No Complaints

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Golf Book

BY: By Ed Sherman

By "guts" I mean grace under pressure.
~Ernest Hemingway

Golf writers might whine about a lousy roast beef sandwich or poor Internet access in the press room, but there's really no such thing as a bad day in our business. We get paid to cover the biggest tournaments at the best courses in the world. All in all, it's a pretty sweet deal. Some assignments, though, prove better than others.

It was the Saturday of the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama in Andalucia, Spain. The course has a stunning view of the Rock of Gibraltar. While gazing at the Mediterranean, I heard from the BBC radio coverage that Michael Jordan was on the course. As the golf reporter for the Chicago Tribune, the fact that city's No. 1 star, the king of basketball, was among the spectators meant I had better go find him.

I was walking the holes scanning the crowds, when it hit me that Jordan was probably following Tiger. The scuttlebutt was they had recently become buddies. Sure enough, I found Tiger's match and located His Airness riding on the back of U.S. captain Tom Kite's cart. I watched Jordan react to the shots. He exulted when a birdie putt fell and winced when the Americans lost a hole.

"Man, this is great," Jordan kept saying. The Ryder Cup pressure, he told me later, where there is a verdict for every hole, really appealed to him. I learned that Jordan was on a family vacation in Monaco, but had pried himself away to spend a day watching golf. On the 12th hole, somebody came up to him and said it was time to go. It was time to catch the flight back to Monaco. It was clear from the look on Jordan's face that he wanted to stay. Another reporter and I advised Jordan to take a later flight.

"You're Michael Jordan," we said with the strong implication he has the power to do what he wants.

"No, you don't understand," he said. "My wife will kill me if I don't get back."

It was heartening to see Jordan was just like us, at least on the domestic front. Alas, he departed. Or so we thought. A hole later, we saw him again, but only briefly. Finally, he was whisked away.

Jordan's day was done, but there was plenty of golf on the agenda. I wandered over to the 17th hole. It was then that I noticed George Bush sitting on a hill overlooking the green.

First Jordan, now Bush. I thought, "How many times do you get to talk to a former President?" As I stepped towards him, I saw a Secret Service man (the earpiece gave him away despite his polo shirt) but he made no move to thwart my advancement. I thought it a bit strange that you could just walk up to a former president in a foreign country. Apparently, I looked trustworthy.

Bush, though, hardly looked like the one-time leader of the free world. There was no large entourage. He was casually chatting with a small group of photographers and one reporter.

I introduced myself and soon found myself sitting along with the group. Bush told us he had perched himself on the 17th hole so he could congratulate the American team if they won a match. Since the next match was on the 14th hole, and since Bush didn't seem anxious to go anywhere, our small group had him all to ourselves.

I noticed Bush was wearing pair of socks with the Masters logo. The socks were pretty dirty, which meant he had been walking the course. Not bad for a man who was seventy-three years old at the time.

Naturally, the conversation turned to golf. He talked about a recent round he had with three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin. However, with Bush, it never was about score.

Known for being a speed golfer, he boasted, "We played eighteen holes in two hours."

Of course, with the Ryder Cup on the line, the pace of the golf we were watching was much, much slower. Bush told us about the last time he saw Ronald Reagan. Due to his Alzheimer's, Bush said he wasn't sure if Reagan recognized his vice president.

Feeling a bit bold, I asked Bush how the Chicago Tribune had treated him while he was in office. Bush said, "Well, I can't think of anything bad, so it must have been OK." No surprise there, considering the Tribune is a staunch Republican paper. As a lifelong Democrat, I didn't have the heart to tell Bush I didn't vote for him.

Tom Lehman and Phil Mickelson were the next group to come to the 17th. Their wives, Melissa and Amy, noticed Bush and sat down next to us. Somehow I managed to get in the group picture that would run in David Feherty's book about the Ryder Cup.

I remember vividly Bush leaning forward on the grass, holding Amy's and Melissa's hands, ready to jump out onto the green to congratulate a winning American pairing. But the big moment didn't happen. Mickelson and Lehman didn't win the hole, and would go on to halve their match. In fact, Bush never got to greet a victorious American twosome that day. The Americans were shut out en route to eventually losing the Ryder Cup to the Europeans on Sunday, 14 1/2 to 13 1/2.

After the last group came through, Bush dejectedly lifted himself from the grass and made his way to the clubhouse. Meanwhile, Jordan surely received the bad news en route to Monaco. But the day was a victory for me. I got to spend it with a king and a president.

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