Tom Ramsey's Final Interview

Tom Ramsey was one of the world's most renowned golf journalists. Fearless, often abrasive, combative- all descriptors fit the man who covered more than 140 majors for News Limited.

On ONE HD's Pro Shop show in 2010 I interviewed Ramsey at his home in Australia. It was the last that he recorded prior to his passing this year.

The Best Player you've never heard of

My September article for Golf Digest, on one of the all time greats of Australian golf.

Nostalgia-The Aging Disease

Something profound happened to me recently. I was at customs in Brisbane Airport, writing down my birth date on the immigration form, and the page jumped out at me. For the first time, two concurrent numbers reflected an uncomfortable truth. I am getting old.

Growing old has never worried me, mainly because it was something that only happened to others. When you are male and young (or think yourself to be), everyone who has a standing relationship of more than six months is old. But this moment in time was something of a wake-up, and upon further examination, I find that I am exhibiting tell-tale, irrefutable signs of aging.

The chief of these is the increasing prevalence of nostalgic thought. The habit of reminiscing about the past was to me, always something that old people did. Invariably, it induced a yawn and a roll of the eyes as the mind immediately wandered off to the present. Day of yore have little relevance to the young.

But lately, nostalgia is creeping up on me, especially when it comes to golf. The summer golf season is simmering, waiting to ignite, and makes me yearn, just a touch, for the heady days of the late 80’s when there was a feverish sense of excitement surrounding the onset of the tournament golf season.

Golf changed forever during this period. The arrival of Norman mania in 1986 lifted both media interest and participation in the sport. A simple test of this could be found playing out at the club I first joined as a junior when I moved to Sydney in 1985.

Kogarah Golf Club is situated right next to the airport in central Sydney. It is highly visible, and with plenty of passing traffic. Despite this, in 1985 you could fire a gun there on some days and not be seen or heard by anyone. Every Friday afternoon, a group of guys would head out for a skins match – and I mean up to ten players, teeing off in one group. It was never a problem because there was no-one in front, or behind.

Come 1986, this was no longer possible. Golf changed. People wanted to play. Tee times filled up, memberships grew, and most visibly, this new legion of golfers flocked to the summer tournaments to watch, filling the fairways with numbers not previously seen.

Much of this excitement was built around Greg Norman. Why, commercial radio even kept a hole by hole report on his round on the airwaves over the weekend. The Shark was to the 80’s what Tiger Woods is to the noughtie’s, but most importantly, he was Australian.

Remember those tight pants with the front pockets that the Shark used to wear? The ones that made wetsuits look like hessian sacks by comparison? I had them, about five pairs, the more colourful and garish the better. His wide takeway? I had one of those too. Niblick shoes with the flap over the laces? Had to have them – although as soon as Shark stopped wearing them, I threw mine out.

I even used those dreadful Spalding Tour Edition balls for as long as Shark did, until he realised they were crap (after they cost him three majors) and mercifully moved on. I knew they were crap long before him, but if the Shark used them, well, there was only one choice.

When the Shark flew into town, every news crew in existence was at the airport waiting for an exclusive. More to the point, we watched, glued to our screens as he alighted from his jet like Australia’s own version of royalty. He was news, he was golf, and he was the man.

Of course, those days are long past. Shark is in his 50’s, with a dodgy, sutured together body and his mind on other things than golf. We’ve got new stars now, perhaps more of them than ever before, but none with the kind of charisma and magnetism of the blonde bomber.

That’s not to imply a criticism of any of the current crop either. They are who they are -Scott, Ogilvy, Baddeley et al, are all brilliant players in their own right, with their own personalities and individual ways of conducting themselves. By any assessment they are world class golfers, competing with distinction during golf’s most competitive era.

The difference is though that we know what we are going to get from them. We’ll get good, often magnificent golf, but rarely much drama. We don’t anticipate them tearing up the back nine on Sunday with birdie after birdie, chasing down the leader, a cacophonous roar greeting every putt holed. We also don’t foresee an implosion of train smash proportions; the unknown and the unpredictable was what made Norman so tantalising, so utterly fascinating and ultimately, entertaining.

Perhaps that’s the key. Golf is about entertainment, and our expectations of what should fall under that description are now a moving target. The precedent, the model, is built around a one off, home bred, unique individual, the type of which may only come along once in a lifetime. We also have a degree of over-familiarity bought on by the immediacy of the internet and digital age, which, when combined with the rapidly shrinking attention span of the ‘Now’ generation creates an environment ill attuned to the staid, time consuming nature of golf.

But the game is still here, we love it, and it’s not going away in a hurry as a result. This affinity for the game is also the chief reason why we reminisce about its past – the seeds of nostalgia need passion in order to germinate.

