Golf Star Wars: Darth Tiger vs. Phil Skywalker

I caught bits and pieces of the Masters tournament this past weekend.  My husband’s a good golfer and likes to watch a little coverage of the major tournaments when he can. He dutifully switches to Curious George when it’s time for the kids’ evening video–to his great credit.  Also to his credit: putting up with my golf wisecracks, such as calling the Masters “the Mashers,” or referring to eagles (two shots under par) as “chickenhawks.”

Once the kids were in bed last night, Joe turned on the recorded golf he’d missed while the Man with the Yellow Hat reigned the screen. I sat with Joe on the sofa, half watching, half catching up on email.

Even with my attention divided, it was hard to miss the contrast between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as the tournament drew to a close. I didn’t see Woods’ press conference regarding his sordid sex scandal & hiatus from golf, nor the infamous Nike ad with his father. And I don’t know the details of Mickleson’s difficult year with both his wife and mother battling breast cancer.  Still it was all there, hanging in the air around the the two golfers, the gallery, the tournament, and those of us tuning in. The sportscasters wouldn’t let us forget it. With Woods’ recent unpleasantness, the comments were more oblique. The announcers said things like “…it’s fitting that Woods selected the distinguished Masters Tournament for his return to golf…” Mickelson’s PG-13 family crises, on the other hand, were referenced openly, and often. While showing a montage, a voiceover crooned statements like “…an emotional day today for Phil and his wife Amy, who’s been in bed all day recuperating, but made it out to see her husband wear the green jacket once more…”

Dial it down, already, I kept thinking. Aren’t women supposed to be the nostalgic, emotional gender?  It’s not that Mickelson and his family don’t deserve our sympathy and support (and Woods and his family, for that matter). They do. But the marketing of their personal dramas rings so disingenuous.  Mickelson and Woods represent, through the media lens, opposing paternal archetypes. Mickelson, the good husband and dad, and Woods, the evil adulterer. Family values vs. sex-crazed playas: the male equivalent of the virgin/whore extremes women confront.  All for ratings, all for sale.

The roots of this kind of emotional exploitation run deep and wide in the media, I know. It was rampant during the Olympics. But I hadn’t seen it in so blatantly in golf before, an endeavor that to this outsider seems to possess more decorum than other sports. It’s kind of like going to the bank and finding out that it too now sells Cheetos and Coke. You knew it was everywhere, but hadn’t seen it here before.

When my family visits my father-in-law, who golfs daily in the summer, I see how much the sport means to him. It’s not just the game, it’s the social interaction, the mental discipline, and the experience of being in a beautiful, if not controlled, landscape.  When my husband and I first started dating fifteen years ago, he taught me some of the sport’s basic ground rules. Once I averted my eyes from the pastel pants, I found it endearingly ciIvilized how men behave on the golf course. They keep their voices low, treat each other with respect, and are mindful of groups playing ahead and behind them. They wear clean, ironed clothes.  They can connect emotionally on the golf course where they often cannot in the workaday world, or even, sometimes, at home.

By contrast the barrage of “how did you feel…” questions to Woods and Mickelson during the Masters coverage was cloyingly sentimental and uncomfortable to watch. Don’t the announcers know that men tend to serve up their feelings in small, concentrated tapas more than in all-u-can-eat buffets? Woods’ addiction has ruined his home life. Mickelson’s family health crisis imperils his wife. The sportscasters would have been wise to take a cue from the sport they cover by lowering their voices and showing some retraint. If not for the athletes’ benefit, then for the viewers trying to decide if they’ll tune in to watch golf again.

Love it or hate it, golf provides a refuge from society’s insanely contradictory expectation that men be both Wilt Chamberlain and Jimmy Stewart (or Tiger Woods and Phil Mickleson). Popular culture exalts burp-n-scratch masculinity in films like “the Hangover” and in testosterone-charged rock and hip hop lyrics. At the other extreme, men are expected to be perfect husbands and fathers, especially if they want to run for public office or hold onto corporate sponsorships.  Our culture abhors shades of grey, and would much rather frame public figures as strictly good or bad, like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vadar.

Ironically, the highly manicured, artificial landscape of the golf course offers men a place to practice being real. They can be competitive and gracious.  Sensitive and masculine. Yin and yang.  For my part, I’m betting that Woods, for all his shortcomings, really does love his children. And that Mickelson, for all his loyalty, has a secret pile of porn tucked into a shoebox somewhere. As Americans I think we can handle it if they did. Let’s at least try. We’ll call it the Grey Rights Movement.