then live or die by them, so to speak.

That’s something George O’Grady ( learned the hard way this last week.

“I completely understand the views of people who say that we should not have carried on, but it was a terrible situation for anyone to be in and the decision to finish the tournament was not taken lightly, either by myself or by the tournament officials on the ground in Madeira,” he said.

Of course, the point is that a decision was taken and in many people’s eyes it was the wrong decision.

A point backed up by Gerry Byrne, chairman of the European Tour Caddies Association, who said: “While we understand that decisions have to be made at very short notice, it will come as no surprise to anyone that all European Tour caddies felt the wrong one was made in Madeira.”

O’Grady added that he has “personally instructed a review of how we deal, operationally, at tournaments with situations such as this so that we can ensure the lessons of Madeira are learned.”

Understandably, coming up with a contingency plan for a caddie dropping dead on the course probably isn’t something that too many tournament organisers would think to build into their organisational framework but, perhaps, now the European Tour will be better able to deal with such a circumstance should it re-occur.

Whether, as Forsyth put it, “Mac would have wanted” his employer and colleagues to have played on or not is a moot point.

The players, caddies and the Tour chiefs made their decision and must live with the consequences.