I really did enjoy watching Tiger’s caddie go into the crowd yesterday at one of the tee boxes and take a camera away from a spectator/journalist before Tiger teed off. That’s a first.
Yes, I heard that and it’s what prompted my using that as an example, but more of a hypothetical for DtC to understand that it’s one thing to have a thousand screaming fans at some distance but quite another to have someone yelling a few feet from your ear. Because the spectators are in such close proximity to golfers, I don’t think it’s a valid comparison to sports like baseball or basketball. If unlimitted yelling were allowed, then the spectators would be removed far from the action. Given that that’s not practical, I think it makes perfect sense to miminize the yelling and screaming.
…which also lends to the notion that team sports always have cheering/jeering crowds from a distance whereas individual sports have crowds that are quieter and usually closer to the action. I think it really comes down the concentration level of a single athlete upon the action that is being carried out, versus the team constantly communicating between themselves therefore it’s easier to tune the crowd out when you are focusing on the communications/actions of your teammates.
My two favorite sports are hockey and golf. I have coached hockey and the players learn to listen to each other and the coach even though the crowd is usually louder. When my wife asks my son if he heard her screaming “Good Hit!” after a particular check, my son claims that he didn’t hear her at all, but did hear his coach yell “Great Hit” even though he was further away from him. (Yes, she climbed over the glass to yell this to him…which I abhor.)
In tournament golf, you only focus on your own actions and the ball in front of you. Even if you’re in a team tournament, your teammates know that you need to concentrate on those two things, so they will shut up when you’re ready to make your shot…otherwise they will not be your teammates for the next tournament.
To compare team sports to individual sports is apples and oranges when it comes to crowd participation.
Actually, it’s not even a first for that particular caddy, let alone for professional golf.
Two years ago, during a 2002 Skins game, Woods’s caddy Steve Williams pulled a camera from around the neck of a spectator and threw it into a nearby lake.
According to the third linked story, the camera was worth $7,000. I’m not a violent person, but if i had been the spectator, that caddy would have been eating one of his boss’s golf clubs, sideways.
Williams generally seems to be an all-around asshole. Here’s a story about the weekend’s US Open:
Let’s get this straight.
Williams says that the photographer was out of line for taking the picture. Presumably, this is because it would disturb Woods, who taking practice swings.
Yet we read in the article that, despite the fact that the photographer took the pictures, and then Williams kicked his camera, Woods didn’t find out about this until told aobut it later. Well, if he didn’t even notice his caddy kicking a guys camera, it’s highly unlikely that the sound of the camera’s shutter was loud enough to disturb him.
[QUOTE=Ponder Stibbons]
Smart-ass! 
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Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle…umm…you knoww…chartreuse? I dunno…is it a copper pot and kettle? or are they stainless steel? or cast iron? Where was I? Oh yes. Your cheekiness knows no bounds, and I have half a mind -oops my TV show is on. Later!
They do much less of this at the Masters, but I think that’s because Augusta National goes to such great lengths to discourage the riff-raff from even attending.
I would have thought Golf clubs were a libertarians wet dream.
Why is that, exactly?
I don’t have any idea why you said that or what it means to imply. There is hardly a more eclectic group of people than the Libertarian Party. This bizarre popular notion that libertarianism would be favored by people of wealth and power is simply not borne out by the facts. If the notion were true, the LP would receive the financial backing of the power brokers who saw the implementation of libertarianism to be the answer to their dreams. But the power brokers favor the status quo so that they can partner with government to recieve special favor and legislation. The mutual attachment between Mr. Tycoon and Senator Fatcat is a longstanding American tradition. Libertarianism offers people freedom from coercion, and that’s the last thing that men seeking power and exclusion want to happen.
I think he means country clubs, ie privately run associations.
In some sense they are. But the mistaken notion is that libertarianism hopes to create more order in society by shutting out “the riff raff”. In point of fact, a libertarian society would be a lot edgier and chaotic than our current society. Freedom is a messy business and the only way to eliminate the mess is to restrict freedom.
Private ownership of its resources, freedom to exclude without coercion by the government, self apointed elite, people bitching about how big government want to steal all their money, really helps to be rich… golf clubs are the perfect Libertarian society in action.
Again, not borne out by the facts. Given freedom from coercion, anyone with the volition can acquire wealth if that is their aim. A snooty golf club is a great target for an entrepreneur who opens a competing club that is more fun and more diverse. That assumes, of course, that the owner of the snooty club doesn’t have a politician in his pocket, who can zone the upstart entrepreneur out of existence.