OPINION: It’s Time to Break the Sound Barrier

Many years ago, I was at a tournament at TPC Avenal. I was returning from the concession stand, carrying a soda and two hotdogs, to the ninth green, where Tom Watson was preparing to putt.

As I started down a steep rocky hillside, I suddenly lost my footing and fell down the hill. It was an extraordinary tumble involving a slide, several somersaults, and a roll to level ground. As I laid there, bloodied, battered, and some said crying, “mommy,” the marshal peered down at me, held up his sign, and callously yelled, “Quiet, Please.” True story. So, apparently, it was okay for me to break a leg so long as I did not break Tom Watson’s concentration.

Such is the game of golf. A game where players require the same level of concentration to hit a golf ball as neurosurgeons need to remove a brain tumor. Where spectators and officials are expected to stand quietly by like statues, mimes, or office workers crammed into an elevator. And where even announcers must whisper their commentary like pillow talk for fear of disturbing the players. Yes, silence is golden, but it is also boring and unnatural at an athletic competition.

It’s time for the world of golf to unshackle the crowd. It’s time for professional golfers to learn to deal with noise. They handle wind and rain, now they need to handle humanity. Vibrating cell phones, babies crying, people talking, chanting, cheering, sneezing, laughing, cameras clicking are the natural sounds of any congregation of people. Golfers must learn to cope.

Other sports do not require total silence to perform athletic feats. Baseball players hit 95-mile-per-hour fastballs, and football players kick 55-yard field goals amidst the roar of a stadium crowd. Soccer players strike precision shots while fans chant and blow vuvuzela horns, the most annoying sound on earth other than Joy Behar. A boxer plies his skills amidst the bloodthirsty screams of a betting crowd. His nose might get broken but never his concentration.

However, a professional golfer needs absolute silence to strike a stationary object resting at his feet, a technique he has executed thousands of times. Ridiculous. He is striking a golf ball, not cutting a diamond or performing a circumcision.

Amateurs deal with noise. My foursome plays a course next to a military base where they test ordnance. It is not uncommon to hear gunfire and explosions during your backswing. And, considering how badly I have played lately, they might be testing nerve gas.

As an amateur golfer, I am so conditioned to noise that I yell “mashed potatoes” and “Baba Booey” during my own swing.  The only sound that disturbs me is the groundskeeper driving his lawnmower over my new Calloway Chrome Soft X golf ball and blending it into chicken salad.

In all fairness, professional golfers do tolerate some noise.  There is the sudden roar of the crowd on Sundays at the Masters and the rumble of freight trains alongside the 18^th fairway at Chambers Bay. There is the boom of a DeChambeau drive, the wind whistling through Sergio Garcia’s ears, and the sound of John Daly’s thighs rubbing together. And, at the 2020 Women’s US Open, Lexi Thompson did not seem disturbed by my heavy breathing or the commotion of security carrying me off the course.

But let’s be honest. Hitting a golf ball takes approximately three seconds and requires the same level of concentration as throwing darts in a crowded bar, beer pong at a frat party, or cornhole at the company cookout. It does not take a boatload of concentration to raise your arms, torque your body, and swing. Strippers perform this move while upside down on a pole with drunks hollering and sticking dollar bills in their G string. Silence is not necessary.

Nevertheless, the PGA still strives to squelch crowd noise. Some tournament directors have hired mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group as marshals. Others have established remote areas for cell phone usage and will soon be roping off areas for flatulence.

Other professional sports have lightened up on efforts to regulate noise. In the 90s, Monica Seles, a not-so-glamorous tennis player, would release an orgasmic yell with every swing of her racquet. Tennis officials swiftly outlawed it. However, years later, when hot Russian star Anna Kournikova began making these sounds, they decided they were not so bad after all.

Professional golfers react to a cough or camera click during their backswing like they have been hit by a stun gun because they have grown accustomed to total silence. They need to become reconditioned to crowd noise.  Instead of a country club, they should join me at Billy Bob’s Driving Range, where batting cages are directly next to the tee boxes and teenage boys perfect their Happy Gilmore swing on the adjacent mat.

Alex Karras, a Hall of Fame football player, once held a celebrity fundraising tournament, during which he had an accordion player standing in the first tee box playing “Lady of Spain.” This should become a part of every golfer’s training. Equipment could also help. Golfers could wear visors with earflaps, which would muffle noise and provide more room for corporate logos.

So, what atmosphere would you prefer for a sporting event: a NASCAR racetrack, a crowded football stadium, or the non-fiction section of the public library? If you want a quiet Sunday, go stare at your fish tank. The 16,000 fans who filled the stands along the 16th hole at the Phoenix Open this year clearly demonstrated their preference for rowdy, raucous, and unbridled fun. Tell the marshals to holster their signs. The fans have spoken. Rather than suppressing crowd noise, it’s time to accept it. Professional golfers can handle it.

By the way, I survived my fall at the TPC. Although the fall would have killed a lesser man, I escaped without any significant injury. Paramedics quickly determined that I had not sustained a concussion and that the matter oozing from my left ear was only mustard from my hotdog. And, even more important than my well-being, the sound of my weeping and anguish, fortunately, did not disturb Tom Watson. He sank the putt.