Golf has itself to blame following chaos at WM Phoenix Open

When I go to watch football, I sometimes drink too much and I always shout, often in support, but more often in criticism. I sometimes even swear. My fellow fans are the same. Some are even worse behaved.

To keep us in check, fences, barriers and armies of stewards and police are employed to hold us at bay. When we drink, it is restricted and we are airport-style searched on the way in.

Football fans cannot be trusted. We are an awful breed but we love the visceral, tribal, edgy nature of it all. It makes travelling hundreds of miles and spending thousands of pounds to follow a bunch of overpaid cretins serve up a load of dross that a team of under 8s – anyway, I digress.

I also watch golf. I stay quiet when a player is hitting a shot. I clap politely at a good shot. I stay respectfully silent at a bad one.

I keep my distance and move at the right times and within the confines of the ropes. When I play, it is much the same. I adhere to the dress code and (mostly) follow the rules. I chat to my opponent. I praise their good shots, all the while trying to beat them.

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My football self would not recognise my golf self, which is what makes the goings-on at the WM Phoenix Open all the more irritating. Golf needs to realise that its differences are what makes it appealing.

Yet we court this behaviour. It is like that internet meme where a boyfriend is checking out another girl whilst walking with his partner. Golf looks at other more immediate, more ‘exciting’, more tribal sports and it thinks, ‘We want a piece of that, that will generate fans for us’.

That is why we ended up with party holes. The obsession with ‘team’ formats, and all the twee matching outfits that go with it. It is why we end up with thunderclaps and the insufferable guardians of the Ryder Cup. And it is now why we end up with drunken fans breaking all of the social codes that live golf requires to exist.

At a live golf event, played on a field over hundreds of acres, you cannot police every corner. You are reliant on people not behaving like idiots to protect the spectacle and more importantly player safety. That social code is threatened forever by this weekend.

And this is all brought about because as a sport, we are so uncomfortable in our own skin that it is pathetic. Golf has a ton of qualities. Watching and playing has loads to offer its fans and participants.

It is about patience, temperament, strength, touch, speed, fortitude, self-control, manners, nuance, variety, competition, and civility. But we dismiss all that. We think to be cool, we need to dress like the kidz do, to be whacky, funny, loud, the same as them. It is pathetic.

Golf is not an easy watch, live or on TV, it takes 4 hours. It is slow. The entry bar to understanding its nuances is enormous and not for all.

Making it louder, blinkier and more mainstream doesn’t change any of that. It just means we lose our dignity and we end up like an embarrassing uncle staggering on to the dance floor with a tie around his head, screaming Mr Brightside.

We deserve the foul WM Phoenix Open. We brought it on ourselves.

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