This week, we’re going to talk about swearing. So, instead of my usual rambling, meandering introduction to the column, which often leaves readers feeling the same sense of drifting wistfulness that you get when the Desert Island Discs theme comes on, I’m going to get straight to the point.
“Thank f*** for that,” hissed the long-suffering sports editor through clenched teeth.
I once read a colourful, illuminating book about the history of cursing and cussing, which cheerily effed and jeffed its way through biblical, Roman and medieval times. You could say it was a journey from the holy to the s**t.
Here in the world of golf, there continues to be a lot of tut-tutting, hand-wringing and pearl-clutching about expletives and profanities being muttered and mumbled by some of the leading lights in the upper echelons.
My learned colleague, James Corrigan of The Daily Telegraph, recently made the very shrewd observation that, “the game adores its stats, but unfortunately does not keep tally of the number of f***s-in-regulation.”
During the second round of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship last weekend, a volley of expletives from Robert MacIntyre and Tyrrell Hatton, that were picked up on television, turned the air so blue, even the air itself had to wash its mouth out at the end of the round.
Amid a torrent of F-bombs here and some S-words there, the only commentary you got for a spell was the phrase, “we apologise for any bad language you may have heard” as those in the Sky booth gingerly trotted out the necessary grovel demanded by the regulators, Ofcom.
As always, social media, that great platform for calm, level-headed discussion, got itself in a right old pickle. Hatton, of course, is a serial offender. "I have got an extensive repertoire,” he once said to reporters before jokingly telling us to you know what.
In other disapproving, fist-shaking quarters, meanwhile, MacIntyre was branded “a disgrace” and a “spoilt brat”. “What kind of example does this set the kids?” came another trite observation in the maelstrom of pious ponderings and puritanical posturings.
I would’ve thought a young man from small town Scotland going on to become a Ryder Cup player, a Scottish Open champion and a PGA Tour star was a pretty decent example to set the young ‘uns? But what the f*** do I know? Oops, sorry.
Your correspondent and his golf writing brethren asked MacIntyre about the growing grumblings surrounding his language on Saturday and, as ever, he was honest in his assessment.
“Look, it’s live sport,” he said. “It’s the heat of the battle. You wouldn’t put a microphone on a football pitch or on a referee because you are going to hear the bad language.
“I’m trying my hardest to perform as best as I can. I double-bogeyed 18 (in round two), so I am going to be angry. And what am I going to do when I am angry? I’m probably going to swear to myself.
"It’s not to anybody else, it’s to myself. I’m not meaning to offend anyone. But I am conscious of it, and I am trying my best not to do it too much.”
MacIntyre said all of this after spending over 15 minutes signing autographs and posing for selfies with all walks of golfing life. Again, that’s not a bad example to set, is it?
Ever since folk decided that thwacking an infuriating little ba’ with a stick was somehow good for body and mind, the cathartic curse amid the incredulity and futility of the endeavour has been, well, par for the course. Golf, after all, is a four-letter word.
When the decorated amateur, Horace Hutchinson, was in his playing pomp way back in the 1880s and 1890s, he mulled over this fickle and flummoxing pursuit’s abundant curiosities and absurdities and made a suggestion that has stood the test of time.
“If profanity had an influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.”
‘Twas ever thus. In the modern age, broadcasters, and viewers, demand that we get up-close-and-personal and get taken to the very heart of the competitive cut-and-thrust. The closer you get, the more you’re going to get. And some folk may not like what they get.
If you thrust a microphone into a fourball of Norrie, Alec, Wattie and Eric during the autumn medal down at the local club, you’d probably pick up the kind of effing and blinding that would get you kicked off an oil rig.
I once played with an acquaintance who would constantly bark, “sit down you b*****d” at his ball. And that was just him trying to put the bloomin’ thing on the tee.
People have different ways of turning a release valve in a game that can easily push you to the brink of blowing a gasket.
So, before we get a ticking off from Ofcom, I’ll leave you with the wonderful words of exasperation documented by Angus MacVicar, the father of the late, great doyen Jock, in his book Golf in my Gallowses.
Playing with his friend, the esteemed Professor Sir Roddy MacSween at Dunaverty, a moment of golfing embuggerance prompted said Professor to deliver the epic lament, “Scunnerations of Ezekiel!”
I look forward to MacIntyre, Hatton and others using that one on the tele the next time a two-footer birls out of the hole.
