At the Edge of Ireland Read online

  One particularly acerbic critic, commentating with the style and flair of A. A. Gill, one of my favorite English journalists, referred to “a wish-wash of millionaire maestos in a jingoistic, willie-waggling competition exhibiting a smarmy mix of fawning snobbery, snide smirking, chippy schadenfreude, and the smug satisfaction of being beatified in the top tier questlists.”

  And then comes a little backhanded slap at the government’s lack of initial interest in the project by Pat McQuaid, Ireland’s enthusiastic promoter of international sports events: “Our political lobbying was a struggle because the Irish government had never invested in a major international sporting event as a publicity vehicle for our country…It took me three years to get the Minister of Tourism to go to the Cabinet and it did indeed involve the government taking a quantum leap in terms of investment…But in the end, millions will now be seeing Ireland in a very positive light across the planet.”

  But then it’s back to the hullabaloo of journalistic hype: “The hardest job for us, the fans, will be to sit through the inevitable emotional roller coaster unable to hit a single shot ourselves…Make sure your posture is good, your concentration fixed, and you drink plenty of liquids. If the tension gets too much, watch certain shots at crucial moments from behind the settee” (aka couch).

  And from the players’ viewpoint:

  Could it be the ultimate test of mental strength in sport? Is the Ryder Cup just about as big as it gets in terms of pressure, anticipation and expectation? For the player who comes through this crucible of heat, there is a lifetime of accolades awaiting…Some seem to take their game to another level, almost as if the atmosphere lifts them onto a higher plane psychologically…This thing called the Ryder Cup is about match play—you against him or, in a team situation, both of you against both of them…a completely different set of circumstances and rituals to go through…Ideally, each player is able, in a sense, to “get out of his own way” as he plays with all his heart for a higher cause than merely himself…It’s certain to be a theater of gripping entertainment watching the very best in the world going head to head and pitting mind, body and spirit against each other.

  Arnold Palmer, celebrated as always by constant applause, remembered his reaction to the Ryder in his glory days: “It doesn’t matter how many titles you’ve won, when you stand on the tee at a Ryder Cup match and play for your country and not just yourself, your stomach rumbles like a kid turning up for his very first tournament…If you excel in what you do, your efforts will be recognized and rewarded by your whole nation. That is what the Ryder Cup means to each of the participant countries.”

  Padraig Harrington, one of the Irish “stars,” whose family lives on Beara, had a different take: “I don’t rely on the team. I try to build up the pressure so that everything is down to me…Sometimes, though, you’re so overloaded that you’re not conscious of doing anything. You’re just happy if the ball gets airborne…I find myself somewhere between being in the zone with no awareness of pressure and being totally out of it with terror.”

  Golf enthusiast Eamonn Sweeney summed up the mood succinctly: “Believe me—the next few hours will be some of the most exciting ever in Irish sport.”

  After such a deluge of hyperbole, it was only the most recalcitrant antigolfers who could resist at least a peep at this four-day celebrity extravaganza. And despite my benevolent ignorance of golf, the problem with the game is that, once your eyes become glued to the slow arc of a fine fairway shot or the meticulous line of a well-gauged putt, your mind quickly follows, and before you know it, you’re on the edge of your seat, hoping that good old Tiger gets yet one more ace (or, for the uninformed, a hole in one). It’s hypnotic, it’s full of tension in a laid-back, gentlemanly kind of way, and it can eventually become as addictive as a perfect hollandaise sauce on an eggs Benedict breakfast, which apparently is a K Club gourmet specialty.

  But there’s always a “spoiler factor” lurking behind the magic of these mega world events. And, of course, this being Ireland in late September, it was the weather. The forecasts were full of dire warnings, not only of “heavy to torrential downpours,” but also a hefty whack from the angry remnants of a hurricane that had ripped up the East Coast of the USA a few days previously. Again the papers laid on the hyperbole: “Ireland’s Ryder Cup is facing the nightmare prospect of failing to start on time and not finishing until Monday…With overnight rain continuing to douse the course last night, there is an increasing danger that the event may become a catastrophe…It was even suggested that the grand opening ceremony might have to be moved indoors, though it was unclear exactly where it would go.”

