Dan Walker THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSPECTIVE

In an era where certain individuals are quick to head to social media to voice their often illinformed views, Rickie Fowler’s post-phoenix Open comments were particularly refreshing

As my eight-year-old watched the video of Sergio Garcia attacking a Saudi Arabian bunker on my phone over my shoulder, he asked “Why is that man so angry? Is he joking?”

It’s safe to say the Spaniard had a particularly bad week on tour – he was disqualified for damaging the first five greens with his shoes and then leaving a divot mark on the 6th. It is one thing to get angry with yourself – many top sportsmen and women do that – but it is something else to affect the chances of others with your unregulated fury.

I don’t know what was going on in the life of Garcia that week, but Iain Carter and Andrew Cotter had a fascinating discussion about it on their BBC golf podcast The Cut. One quick Google of Garcia will run you through his past misdemeanours, covering everything from spitting in a cup to accusations of racism. Despite the murky past, it appeared that becoming a husband and a father had tempered the fire. Carter raised the interesting question of what a top golfer had to do to get a suspension.

Garcia was the first golfer to be disqualified for ‘serious misconduct’ since the inception of the European Tour in 1972. He accepted the DQ and said, “I respect the decision. In frustration, I damaged a couple of greens, which I apologise for, and I have informed my fellow players it will never happen again.”

Officials decided that would be the end of the matter, but it proves how hard it is to hand out a sanction to a Ryder Cup hero and a Major Champion. Should success insulate you from sanctions? His behaviour will certainly be under increased scrutiny from this point on.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Rickie Fowler produced my favourite quote of the year so far after winning the Waste Management Phoenix Open. This was after an eventful final round where it seemed like the title was slipping away...

“Winning… you get some nice trophies for that… but there are more important things in life. If I didn’t win and finished second or third, the sun is going to rise tomorrow, I’m still going to get up. I think just knowing that is a calming factor. It’s just a game – there are a lot bigger things going on. We had Jarrod Lyle’s bag on the tee yesterday… this is fun what we get to do. We make the most of it, but there are bigger things out there.”

If you missed the build-up to that post-round interview, Fowler had been in control of the tournament until he reached the 11th. His ball ran through the green and into the water and then trickled back in after he had placed it, leading to a further penalty. In the end he holed an impressive putt for a triple-bogey and it wasn’t long before he was trailing Branden Grace with only a few holes to go. You could see the ‘choke’ headlines being written as the American steadied himself and somehow found two birdies down the stretch to claim a resilient and worthy win.

I loved Fowler’s perspective-drenched interview because I think we now find ourselves in a position where social media has encouraged us to watch sport through the prism of extremism. I read a very interesting article on this recently from the journalist Daniel Storey. He was writing principally about football, but the same rings true in golf.

Golfers are humans and do not always live up to expectation. They fail, they are unreliable, they lose from winning positions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to watch a golfing robot. I want someone who is capable of a power shank and missing a two-footer. We have reached a point where we are able to praise greatness and castigate failure with the next breath. We are now part of an audience which seems willing and able to change those assessments at the drop of a hat.

Only one golfer can win a tournament. That doesn’t mean every golfer who doesn’t lift the trophy is rubbish. We, the media, have a responsibility here too. An article which deals in extremes of triumph and disaster is far more likely to get clicks than a piece which discusses a slow, sustainable improvement in form.

Daniel’s conclusion was that social media has enabled anti-social people to become social. Opinions which would normally be shouted down by friends are now being given far too much oxygen. It only takes one rogue comment for someone to write a ‘Twitter reacts’ story these days. We could all do with writing down that quote from Fowler and pinning it on the back of the toilet door.

“You could see the ‘choke’ headlines being written as the American steadied himself to claim a resilient and worthy win”