Crooked drives, crooked numbers and one Crooked Stick

First appeared on August 5th, 2009
in The Lebanon Reporter

The leader board for the 2009 Senior U.S. Open at Crooked Stick golf club in Carmel over the weekend read like a veritable who’s who of former PGA stars. Despite this it was the amateur Tim Jackson’s tournament to lose for two days and ultimately, and with all due respect to Jackson, he found a way to do so. Yet as mechanically efficient as he was early, can anybody really blame Jackson for losing when the winner (Fred Funk) hits the showers at twenty under par?
Be it the fortuitous rains, the comfortable weather, the drought of professional golf experiences in central Indiana or the fact that this one marked the first I had attended, something made this past weekend at Crooked Stick a magical experience. In fact it was more than magical, it was wild; an African plains kind of wild.
Keeping an eye on it all, the Met Life blimp floated overhead like a White Backed Vulture hovering on the thermals. The long neck of an adult giraffe could be seen in the silhouette of a 200 foot antennae tower craning high over the trees as, like a frenzied colony of termites, streams of people in vibrant colors were seen moving about in an unchoreographed harmony.
After spying the pairings sheet, like a giddy rainforest-bound ornithologist, the names of those players one wishes to see most are circled; several that would qualify as endangered species. But soon one comes to the realization that finding players on the course is like stalking big game; it can be so difficult at times it almost requires a tracker.
Then suddenly the shrieking cheers from far flung places, reminiscent of the high pitched yelping of African Wild Dogs, are broken by a hushed whisper rippling across the crowd. Is it a leopard in the weeds? A lion stalking prey? No-it’s Greg Norman on the fifth tee box. And with all the fervor of a cackle of famished Hyena the crowd falls upon him to watch as he sends a tee ball rocketing into the stratosphere.
Of course this Serengeti was littered with cameramen, microphones and miles upon miles of cable; in fact this past weekend at “the stick” was only one John 3:16 guy short of having that "big time television event" feel. Even Tom Watson, whose performance at Turnberry proved golf is a sport that doesn’t always recognize age, couldn’t steal the spotlight from the course. Drawn by the hand of the legendary Pete Dye himself how fitting is it that, with all the great golf courses out there bearing names meant to pay homage to their flattering topography (Cherry Hills, Whistling Straits, Pebble Beach), one of Indiana’s top courses would be named after a crooked stick.
But after a short time spent there two things became very clear- At over 7200 yards Crooked Stick is a course that would haunt the everyday golfer and, despite hard economic times, Hoosiers are still willing to turn out to support a sporting event. There were many great stories from the weekend, but none bested the throngs of people who turned out at “the stick”. It bears mentioning if we truly relish opportunities like having the Senior U.S. Open in our own backyard then we all must summon the motivation to get off the couch long enough to attend them (See this year’s Brickyard 400). While Oprah and the Sham Wow guy will no doubt testify on behalf of your couch by speaking to the addictive allure of television, let us not forget nothing can ever replace the unpredictable thrill of witnessing something in person