Four for One, and One for Four

For all but the most ardent golf fan, this week’s PGA Championship at Kiawah Island will play second fiddle to the last few days of the Olympic Games but the mere fact they are overlapping got me thinking about comparisons.  What struck me the most was about frequency of opportunity and the neatly reflected parallels – the top golfers practising to peak four times every year, while Olympic athletes train to peak once every four years.

From that, you’d argue that athletes have perhaps three chances in a lifetime to book their place in sporting immortality, while the best golfers might enjoy 40 or more pops at it.  OK, athletes have world championships and other events along the way but it’s Olympic medals they get remembered for, just as it’s Majors that golfers want to bag at least once in their careers.

Of course, there are dozens of differences so you can’t really compare the sports, but it did strike me that the kind of pressure a Jessica Ennis or a Usain Bolt (though he may be an exception to the rule) must feel with a nation’s, if not the world’s, expectations building on their shoulders for four years puts some perspective on the pressure to win a major.  Adam Scott may have felt it standing over his penultimate putt at Royal Liverpool but standing on the first tee on a Thursday, surely every golfer is feeling a pretty diluted version of what those competing in the Olympic stadium are enduring.

To my mind, every top golfer is going to have an abundance of chances to get it right and so you can’t feel sorry for them if they come up short.  In the Olympics, the margins between success and failure can come down to millimetres, a thousandth of a second, a clipped final hurdle, a tweaked muscle, and that’s it, the chance has gone.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get another chance in four years’ time.

Seeing the emotion, the pain, the utter dejection etched on the faces of those that come up fractions short really shines a light on their golfing counterparts.  How often do you see those levels of disappointment on a golf course?  I can think of a few – Langer at the ’91 Ryder Cup; Watson at Turnberry in 2009, even Adam Scott a couple of weeks ago – but in truth, you don’t see it that often.

This isn’t meant as an accusation of complacency or of not caring enough.  I accept that in golf most won’t have been in contention and so aren’t enduring the agony of “losing” but I am also sure the knowledge that the next Major will roll around soon or even the next Ryder Cup must soften the blow.

You have to think golfers have it pretty good.  Statistically, they have far more opportunities to win the biggest prizes in their sport than many others, particularly track and field athletes.  And while golf is the most whimsical of sports (compare the fact that the last 15 golfing Majors have been won by different people to the dominance of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic who have shared all but one of the tennis Major titles between them since the French Open in 2005*), an opportunity to win is an opportunity to win, however difficult.  Tiger certainly saw it that way when he was collecting Major titles.

And perhaps that’s it.  For all his talent, perhaps the biggest difference with the rest of the field was that Tiger would arrive with the mindset of the Olympic athlete – it’s now or never.  For Tiger he always appeared (then, if not now) desperate not to let a Major title slip by when it could be added to his haul.

Imagine for a moment that there weren’t four Majors every year, but instead just one every four years.  How would that affect the psyche and preparations of all the other main contenders?  Would Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Justin Rose or Sergio Garcia break their duck if they thought this week’s PGA would be their last opportunity ever to win a Major?  That’s not to say they won’t be trying, but the mind and the body can do incredible things when challenged.  Of course, conning yourself into thinking this really is the last chance may be the hardest challenge of all but I’d love to see one of them succeed in doing so this weekend.

Then again, perhaps the wave of sporting euphoria sweeping the British Isles this last week or so will be enough to inspire the Brits in South Carolina.  Perhaps they’ll have a renewed sense of determination to win one of golf’s greatest prizes.  In four years time they will have an opportunity to play for Olympic gold themselves in Rio, and for many that really will be a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Time to start practising that Olympian effort, I feel.

* The odd one was Juan Martin del Potro’s win at the US Open in 2009, in case you’re wondering!