Luxury cars, pro golfers and dirty underwear
The nice thing about covering a professional golf tournament sponsored by BMW is that there’s always a chance you might catch a ride home in a BMW. That happened to me three times during the Asian Open, which concluded Monday — a day late because of rain — at Tomson Golf Club in Pudong.
On Sunday, I shared a 7 Series Sedan with a caddie and two golfers who were competing in the tournament … and I had no idea who they were. I didn’t want to ask — I thought that would be insulting. It would also have been a little embarrassing. I mean, I was wearing a media badge — I was writing about the freaking tournament — so you would think I should be able to recognize the competitors. But I couldn’t. You’d be surprised how little golf you actually watch when covering a golf tournament.
A little internet digging told me that the professional athlete seated directly in front of me in the passenger seat was Richard Sterne. The professional athlete to my left — seated on the hump seat — was Wade Ormsby. “I’ll sit in the middle,” he offered. “I’m small.”
Yes, golfers — especially young ones with relatively low international profiles — don’t really fit the professional athlete stereotype. In fact, I got the feeling that some pros do well just to break even. There’s something rather humanizing about watching a pro golfer sprint off the the 18th green, apologizing to autograph seekers, yelling back to them, “I need to catch my plane!” Not everyone can afford a private jet like Ernie Els.
The rain on Sunday screwed up everyone’s travel plans. Play was delayed, and only a handful of players — like the guy sprinting from the final hole to catch his plane (I couldn’t recognize who he was, either) — got their entire final round in, and therefore could go home on time … or, at least, try to. But, then again, if you were one of the players forced to stay until Monday, that meant you were doing something right. That meant you were closer to the top of the leaderboard, thus closer to a bigger payday. And that meant my co-passengers Sterne and Ormsby, heading to the hotel and not the airport, were having pretty good tournaments.
Unfortunately, so was Mr. Els.
Once Els shot a ridiculous 10-under 62 on day two of the tournament, it became a battle for second place. He ended up at 26-under. Ridiculous. That’s one stroke better than the second and third place finishers … combined. The rest of the field seemed just as awestruck by the performance as the fans. “Els is really struggling,” Ormsby said, with a shake of his head and a hopeless sigh. “I think they just might let him keep his card this year. You reckon?” Good to see sarcasm is alive and well on the European Tour.
“So this is why he’s ranked No. 3 in the world,” Sterne responded.
But Sterne had problems bigger than Els’ insurmountable lead. He had been on the road for three weeks. And evidently, he had packed for exactly three weeks — not allowing for any rain delays.
“I don’t think I have any clean underwear to play in tomorrow,” he announced 10 minutes into our ride.
- I was covering the tournament for the South China Morning Post, writing short features to accompany their normal daily writeups. Here are two of my stories: Els to fans: Put your phones on vibrate and China’s top golfer demands more domestic support. I’ll post the other ones at a later date. I’ll also have some golf stories appearing in a major online publication soon. Stay tuned.
- When I did manage to make it out to the course, I snapped some photos. But not many. It’s easy to get a serious case of camera-envy at these major sports events. Professional photogs have lenses that are bigger than most elderly Chinese women.
- Find out how Ormsby and Sterne finished at the tournament results page.
05.04.2005, 2:38 PM · Humor, Observations, Photos, Sports
1 Comments
What? No picture of the Ports and BMW Lifestyle tents??? Hehe.