After three weeks in the States, coming back to Europe in September is more than just a change of season. The American tour is another world, a fantasy land. The feeling of a European tour event is one of being back on planet earth.
The pomp and ceremony of the Open Championship, the biggest event most of us will be involved with in Europe, is old hat over there. Even though we have been at two sizeable events in the PGA and World Invitational, most tour events in America are "big-time". On arrival at the course there is an abundance of volunteers ready to assist but also to stop you from accessing any area that your credentials do not allow you into. To get to the practice ground there is a posse of rope lifters and droppers ensuring easy passage.
Movement to the next hole on the course involves a miraculous parting of the crowds. A few yanks on the end of a rope by the head rope puller and a sea of spectators has been parted to leave a clear path to the next tee. If you are inside the ropes it would appear that you are fair game to the paying public. On battling my way up the steep incline from the 16th green at Medinah to the 17th tee at the end of a hot practice round with early week jet lag kicking in, a spectator barked at me gruffly. "Hey guy, what's your player's name?" I replied somewhat faintly "Turner, Greg Turner". Greg was following behind and I was still in earshot to hear the gruff spectator thrust an autograph book in his face and lie to him: "Hey Fred, sign this, I love the way you play." There is an unhealthy craving for stars over there. The spectators don't necessarily know who these people are, what their golfing records are or where they are from but they are inside the ropes and there is a boom-like sound when they hit their drivers, so they must be worth a signature. Greg was thanked as Mr Woosnam after he handed another autograph book back.
Anyone who knows even the slightest thing about professional golf must realise that Ian Woosnam bears about as much resemblance to Greg Turner as Danny DeVito does to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Golf is a family spectator sport in America and fast approaching the popularity of baseball. The American caddies tell me that autograph hunting and especially golfball signatures are a carefully organised affair. There is a well-developed market for celebrity memorabilia. These family outings can turn quite a profit apparently. By the end of the week the walkways between tee and green made me feel like I was about to be thrown to the lions in the Coliseum. With the beer tents open all day there were few inhibitions about telling the caddie that he had given his man the wrong club on the last hole or that a putt was never going to break from the left. I suppose these were the real spectators within heckling distance of the players.
Those in the "bleachers" (what the Americans call the stands) were more refined. They had come not to see good golf shots but any shots hit by those they considered superstars, and especially native ones. If Jay Haas hit an eight iron to 30 feet it would be met with rapturous applause. If Patrik Sjoland hit a two iron to ten feet it would be fortunate to receive a polite ripple. The foreign player in America has to learn quickly not to judge a shot by the crowd's reaction or lack of it.