Or old people

The Whispering Death

A couple of years ago, I wrote this article for iseekgolf.com, Australia's premier on-line golf website. I enjoyed writing it then, hopefully it provides some reading enjoyment now as well,

One of my very first memories of golf was of watching an Australian tournament on TV in the late 1970’s (as a young child, I respectfully – and defensively – wish to add). It was the era of Bob Shearer, Terry Gale, Ian Stanley, Rodger Davis and a young Greg Norman, when fields had a over-riding local flavour, salted with the occasional foreigner recruited to mollify the cultural cringe.

Little memory remains of the action or result. I had no interest in the game at all, but one player in particular did pique my curiosity at the time. His name was Ted Ball, a Sydney based professional who would have caused more than one armchair sportsman to snap to attention every time he made a pass at the ball.

The reason the late Ted Ball made such an impression was because he may have had one of the strangest ( others would use the less judgmental term, ‘unusual’) golf swings ever to find its way into a professional event. Even the best part of three decades hence, it is hard to forget the sight of Ball, his backswing and follow through an ungainly, whizzing blur, the club head appearing to venture little further than his waist in either direction.

Ball was no novelty act. In fact, he was a serious contender, and had won numerous events, including two South Australian Opens. Nonetheless, his appearance on TV provided great fodder for commentators, no doubt thankful for the opportunity to compare and contrast his aberrant swing with that of his rivals.

Looking retrospectively at the trends of the time (let’s not mention the flared, checked pants and wide lapel shirts) brings clarity to just how much golf has changed in the interim. Shearer, one of the dominant players of the day, was held up by many to be a model in terms of swing technique. But in the pre-video analysis era, rhythm, tempo and aesthetic‘style’ were the parameters upon which such an assessment were based. The classic ‘reverse c’ follow through, dynamic leg drive and high finish typical of many were considered aspirational qualities. It was the method du jour, and one both admired and copied by many in the absence of advice to the contrary.

As mentioned, much has changed in the decades hence. Ted Ball type swings on tour are almost extinct, and, as great a player as he was, few modern coaches are using Bob Shearer (or for that matter, any player from that era) as a model upon which to base a swing philosophy. Thirty years ago concepts like swing overhauls and redesigns were yet to register in the professional golf consciousness, hence the varied interpretations of the best way to golf one’s ball.

Spend any time at an Australian Tour event these days and you will observe uniformity in all its glory. Efficient uniformity, mind you, but a sense of sameness nonetheless.

The evolution of golf coaching over the past two decades through the use of sports science, video technology and computers has revolutionised the way the game is taught. Players and coaches are now acutely aware of what they perceive as technical flaws and of the reasons why poor shots occur.

As a result swings have become more structurally homogenous. It has been positive in that better technique (aided by more forgiving equipment) has seen the quality of play and scores under par increase exponentially. Whether the game is more interesting as a result is a debate best left for another time.

This train of thought arose as I sat watching the 2008 Open Championship, and once again had the opportunity to marvel at the idiosyncratic golf swing of the brilliant Jim Furyk, another technician who might also qualify for the ‘unusual’ classification with regard to swing motion.

Furyk, both a US Open champion and perennial major contender, once had his golf swing described by commentator David Feherty as like “an octopus falling out of a tree”. Feherty’s conceit was neither designed to diminish or to be taken literally but it has now found a home in the lexicon, a favourite that is trotted out by punters and pundits alike when discussion veers in the direction of the American.

It hasn’t seemed to have made any difference to him, however. Furyk has cemented a place in the top handful of golfers in the world, the clinical precision of his game a matter of respect and admiration from his peers. It is of great credit to Furyk that despite being the subject of backhanded compliments and damning with faint praise for much of his career he has changed little about the approach that has bought him so much success.

In a way, Jim Furyk’s golf swing is like a fossilised remain bought to life, a carbon 14 escapee of a bygone epoch. It seems to belong of an age where assay was an afterthought, where golfers picked up the sticks and, as the great Sam Snead once said, ‘danced with who they brung’. A reminder, if you like, that there was a time when artistry, self expression and individuality might have been considered foundation principles of the game of golf.

The octopus analogy may have stuck, but the moniker that commentator and former Australian PGA champion Andrew Coltart threw Furyk’s way last week is more appropriate. Furyk, methodically and insidiously plotting his way around a brutal Royal Birkdale was tagged by Coltart as the ‘whispering death’.

The insinuation inherent to such a description seems a more respectful and appreciative way of capturing his inimitable approach to the game.

When Norman ruled the World

In Golf Digest this month, a look at the Masters of old, the man who made the tournament his, and the approaching visit of Tiger Woods for the 2009 event in November at Kingston Heath.