  And then came another one: “With winds gusting up to forty-five miles per hour after a torrential early morning downpour, morning practice was postponed for health and safety issues. Ireland has waited seventy-nine years for the Ryder Cup to come here but…there are forecasts for thunderstorms tomorrow and Saturday which could force organizers to suspend play altogether.”

  At one point the weather was the cause of a most unusual outbreak of booing by a frustrated, rain-soaked crowd who complained that American players refused to tee off on their practice round where they could be seen, but chose to start way down the fairway. “That was inconsiderate—a bad mistake,” said Captain Tom Lehman apologetically in an understatement that echoed throughout the whole tournament.

  So—back to the weather reports: “On Friday the course was closed between 7 A.M. and 10 A.M. because of fears someone might get hurt by a flying umbrella—or perhaps the grandstand itself.”

  “American journalists seemed to take the threat of Hurricane Gordon to heart. One asked whether there were any reports of cars being turned over or of roofs being blown off by the storm…‘Would you like me to give you the far less dramatic facts or make something more colorful up?’ asked the press officer.”

  “Weather watchers will be glad to hear that the remnants of Hurricane Gordon are now en route to Portugal. Bad news, though, is that a low pressure storm system out of Greenland is now heading our way!”

  When Tiger Woods was asked his opinion about the inclement conditions, he launched instead into a diatribe against the staff of The Dubliner, who had published a “satirical” piece claiming, among other libelous rubbish, that “most American golfers are married to women who cannot keep their clothes on in public.” This was accompanied by doctored photos of Tiger’s wife’s head on an essentially nude torso. Although Tiger’s storm of protest was fully justified, it regrettably only served to give free publicity to a tasteless rag.

  Anyway—back to the weather. Generally speaking, the forecasters were right. By the time the whole show was over, players and the K Club had been subjected to rambunctious demonstrations of the fickleness of early fall weather here. Rainstorms were indeed torrential, umbrellas were wielded en masse by the loyal daily crowds of over 40,000 spectators, and the flailing tail of the hurricane with winds over seventy-five miles per hour did indeed hit on the second night of the event, ripping up trees, tearing tents, destroying acres of newly landscaped gardens, and generally making “a right feckin’ mess of the whole feckin’ course,” according to one extremely irate groundskeeper.

  But Irish resilience coupled with a little timely luck won the day. By the hour of play on Friday morning, most of the hurricane’s havoc had been magically removed by scores of groundskeepers, and the crowds entered the meticulously regroomed grounds (which included a generous application of a seaweed and iron mix to make the greens look greener!) as if the storm had never been.

  This same combination of resilience and luck continued throughout the whole weekend. There were rainstorms, but from the smiles and fortitude of spectators and players, you’d never know it. TV highlight summaries in the evenings were inevitably full of blue skies and dulcet shadows. Umbrellas were rarely visible, and Tiger’s smile was as bright as ever despite an uneasy start (his first ball landed in the middle of a pond) and those distasteful doctored images of his
wife on the raunchy Dubliner Web site.

  Nudged and booted by the constant Ryder rhetoric, Anne and I forgot our vows to watch only the national news highlights for each of the three days and instead gorged ourselves on the daily three-hour-long depictions. At first, glimpses of the unbounded luxury of the K Club facilities were hedonistically off-putting with its “Look at me, I’ve got a Bentley and you haven’t” airs and graces, its helicopter landing pad, and the conspicuous consumption of its $250-a-head menus, $8,000 bottles of rare wine, and a panoply of visiting celebrities (supported by a hopping flea circus of cronies, personal assistants, life coaches, wardrobe mavens, and the regular revenue of ex-and next “partners”) that would do justice to any Hollywood A-list. The main focus was a graceful yellow country clubhouse overlooking five hundred acres of gardens and guarded by two enormous black stone cats. Within were gorgeous oriental rugs, pink sofas, bronze sculptures of racehorses, elegantly gold-framed paintings of beautiful ladies, and a definite “to the manner born” ambience.

  “It’s all a bit…overdone, don’t you think?” asked Anne.

