Golf is on the verge of a revolution

The year 1998 may well come to be remembered as that in which the noble art of chasing a little white ball (unfortunately for most of us not the same one for any stretch of time) with a bag of hopelessly inadequate weapons became the sporting in-thing to do in New Zealand.

Golf is, you feel, on the verge of a revolution in this country. Check out the city courses and driving ranges and you will find more queues than in an English post office.

Those lines of hopeful swingers contain the full range of the population - age, race, sex, size, wealth, and especially dress sense. Golf really is the game of the people and New Zealand, with its abundant land and small population, is ripe for the revolution.

It would be impossible to catalogue sport's sins of the year in such little space. But the two most galling points would have to be the sight of millionaire American basketballers going on strike, then learning that two of Australia's finest cricketers were in league with Indian bookmakers and had their crimes covered up by Australian cricket bosses at the time.

It already had to be accepted that a number of international cricket matches over the past decade or so have been rigged by some of their participants. Finding out that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh are among the snakes in this particular grass by accepting bookmakers' money in return for information is a bit too much to bear.

Such revelations may actually have more harmful effect in this country than in Australia, where cricket has a mass following and is the only major sport which crosses the state boundaries.

Cricket is in danger of sliding off the sporting map in this country. It was always our summer sport, more by default than anything else, propped up because its supporters were people of influence.

Yet it has never reflected the makeup of the country, particularly the racial mix. The brilliance of Richard Hadlee and the wonderful era he inspired for New Zealand cricket have only served to show how inadequate - in international terms - most of our cricketers are. There are a lot of former cricket fans out there who are unlikely to return, and cricket's demise is coinciding with a golfing boom.

While other sports struggle with codes of conduct, the world's best golfers still safeguard the traditions of the game with their honourable approach. Golfers don't yell at, or shove, rules officials or sledge opponents and the game remains free so far of fixing and drug allegations.

Golf is also free of what can be mind-numbing patriotic hysteria in which the nation's happiness is dependent on something as stupid as the bounce of a ball.

And of all sports, golf can maintain an extraordinary link with its public because fans of all ages and abilities can also be players.

For this once devoted, now more reticent sports fan, the highlight of the year was standing so close to some of the world's best golfers as they hit the ball so far, and so accurately, at the World Cup at Gulf Harbour. A good walk, not ruined by anything.
- Chris Rattue,
sports reporter