What is it that makes tens of millions of people worldwide watch some other men hitting a tiny ball around a huge expanse of space, with little sticks? To people who don’t watch golf, or football, or car racing, or table tennis, or professional chess, that question will forever be a mystery.
Once you’ve watched enough golf, you’ve already seen all the excellence you’re ever going to need to be convinced that some people are just more talented than others. We don’t watch golf because we’re waiting for another Tiger-Woods-chip-at-Augusta moment, because the truth is first that none shall ever surpass it, and second that if any of us hit enough golf balls for long enough, most of us will hit a great shot of our own out of sheer good luck.
No. We watch sport for the psychology.
It is only psychology, for example, that can explain Rory McIlroy’s great choke on Sunday evening when he missed two putts from inside four feet that would have won him his first major championship in over a decade. A lack of talent cannot explain it, because if you gave those two putts to an amateur club golfer, most of them would make them most of the time. Rory missed them both.
One of the things about sport that gives it an enduring appeal is, I think, the fact that it retains all the cruelty and brutality – albeit via a more sanitary method – of the Roman amphitheatres where men and women fought for their lives. We’re drawn, as a species, to our own frailty and vulnerability, which is why every study on the audience for “true crime” stories about the brutal murders of women, for example, finds that the audience for those stories is overwhelmingly female. Similarly, McIlroy falling to pieces on the biggest stage of them all is a common nightmare, which is why we’re drawn to it, and why so many Romans were drawn to the spectacle of the unfortunates being torn to pieces by lions.
Yet sport has another side to it: Resiliency.
Malachy Clerkin, a masterful sportswriter, opened his piece on the McIlroy collapse yesterday for the Irish Times with the phrase “this one is going to linger. It has to.” He is right. But the great thing about sports is that most stories have no real end – this failure might be the “red wedding” chapter of McIlroy’s career, but it is just that – one chapter. There will be opportunities for redemption – many of them – in the years to come.
And that’s why we watch sports. Dramatists can write great stories of tragedy and redemption, but they cannot make them happen organically to the degree that sporting contests do. What’s more, this is human drama of fundamentally little consequence: No lives are affected dramatically by the fact that a Northern Irishman twice failed to get a little ball into a little hole with a stick. McIlroy himself walks away with $2.3m for his failure, so he has some consolation. It must always be remembered that would be triumph for most of us is failure for the sporting Gods.
One of the most brutal trends of the modern era is the emergence of the hyper-political sports-hater: The person who decries sport as a “distraction” from the real issues of the day, whether this be a left wing campaigner decrying you for switching off from the slaughter in Gaza, or a right wing culture warrior denouncing your being distracted from your own great replacement by immigration policy. Such people have become so hyper-engaged with the world around them that they have, for the most part, forgotten the joy and drama of living in the first place.
Sport actually teaches us enduring political and life lessons: Amongst them, that the idea that we are all created equally is a fiction – some of us are endowed with talents that others can never aspire to match. Amongst them also, the brutal reality that very few of us actually get what we “deserve” or are “entitled” to, and that often life can be brutally cruel. Finally, it teaches us that success when it comes should be enjoyed, and never taken for granted, because it is fleeting and time – and bad luck – comes for us all.
Most of all, though, it teaches us that despite huge divergences in talent and ability, we share that common human frailty that so fascinates us. That one of the greats of his sport could fall apart in a big moment to the extent that he could no longer do the very basics is not a fact that reveals anything particularly unique to Rory McIlroy. Instead, it speaks to us of our own vulnerability and failures, reassuring us and terrifying us at the same time.
This summer, some poor footballer will miss a crucial penalty kick to knock his country out of the European Championships. Next easter, a snooker player will miss an easy pot that kills their world title chances. Before the formula one championship is over, a leading driver will make a silly mistake and crash. None of them know yet that this will happen to them, but we watch because of the certainty that it will.
Each time it happens, there are life lessons for all of us: We admire those who pick themselves up and carry on. Picking yourself up and carrying on is what life is all about. Which is why in losing, more than winning, McIlroy has perhaps a better chance to prove himself the worthy role model that we might all aspire to be.