  I nodded. It seemed that wealth and status were definitely and proudly on conspicuous exhibition here. I felt more comfortable as the camera moved on to capture vignettes of the crowd—an arc of colorful umbrellas, a cluster of logoed baseball caps and rain-splattered grins, a remarkably uniform coloration of waterproof anoraks and windcheaters, a smattering of those gorgeous befreckled, green-eyed, red-haired Irish colleens, the stone hard faces of the true connoisseurs lost in their own complex world of virtual replays, and the good old boys from the bogs who somehow had managed to finagle tickets, knock back a generous selection of libations, and now stood, wobbly and woozy, watching the golf superstars offer their very best just a few feet away in front of them.

  Because of a very confusing (to us) scoring system for individual and team performances, we found it hard to know exactly who was leading whom. But it was obvious that, in this unusual kind of competition, there was no place for the competitors to hide. In a team environment every stroke counts, and the eyes of each of the 40,000 daily spectators were on each play as applause roared at such a decibel level that even the irritating buzz of helicopters hanging over the course like locusts looking for a hefty snack was drowned out.

  In the end Irish patriotism rose to a crescendo as the European team, with their three superb Irish players, soared ahead of the Americans to finally win the cup for the third time in a row with an unprecedented score of 18 ½–9 ½—a devastating defeat for the Yankees, whose only excuse seemed to be that “I guess we’re not too familiar with team-play golf!”

  Despite a briefly forlorn American team, the final moments of the last day brought tears to the eyes of even the most distinguished observer: “The sobs of Darren Clarke who had lost his wife to breast cancer only six weeks previously as he was embraced by members of both teams; the captivating chortle of US President Clinton whose own round on the K Club course made him remark that he’d ‘better stick to politicking for a living’; the Arnold Palmer, designer of the K Club course, comment that this had indeed been one of the best Ryder Cups ‘anytime anywhere,’ and Padraig Harrington, with his gleeful remark that ‘what I feel is wonderful relief that we have won, and won here in Ireland!’”

  Of course, once again, some media pundits couldn’t resist the odd jab at less fortunate Irish tendencies. The Irish Examiner used the all-too-familiar “Rip-Off Republic” label to describe the “hundreds of thousand of euros juiced from the wallets of visitors in the form of outrageously inflated hotel, house rental, food and taxi costs.” Another media wag described golf itself as “a good walk ruined” and suggested that “the event descended into a jingoistic battle between Europe and the USA…Golf may be the ultimate gentleman’s game but that does not stop its participants from acting like babies when things aren’t going their way.”

  Criticism was also directed at the “overly flamboyant” opening ceremonies featuring more than four hundred performers with their mix of traditional Irish music, exuberant Riverdance-like performances, an ultramodern “Celtic history ballet,” and a raucous drum extravaganza all orchestrated by the Saw Doctors’ ex-drummer, Johnny Donnelly. Anne and I were so mesmerized by this two-hour extravaganza that we watched it from beginning to end. And there were definitely moments, as wonderfully sad lilts of Irish folk songs rolled on, that we sensed a gathering of salty moisture in the corners of our eyes. Then one rather cruel columnist started making fun of all the “wannabe-Irish” Hollywood celebrities here, including Robert De Niro (“I’m Irish on my father’s side,”), Johnny Depp (“My mother’s half Irish,”), Drew Barrymore, Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon, and Sandra Bullock (“I’m convinced I’m the rightful owner of a castle over here!”). Another grumbled about the unfair amount of attention given to “an elite rich man’s game” (despite the fact that, with its 415 courses, Ireland boasts more golf holes per capita than any other nation in the world, including Japan!).

  Also, around the same time, this little nation was offering such other major events as the International Plowing Championship (don’t laugh—this is a mega-spectacle attracting competitors from over thirty countries) and “the biggest event of our sporting calendar [the Ryder Cup won’t even register compared to this] in the form of the all-Ireland championships for our beloved national games of hurling and Gaelic football.”

