Harry Pearson
The former Manchester United goalkeeper Alex Stepney once dislocated his jaw by shouting at his central defender Martin Buchan. Although it is wrong to laugh at the misfortunes of others, I must confess that when Sam Snead sent his ceremonial tee shot at Augusta pinging off the glasses of a spectator I guffawed so loudly I almost suffered a Stepney-style fate myself.
Snead is not alone among professional golfers in having achieved such a bullseye, of course. Even the eventual winner in Augusta, the god-like Tiger Woods, once bounced a drive off the snout of a bystander during the Western Open at Cog Hill. In a week when the back pages have been dominated by the injurious effect sport can have on the participants, Snead’s masterstroke was a timely reminder that watching it can be pretty hazardous too.
At a Florida Marlins game last year, for example, a T-shirt fired from an air-cannon by the baseball team’s mascot, Billy the Marlin, knocked a spectator unconscious. Having twice lost million-dollar lawsuits brought by fans who had been hit by balls during batting practice, you might have expected the Marlins to have been more circumspect about launching things into the stands.
But though baseball, along with cricket and ice hockey, has its dangers, pro-am golf tournaments are clearly the thing to steer clear of if you want to avoid a trip to casualty. Former United States president Gerald Ford memorably succeeded in hitting the same woman twice with sliced tee shots during one outing and his Republican Party colleague Spiro Agnew managed the singular achievement of bouncing one off the skull of his own playing partner during the 1970 Bob Hope Classic.
By far the major danger professional sport poses to the public, though, was revealed on the day of Snead’s slice. According to some newspaper reports, Britain’s Nick Faldo had to interrupt his first round at Augusta no fewer than four times to relieve himself among the trees.
If this is the sort of thing that goes on among the striplings of the professional circuit, one can only imagine what it must be like on the seniors tour. I am surprised there is any rough left, frankly. Perhaps in future at St Andrews they should hand out that jug before the competitors start rather than after they finish.
Aside from the hygiene aspect of this alfresco urinating I can’t help wondering what effect it must be having on nature. Sportsmen’s urine after all is not something to be tampered with (unless you happen to be the manager of a cycling team, obviously). As we know from events over the past decade, it is frequently powerful stuff, containing up to 800 times normal testosterone levels, not to mention steroids, human growth hormone and amphetamines.
Splashing this powerful cocktail about willy-nilly, as it were, is a recipe for disaster. Inevitably it will work its way, via the root system, into flora that is ill equipped to cope with such sudden influxes of aggressive, masculine hormones.
Already the evidence of a natural disaster in the making is beginning to pile up. Horse chestnut trees, reeking of lager, are reported to have been seen scuffling with one another at Royal Turnberry, and several gorse bushes at Muirfield are said to have made vulgar, sexist remarks to passing women.
In the long term, as sportsmen’s urine begins to work its way further through the food chain, the effects may become even more frightening.
Newspapers recently reported that sheep on the Yorkshire moors had started eating grouse. Clearly the only thing powerful enough to have turned a passive grass-eater into a ferocious carnivore is the open-air outpourings of Faldo and co.
The government must insist on Portaloos being installed at five-yard intervals on every major golf course in the country immediately. Otherwise I fear we will all be devoured in our beds by ravenous, bloodthirsty ewes.