www.globalgolfpost.com
JULY 23, 2012
What It Means To Be ‘The Boss’
JIM NUGENT
E-MAIL JIM
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, ENGLAND | Everyone
has his own way of preparing for the Open
Championship.
World No. 1 Luke Donald teed it up at
the Scottish Open the week prior to Royal
Lytham & St. Annes, as did Lee Westwood
and Phil Mickelson. Rory McIlroy chose
London as the place to get ready. Tiger
Woods spent the week contemplating a
missed cut at The Greenbrier while working at home in South Florida.
My preparation was slightly different.
I joined 60,000-plus members of the E
Street Nation in the cold, wet slop at London’s Hyde Park to watch Bruce Springsteen put his enlarged ensemble through
their paces for three-and-a-half hours.
No doubt you are wondering what the
Boss’ name is doing in a golf publication
and where I am going with this ... but bear
with me for a moment.
The outdoor Saturday night show in
London was special. It began with Bruce,
his harmonica, and bandmate Roy Bittan
on piano, offering “a little love letter” to
London. He sang Thunder Road, “the first
thing we played after our feet touched
English soil” in a legendary 1975 concert.
Since then, he has had a special relationship with London fans. He clearly revels in the warmth of their embrace, and,
in turn, they cannot get enough of him.
The assembled knew the words to most of
his songs, and they didn’t hesitate to sing
out loud, if off key. It’s quite something to
see and hear 60,000 Brits singing about a
Vietnam veteran’s disgust and frustration
at the top of their lungs.
The show also quickly became part of
Bruce lore for an odd reason. Claiming
that he had waited 50 years for the moment, he surprised the gathered by calling
Paul McCartney on stage for the closing
numbers. However, after ripping through
the Beatle’s “I Saw Her Standing There”
and “Twist and Shout,” someone killed the
sound and brought a premature end to the
festivities. Curfew, it was claimed. Fingers
were pointed, blame was assigned, but a
historic moment was ruined.
Springsteen is 62. In his 40-year musical journey, he has made a fortune or two.
He doesn’t need to do this anymore. And
yet he is out there every night, show after
show, sometimes for nearly four hours,
entertaining, engaging and otherwise
thrilling his worldwide audience. He leaves
the stage each night exhausted, thoroughly
drenched in sweat. The man
has never once in his career
phoned it in. Never.
Which brings me back to
golf. As I watched Tom Watson hitting balls on the practice tee one day at Lytham, I
couldn’t help but think of the
parallels between him and
the Boss. Watson also is 62,
born the same September
month as Springsteen,
in 1949. He has as a new
hip, has won eight major
titles, and is financially
secure. His place among
golf’s all-time greats
has been settled, and he
has become a statesman for the game. He
doesn’t need to do this any longer, and yet
there he is at Lytham, competing against
lads a third of his age. He held his own, as
he usually does when he ventures across
the pond, making the 3-over par cut on
the number.
Just as Springsteen has a special bond
with Londoners, Watson has a unique
relationship with golf fans in the British Isles. It has been that way since he
learned to embrace the British game, and
then went on to win five Open Championships. The same year Springsteen won
over London, Watson won his first Open
Championship, at Carnoustie in 1975. Golf
fans in the British Isles embraced him
precisely because he
learned their style of
play, and then proceeded to master it.
They still can’t believe
how close he came to winning again, at
Turnberry in 2009.
The final similarity is this: Like Springsteen, Watson never once in his fabled career has phoned it in. He has far too much
respect for the game to ever give anything
but his best, even during the lean years
when his putter refused to cooperate.
Which brings me back to young McIlroy, who was never a factor last week at
Lytham. On the eve of the Open, McIlroy
admitted that he all but gave up in the
second round of the European Tour’s
biggest event, the BMW Championship
at Wentworth. “I didn’t shoot a great first
round, and then in that middle stretch of
the second round, I had a few bogeys,” he
told the London Telegraph. “So I stood on
the 12th tee and realised I probably wasn’t
going to make the cut. From then on, half
my body was in Paris (where his girlfriend,
tennis superstar Caroline Wozniacki was)
and the other half in Wentworth. But that’s
totally understandable, I feel.”
McIlroy is the finest young talent to
come along since Tiger Woods. Because he
is warm, refreshingly engaging and preter-
naturally talented, he is precisely what this
game needs. Along with Webb Simpson
and Rickie Fowler, his is the face of the
future of the pro game. But when he says
his Wentworth behavior is “understand-
able,” he displays the ignorance of youth.
In time, he will learn. The game hopes
that he will grow up to respect his craft
like Tom Watson and the Boss do theirs,
to never surrender. If so, he will become
