Why We Love The Unpredictable Nature of Golf
By: Derek Clements | Mon 30 Sep 2024
Why do you love sport? For me, it is all about the glorious unpredictability of it all.
After losing the first fourballs session 5-0 on the opening day of the Presidents Cup, who could ever have predicted that by the end of day two The Internationals would be tied with the USA at five-all? Not me, that’s for sure.
In his heart of hearts, I do not believe that Mike Weir believed his team had a prayer of getting back into the contest but each and every one of his players found something.
A Canadian crowd that had been stunned into silence on day one certainly found their voices as the comeback unfolded. It was wonderful sporting theatre and it gave them real hope that they might just be able to produce what would have been a stunning victory.
It was not just that they battled back. In the second day foursomes they absolutely thrashed Jim Furyk’s American side.
What happened afterwards was almost a sideshow.
We have seen fightbacks before in team golf, most famously in two Ryder Cups, Medinah and Brookline.
As Europeans, most of us will want to forget Brookline, when Justin Leonard holed THAT putt against Jose Maria Olazabal to spark wild celebrations on the 17th green before the Spaniard had a chance to make his own putt. But Medinah was an altogether different matter when a team inspired by Ian Poulter came back from a 10-6 deficit to win what probably remains the most memorable Ryder Cup contest of all time.
Who would ever have thought that Ben Curtis and Todd Hamilton would ever have had what it took to win The Open? Or that Shane Lowry would lead from start to finish at Royal Portrush to thrill an ecstatic home crowd?
Or that Rory McIlroy would miss two tiddlers to miss out on the 2024 US Open?
Cast your mind back to the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie when Jean Van de Velde stood on the 18th tee requiring a double-bogey six to pick up the Claret Jug - and took seven blows before losing in a playoff.
Nobody ever truly believed that, at the age of 46, Jack Nicklaus had it in him to win another major but that is exactly what he did at Augusta in 1986.
Who would ever have considered that Tom Watson would return to Turnberry in 2009 at the age of 59 and come within a whisker of becoming the oldest golfer ever to win a major? Thirty-two years earlier he and Nicklaus produced the incredible Duel in the Sun at the same course.
(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)
It is not just golf that gives us unexpected and magical moments.
Nobody had ever heard of Emma Raducanu when the British tennis player won the US Open at the age of 19. If she never wins another tournament, nobody who witnessed it will ever forget what she achieved during those two unlikely weeks.
And Jack Draper reaching the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows in 2024? That wasn’t supposed to happen either.
Kelly Holmes is an Olympic legend. Throughout her career she had battled to overcome a series of debilitating injuries. When she arrived at the 2004 Olympics in Athens she was 34 years old and nobody gave her a prayer. But she had other ideas and would go on to win both the 800m and 1500m.
Keely Hodgkinson had suffered more than her own share of heartbreak and disappointment in the 800m. She arrived at the 2024 Paris Olympic telling everybody who was prepared to listen that she was going to win gold. Most of us thought she would surely be run out of the medals again. But she was right and provided one of the best moments from Paris for British fans.
Luke Littler put darts on the front pages at the PDC World Championship when he reached the final at the age of 16.
When England’s cricketers arrived at Lord’s for the fourth one-day international against Australia on Friday, did anybody really believe that they would thrash the tourists in the manner they did? I doubt it very much.
Every year we see huge upsets in the FA Cup. Teams who have no right to expect to beat Premier League opposition do precisely that.
So yes, it is the unpredictability of sport that keeps me hooked and brings me back for more, again and again and again.
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