  Perhaps most satirically critical was Tom Humphries in the Irish Times, who offered the following stinging observations:

  The Ryder Cup has come to Ireland at just the right time. The last kick of the astonishingly vulgar Celtic Tiger! Crass corporate elitism meets native-genius for price-gouging and pat insincerity…It’s hideously retrograde to make the poor golfers all dress the same way, but when you see the dubious stuff the boys are sent out in, it’s understandable they would want to spread the sartorial suffering…The Americans have opted for a diamond-patterned look which makes them appear like Rotary Club members hoping to finish golfing in time to catch the early bird menu somewhere nice.

  Maybe the accolade for ace-acerbic wit goes to Jerome Reilly of the Sunday Independent, who shouted:

  Roll up, roll up, roll up to the most over-hyped, overblown, overpriced event in sport. Welcome to the K Club where grown men wear pink plaid with pride and wives of the world’s wealthiest sportsmen are show ponies in an unedifying media circus…victims of perhaps the most shameful example of unrelenting male chauvinism and outrageous female bitchery ever seen in this country…The golf, of course, is utterly beguiling and compelling and almost made up for the bullshit, the shallowness, the sexism, the conspicuous celebration of wealth and excess that goes with the Ryder Cup. Almost.

  Like a stern schoolmaster Dermont Gilleece in the Sunday Independent reminded us that we should ignore this kind of griping: “When the shadows lengthen and spectators debate the deeds of the day, it will be nice to reflect on the absence of mockery and jibes which can so cheapen a great game” Gilleece even quoted John Updike, apparently a great golfing enthusiast: “This particular devotee of the ancient windswept, dune-bound game would be saddened if more of the bad air making other professional sports hyperventilate were to be let into golf’s gorgeous outdoors.”

  However, gripes aside, it seemed the Irish media couldn’t resist congratulating itself and its golfers for a magnificent spectacle. And perhaps the best summary of all was by Carolyn O’Doherty in the Irish Examiner, who wrote: “In the end there was such a love-in, it felt wrong to have forced the two sides in the Ryder Cup to play each other at all. As the world’s greatest golf event came to a close in a sun-baked ceremony just before six on Sunday evening, the mutual outpourings of admiration and appreciation were so torrential that the umbrellas abandoned after the climactic downpours of the morning were almost called into use again.”

  It sounds like the spirit of Ireland finally snuck into all the proceedings here, and a true sense of craic too floated like Guinness froth across all these mu
tual reminiscences.

  But alas! The same cannot be said for the spirit of the American media, most notoriously the New York Times, which gave sparse commentary on the event in a dismissive summation matched only by the Los Angeles Times, which sighed: “Stick that Ryder Cup optimism in cold storage for two more years, shake hands and say goodbye, because this thing is pretty much out of reach for the U.S. once again.”

  The Chicago Tribune pointed out that the American players competed on a course that’s “‘about as Irish as matzo ball soup’…They may have invented golf in Europe but it’s quintessentially the American game and playing it on a sodden course seems a little odd…And so the Cup grinds on, an utter mystery to those untouched by its charms.”

  Sports Illustrated was exasperated: “How do we do it? Every time, whether the matches are in the USA or Europe or on fast greens or slow greens or sloped greens, it doesn’t matter! We still lose!”

  Jim McCabe in the Boston Globe was a little more generous: “The PGA of America is trying to figure out the puzzle that is the Ryder Cup. I don’t know what to say, said Phil Mickelson. Well, that’s okay, the Europeans have enough spirit and passion to go around for both teams. It is their show now, and they’re doing a most beautiful job with it, too.”

  I guess if we hadn’t been in Ireland, we would have scarcely noticed the Ryder Cup, especially as we are (were) in no way golf aficionados. But watching the highlights in our little Beara cottage, we sensed something important in the players, in the courteous manners of the game itself, and indeed in Ireland herself. Something that might even one day tempt us both to take up the clubs and stroll the fairways bawling out our “fores” and recording our menageries of eagles, birdies, doglegs, drained snakes—and worm burners (you see—we did learn a few things from all that TV watching).

  But in the meantime the whole event, despite all the poundings and pontifications of the press, has engendered in the two of us an even deeper love and respect for Ireland and pride in her potential future.