Luke Donald, the worlds number 1 golfer, missed the cut at the British Open. This is the main golf event that an English golfer should want to win. The Wimbledon of golf, as you may. Yet according to the rankings, there is not a better golfer on earth than Luke Donald. Not one player in the field is deemed a better player. Has there been any outrage or criticism? There has not.
Lee Westwood is the world number 2 golfer. He also missed the cut. He has been number 1 for a number of weeks over the last year or so. Yet he, like Donald, has never won a Major. Has there been any outrage or criticism? There has not.
Andy Murray is the worlds 4th best tennis player. In the last three grand slams, he has been knocked out by a higher ranked player. He has been labelled at various times a bottler and faced lots of criticism for the way he has played when it matters.
Major Record
It is harder to win a Major in golf than a Grand Slam in tennis. However, this is compensated by the length of the career. The top Major winner in golf has 18, second 14. The top Grand Slam winner in tennis has 16, the second 14. At 33, Luke Donald would be past it at tennis but is instead entering his prime. Westwood is 38 and still there isn't too much talk of time running out.
Lee Westwood
2nd Place: 2
3rd Place: 4
4th Place: 1
5th -8th: 3
Luke Donald
3rd Place: 2
4th Place: 1
5th-8th: 1
Andy Murray
2nd Place: 3
3/4th (semi final defeat): 4
5-8th (quarter final defeat) 2
Westwood and Murray have similar records. Luke Donald lags behind but has 5 years less than Lee Westwood. None of them have won a Major. All of them have been close and continue to challenge. Now lets look at the google results for:
Andy Murray not good enough
One of the first links is a former World number 1 writing off Andy Murray as not good enough. Another is an opinion in The Guardian stating he isn't good enough. Many of the others are comments after articles. A general theme is that Murray is just not good enough, and his many near misses are evidence of this.
Luke Donald not good enough
The very first link is a declaration that Luke Donald is good enough to be world number 1. There are no newspaper opinion pieces stating that he is not good enough to win a major. The link is not full of people weighing in with opinions that he just simply isn't good enough to win a major. Yet as we have just seen, he has a similar record to Andy Murray in tournaments when it matters.
Lee Westwood not good enough
This is slightly more mixed. However we quickly get a player stating that Lee Westwood is definitely good enough to win a Major by a former player. There is not a complete write off as Westwood as not good enough to win a Major. Yet as we have just seen, he has a similar record to Andy Murray in tournaments when it matters.
Other Events
In World Golf Championsip events, Lee Westwood has never won. He does, however, have three runners up. Luke Donald has won one WGC event. To be fair to Donald, he has won a number of events this year. Yet isn't an ability to do it in smaller events exactly what Andy Murray is hammered for? Luke Donald tore up a links course a week before the Open when he won the Scottish Open. He should have been adequately prepared for tough conditions and links golf, yet was very poor. Since rankings began, there have been 14 players at world number 1 in golf. Twelve of them have won at least one major. The only two not to are Luke Donald and Lee Westwood.
Possible Reasons
1. Unlike tennis, it is very easy for a top golfer to have a bad round or tournament. As you are playing the entire field, and the course, a bad run can ruin an entire tournament. There is no golf equivalent of hauling back a two set deficit to win. Top golfers regularly do miss the cut in big events. However, this should not be seen as a reason to escape criticism altogether. Luke Donald has not even come close in the two majors he has played since becoming world number 1. Having won the Scottish Open, on a links course, he had the best possible preparation. To then miss the cut entirely should really be put down to just not being able to do it when it matters.
2. In tennis, once Andy Murray is out, there is no British interest. In golf, there is still McIlroy, McDowell, Clarke, Casey, Poulter, Fisher etc. It is easy for Westwood and Donald to have a terrible tournament "under the radar" so to speak, as the focus will then move directly to somebody else. Certainly, had Westwood been the only British contender, then there would have been more criticism.
3. It is a far less painful exit. The nature of golf, especially in the first two days, means there is not focus on one particular player or pairing. Nobody "beat" Westwood and Donald as such (rather people bettered their scores). This is far easier to take than watching somebody win the first set, get into a strong position, then completely collapse in tennis. An early exit in tennis means losing to a player that you should be beating, in a match that people actively sit down and pay attention to. In golf, as soon as Westwood and Donald slip out of contention, attention moves to others further up. They don't need to play every shot under the glare of an expectant public.
Conclusion
These factors mean that a British golfer has it quite a bit easier than a British tennis player at the moment. Most of this has to be down to the sheer strength of depth in golf right now. Why criticise Donald and Westwood when we've had a Brit win the very last Major? Why criticise them when another 5 players might challenge for the title? It doesn't change my view that Westwood and Donald are simply not good enough, but it seems they are able to get on with not being good enough out of the entire glare of the media.
No comments:
Post a Comment