The thing is, golf fans are different from fans of other sports. Very different. They're the politest people this side of a symphony concert, almost solemn in their regard for the game. They hold their beer extremely well, and dress nicely. They never boo the opposing players (in part, because there aren't any). Their worst vice is a big, fat, reeking cigar.
But that's not what makes them different. To them, golf isn't really a sport, and they're not merely fans. Golf is a code and a creed, a quasi-religious ritual. Or to put it inmodern marketing-speak, it's a "lifestyle."
_____From The Post_____
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Greg Norman surged to the top of the leader board Friday.
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Story in program takes Tiger Woods to task.
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Notah Begay III has plenty of support to fall back on.
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Notebook: Brian Quackenbush had a strong outing.
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Golf School: Concentrating on weaknesses.
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Craig Barlow needed a little motivation and a lot of hard work.
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Golf fans are very different.
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| _____Kemper Open '02_____
• There's a new generation of often-fearless players who many believe will some day rise up and challenge Tiger Woods.
• The 2001 Kemper Open will be remembered as a turning point for three golfers.
• John Feinstein: For players on the brink of the top 125 of the PGA’s money list, the Kemper Open presents a lifetime of opportunity.
• With lots of planning, Pete Cleeves aims for a glitch-free event.
• Make the most of your Avenel experience with these helpful hints.
• Players to watch
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No other sport offers to its followers what the great god Golf offers: There are golf clothes, golf vacations and golf art. There are golf-themed car models, golf-related credit cards, a full-time golf channel on cable. You can spend thousands on Pings and Callaways. Does any "sport" generate the all-consuming passion of golf? Does anyone live in a townhouse with 50-yard-line views, or retire to a gated baseball community?
You can glimpse the outlines of this obsessiveness this weekend at the Kemper Open, sponsored by the insurance company, which is a kind of golf revival meeting and fat-cat theme party. The Kemper takes place at something called the TPC at Avenel, which is in Potomac. Golf courses are nice places to begin with, but the TPC at Avenel is a sumptuous Eden, with weedless grass and such perfect brooks and glens that they appear to have been created by an art director.
Golfing fundamentalists might find the Kemper a bit trifling. The tournament is actually a second- or third-echelon event on the PGA Tour, unfortunately scheduled just two weeks before the momentous U.S. Open. As such, the gods are mostly missing. Tiger Woods is a no-show, as are 17 of the 20 top money winners on the tour this year. The Kemper's promoters constantly sell the idea that some up-and-comer could snag his first PGA Tour victory (and the $558,000 first-place check), but that's mostly because the Kemper is tee-to-green with up-and-comers. The first-day leader was a pleasant young man from Augusta, Ga., named Franklin Langham, whom nobody has really heard of.
Most people -- and there were 27,000 of them at the Kemper on Thursday -- don't seem to mind.
Real golf fans can stand for hours in the smothering sun, studying the players' perfect screaming drives and ingenious putts. They traipse in the dust after the few big names, such as Greg Norman (who took a two-shot lead after yesterday's round) and Justin Leonard, as if the players were holy men, leading the faithful to the Ganges.
They are here as much to learn as they are to marvel. And that's the beautiful thing about a pro golf tournament: You can learn and marvel at extremely close range. No other sport allows its spectators to take the field with the players. Golf actively encourages something like mingling. Maybe not mingling exactly (the most interaction anyone had with Norman was offering a fleeting "You da man!" as the blond Aussie strode past), but something like intimacy develops between a player and his gallery.
When Chris DiMarco sprayed his tee shot wide right of the cart path on No. 16, he went wading into the small crowd lining the fairway. Everyone grouped into a respectful little semicircle as DiMarco pondered his lie. Just then, a couple of fans came walking up, but stopped when they realized they were about to ruffle DiMarco's concentration. DiMarco looked up and cheerfully waved them into his semicircle. It looked like everyone was taking a meeting.
DiMarco wound up and punched his ball out of trouble. Despite coming from such a cockeyed angle, the shot landed like a swan on the green, 130 yards away. It was breathtaking. Everyone oohed and aahed over the shot and offered rippling applause. Everyone seemed genuinely happy for Chris DiMarco.
That's because golf fans know. They know about the impossible physics of sticking a shot like that. They know because they play the game. This is another fundamental difference between golf fans and everyone else. How many football fans truly understand what it's like to run a slant over the middle? How many baseball fans know, really know, what a hard slider looks like as it dives past you at the plate?
"Unless you see them, you have no idea how good these guys are," says Jack Weiland, standing by the 18th green. "They make something difficult look so easy."
Weiland, a high school social studies teacher and golf coach in Rockville, has spent 37 of his 51 years playing the game. He's a 10 handicapper ("I used to be a 6"). Like every avid golfer, he can describe with thrilling precision some of the great shots he's made, including one in college 30 years ago. Every year, around spring break or Memorial Day weekend, Weiland does the same thing: He goes to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to play golf. He's been doing it for the past 26 years. The Kemper is heaven to him.
"There's no halfway with golf," he says. "You're in or you're out. Most people who start up get addicted to it. It becomes ingrained as part of your life."
