Commentary: You can have the British Open

WASHINGTON, July 24 (UPI) -- No matter what the purists say or think, now I know why getting people to watch golf on a regular basis is like pulling teeth.

I am not a golfer and don't play the game. I was a caddy one summer. The days were long and hot, the play was slow, the money back then wasn't great, and the players were not among my favorite people, which gives some of them a break.

Since I've been in this business, I've also gotten a taste (and earful) of what some fans are like and my experiences were not pleasant, to say the least. My most vivid memory is about a day a few years ago when I covered what was then the Greater Greensboro (N.C.) Open.

The weather was extremely hot, so I took the advice of a colleague and wore short pants to the event on Saturday. One fan looked at me and asked if I thought this was a strip joint. Nuff said.

Anyway, I watched much of the television coverage on both Saturday and Sunday. After that stretch, I will be hesitant in the future about using the adjective "great." What I watched, to me, was not great.

I should congratulate Ben Curtis, a first-time winner as a pro. He picked a nice time to get it done. Down the stretch, he came out ahead of the likes of Thomas Bjorn, Davis Love III, Vijay Singh, and Tiger Woods, the man most people thought would win.

Also, after playing a course as demanding as Royal St. George's, he earned it. On TV, it looked like golf in a mine field, and that's polite. As gorgeous as most of the courses are in this country, American golfers, in my opinion, should stay home.

Foreign players are better suited for courses like this because most look like that overseas. That means they have a built-in advantage over the Americans right off the bat. Some pretty fair players were off the charts in this event, finishing with amateur-like scores (Nick Price, Ernie Els, Stuart Appleby, Rich Beem, Fred Couples, et al). These guys can play and that course left them and others talking to themselves.

Heck, Bjorn, one of the best foreign players, had a meltdown down the stretch. After building a three-shot advantage with four holes to play, he bogeyed 15, triple-bogeyed 16, and gave away another shot at 17. Curtis was in the clubhouse waiting for a possible playoff which never happened.

If this is the best golf has to offer, the sport need not worry about being attractive to the little people. It won't be. Like tennis, it will remain an elitist sport played by the haves, kids whose parents pay the outlandish sums to play a round. People who love the game thought it was "great" theater. Personally, at the very least, I found it hard to watch. Events like the U.S. Open, where courses are made more difficult just because the event is a major, turn people off.

I haven't even mentioned the fiasco on Saturday when Jesper Parnevik and Scott Roe, who was in contention, were eliminated because each signed the other's scorecard. That happened because the rule is that, in a two-some, one player keeps the other's score. How ludicrous is that? And I'm told it's one of the rules that helps ensure the integrity of the game.

Believe it or not, the fact that Woods did not win may have been a good thing. If, as he has said, some golfers are using illegal clubs to try to get an edge, then that's been proven false, for now, but somehow, I think the "integrity" of the game is intact. It's the desire of the wannabees that has people talking.