Golf’s Yellow Jersey

Over the weekend, remote control in hand, you may have been flicking between George Michael, Eric Idle et al in the Olympic Closing Ceremony and the altogether less energised PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.  Even if you’d stuck with the former, though, you’ll know by now that Rory McIlroy romped to his second Major at the tender age of just 23. There had been a flurry of effort from a contingent of British and European players, plus a commendable defence of his title by Keegan Bradley, by there was little resistance to McIlroy cruising home by a remarkable eight shots. His margin of victory broke Jack Nicklaus’ PGA record and made the final holes something of a procession.

Records aside (or ignored, more to the point), according to some sections of the golfing media what was more important was that golf has now introduced its own equivalent of the Tour de France’s ‘Yellow Jersey’.  I refer of course to the ‘Red Shirt’ – or to be more precise, ‘Tiger’s Red Shirt’. I wasn’t aware that Tiger had exclusive rights to red shirts on Sundays but that’s how it sounded.  Mcilroy must have raided Tiger’s wardrobe and was liable to receive notice of an impending lawsuit.  This was no mere red rag to a bull but a far more dangerous red shirt to a Tiger. Rory had been passed the baton or he’d snatched it; he was stating his intentions, laying down the gauntlet.

Seriously.  Am I alone in thinking this is a load of baloney?  Can’t the press think of something more illuminating to discuss?  You only had to look at the Santander logo on the sleeve of McIlroy’s shirt to know why it was likely that red was the order of the day.  And order of the day is the right way to put it, because, as  Peter Alliss has highlighted in the past, today’s top pros don’t even dress themselves (metaphorically speaking that is), receiving their outfits and instructions from their clothing sponsor and management teams.

There was no agenda, no mystique to Mcilroy’s red, it symbolised absolutely nothing. For my money, the only thing it did shine a light on was the lazy journalism that followed. McIlroy emphatically won one of golf’s greatest prizes and deserves the attention to focus on his exceptional play and newly regained world no.1 status.  How many Major’s get won by 8 shots?  It’s a remarkable achievement and surely this is what we should be talking about, not the psychological implications for his choice of shirt or what it says about his relationship with Tiger.

But perhaps that was the crux of it.  The only way the hacks could still waste their ink on Tiger on Monday was to focus on the red shirt.  Come on. If that really was the only thing that they noticed on Sunday evening then I guess most of them had in fact spent it singing along to the Spice Girls in the Olympic Stadium.