So I went to the 3M Championships yesterday (Sunday). I am so glad the tournament decided to end paid admission in ... 2001 (?) because otherwise I would never go to a tournament. However, it's still kind of hard for me to "follow" a golf tournament. I mean, where do you go? This year I got there earlier than usual and realized that the front nine starts across the street. Golly, golf courses are long. If I do try and watch a pairing (or, for Seniors Tour events, a threesome), I'll try and go with them through the entire 18 next year. Maybe.
I digress. So I'm watching this trio about to tee off. I'm waiting for the first one to swing away. He takes a long time, so I figure I can break away and head off to another threesome playing a hole ahead. And immediately as I begin walking away I hear a "Please, sir!" And it was so alarming that I immediately turned my head back, just in case they were talking to me. And by God, they were talking to me -- it was a caddy and, I believe, one of the golfers (Jeff Sluman?) telling me to not walk while a golfer was teeing off. So I had to stop because I did something wrong and I was called out on it in front of everyone. Like I did something wrong. For crissake, just fucking tee off already!
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At night, reflecting on what was the strangest dynamic sports day for America in a long time, if not ever (on Sunday, the following happened: A-Rod forcibly retired, Jim Furyk shot a golf-record 58, Katie Ledecky was a gold in world-record time, the Hall of Fame Game was cancelled, Ichiro reached 3,000, and the U.S. men won the 4x100 freelay), I ran through my Twitter feed and saw that three-of-four #1 seeds in the Olympics tennis tournaments lost their opening match. And these aren't pool games; this is a knockout tournament, so the upset losers, including Novak Djokovic and the Williams sisters in doubles (who had never lost in the Olympics as a team), are done.
That made me tweet out in response that the reason I think all these upsets happened is because they don't care, and if that's the case, why is there tennis in the Olympics? To which the person who originally tweeted out that fact, who I believe is a reporter, said that if I saw all the tears and blank stares after the matches, I would have realized that I cared. And ... well, I guess he has a point. Well, Juan Martin del Potro, who upset the Djoker, he cried, but that was tears of joy, and I think that's obvious; he has been injured a lot lately, and he was stuck in an elevator just before his match against him began, so of course he'd be crying. If Djokovic was crying, well, OK, but maybe that's just tension, or the stress of a long and arduous season where this important tournament was dropped into the schedule, or they're crocodile tears. Oh, and did the Williams sisters cry after they got upset? No? Well ... OK, that might not mean anything. So maybe I spoke too soon. But ... I don't know, I think I'll stick to my guns about the tennis players not caring. Besides, I still think tennis players care more about the majors than the Olympics.
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I wasn't the only one being chastised yesterday. David Amber, a studio host for Canada's TSN, tweeted that he got rejected by Michael Phelps for an interview after participating in Team USA's gold-medal winning 4x100 relay leg. But Amber later tweeted out that Phelps was nice about it, so I'll take his word on it.
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