Thursday, June 13, 2002
'People's Open?' Pull-eeze
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — The United States Golf Association is delighted with itself for holding the Open at a public course where the greens fee isn't a week's pay and a new Callaway driver. They're calling it the People's Open. Only, the People aren't playing.
It costs $31 to play the Black Course at Bethpage State Park. It's $39 on weekends, plus an overnight in your car if you don't have a reservation. One can imagine Tiger Woods sleeping in his, um, Buick, waking at 5a.m. to jam a Krispy Kreme in his piehole, preparing for his tee time, here at the People's Open.
At an Open-record 7,214 yards, Bethpage Black is longer than Stephen King's latest novel. It's slimmer than
Craig Stadler's waist. Its fairways stop 60 yards in front of the greens, so there will be no Scottish-style run-ups here. If you are in the cannibal rough, good luck getting to the green on your second shot. Nick Faldo, playing in his 16th Open, called The Black “the toughest we have ever played in calm conditions.”
Which is to say that if the People's Open were played by real people, everyone would shoot 117. When the People hit the ball in the thigh-high, vacant-lot rough, they call for the paramedics. Or kick their ball into the fairway.
The People whiff tee balls, skull sand shots and play in cut-offs. When they break 100 for the first time, they know what love is.
The People keep the beer cart guy on retainer, tell their wives they're working late (and tell the pro to cover for them) and play winter rules in July. The People don't drive courtesy cars unless a rich relative recently willed them one.
Greg Norman, for example, isn't People. He flew here in his private plane, wearing clothes from his own designer label. After he misses the cut, Norman will fly somewhere exotic, where he'll break ground for the latest golf course he's designing.
Then he'll scuba dive or hang glide. Or something.
Know any People like that?
Let's see the pros play a course with greens more spike-marked than Dracula's chest. Let's see them play the People's Open with a set of garage-sale Ping knock-offs that haven't been re-gripped since Palmer won at Cherry Hills. Let's see them play with a pocketful of Top-Flite X-outs fished from an alligator lagoon in Myrtle Beach.
Some of us People have Foot-Joys older than Sergio Garcia.
No helicopters or private jets. No caddies or courtesy cars. No new clubs, free clubs, fitness trailers, swing coaches, sports shrinks, appearance fees, polyester or complaining about the conditions. You're playing golf for money, for God's sake.
Here's a difference between We the People and They the Tour-ists: The Washington Post ran a story recently in which Fred Couples discussed the joys of playing muni golf as a kid. Couples' father left him $5 every day in the summer, for golf and lunch.
Couples is 42, two years younger than I am. I got a quarter every day in the summer. You couldn't play golf for a quarter. Not even putt-putt.
“I'd like to see you play after spending the night in your car,” a fan said to Phil Mickelson Tuesday.
And we the People would, wouldn't we?
The U.S. Open might be as democratic as golf gets. If you can play, you can play. Bethpage might be at the top of the Everyman chain. But the People's Open? It is a measure of golf's eternal elitism that such a deal is being made of this.
During a Tuesday practice round at the Masters many years ago, John Daly sliced his tee shot at No.2 into a sea of pines. As Daly stood over his ball, a crowd gathered around him.
“Fore right, fore left! Fore everywhere!” Daly yelled, after launching his ball from the straw.
That is the game the People play.
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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DAUGHERTY: 'People's Open?' Pull-eeze
