I suppose I’m a couch potato to some extent. I like watching baseball, football, and golf on television. And be advised that my gridiron and diamond days are behind me. I do enjoy a round of golf when I can. But the exercise I participate in most is a good brisk walk either through the neighborhood, or most recently, up and down some moderate hills at Englewood Metropark’s South Park.
So when I found myself sitting in the recliner at 2 pm on Sunday, I was presented with an intriguing dilemma: When the Bengals - Steelers game came on at 4, what would I watch? The perpetually struggling Bengals -- ‘my’ local NFL affiliate -- or the PGA’s Tour Championship’s final round starring Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson?
First, let me say that I am not a fan of violence. The lovely Cindy Lou can watch countless hours of Law & Order, NCIS, and CSI: Wherever, evening after evening. Of course, I usually come through the room when that episode’s brutal murder is discovered and I get my minute of gore that drives me back to my basement cave to watch Red’s baseball or play on my Mac. Cindy tells me she finds watching the human drama of solving the offense entertaining. Good for her. To me, though, it just seems like ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ repeated hour after hour, day after day. I’ll take sports.
I wrote a couple weeks ago about loyalty. I do feel loyalty to the Reds and the Bengals. They are my teams. Unfortunately, both groups of athletes have been mediocre at best for the last twenty years. I’m not kidding. Twenty years. It’s been hard to get excited about either team one third of the way through their seasons, because by then they’ve lost enough that the hope of playoff excitement is faint to nonexistent. The Reds have rallied lately, coming all the way back to just 16 games behind the division leading Cardinals. Let’s face it. One watches Reds’ games for the joy of winning one at a time, not for the thrill of knowing they’ll be playing in October.
I like Tiger and Phil well enough, but they aren’t my guys. Shoot, they’re everybody’s guys. You don’t root for Tiger to sink a 20 foot putt and win the FedEx Cup because he’s local. You do it because he is perhaps the greatest golfer of all time and you have the opportunity to watch golf history in the making.
The biggest deal for me is the competition. And that’s why I found myself watching more golf than football on Sunday. And, I suppose, I watched more golf because it is the game I currently play. It’s not about hitting another player and knocking him senseless. No golfer deflects another golfer’s drive just to make the next shot tougher. No golfer gets down in another golfer’s face when a long putt is being lined up. It’s a gentleman’s game. I mean, there aren’t even any umpires. Sure, the PGA has officials on hand to interpret rules, but they don’t determine strokes for anybody. Along with missing shots, a golfer signing an incorrect scorecard is the controversial stuff that loses tournaments.
In golf, it’s the player against the course, the weather, and himself. While you don’t see a beaten defensive back congratulating a wide-out for a spectacular touchdown catch, you do see golfers congratulating each other for that long putt or chip that finds the hole. I know when I play golf, my opponent congratulates me for a good putt. And I do the same. It’s not about humiliating your opponent. Golf is about making the shot, then recovering from that shot if it wasn’t perfect. Some of the most amazing shots I’ve seen Tiger make were from pine straw, under trees, finding the green, leaving only a 10 foot putt. Now that’s amazing.
Still, I have to admit, I switched back to the Bengals during commercial breaks. And on Sunday after Lefty won The Tour Championship and Tiger had his FedEx Cup in hand, I was surprised to see the Bengals down by only five against the defending Super Bowl champs with five minutes to play. Even when the Bengals pulled ahead with 14 seconds to go, I wasn’t comfortable. Only when the clock ticked down to zero did that little spark of hope rekindle and I thought, ‘Maybe playoffs this year?’
Today’s elder idea: ‘This team is a very good football team. If we eliminate the immature mistakes, the sky is the limit.’
Tank Johnson
Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle
following a 23-20 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers
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