Controversy at the 2010 British Open Golf Championships; Was Tiger Woods favoured by organizers?
Golf is not a very controversial game; not too many dodgy events occur during the game. It is a gentleman’s game and it is rare to find a golfer who is constantly in the tabloids for wrongdoings, except for Tiger Woods maybe. This year’s British Open has recently courted some controversy from some players saying that the organisers are favouring some players over everyone else. The weather has been affecting the second day of play, and it has hampered playing conditions for a lot of the golfers.
The weather can really affect a game of golf. The wind can sometimes make it almost impossible to play a shot, and usually the ball will land very far away from its intended target. The golfers faced similar sort of conditions at the second day of the British Open. With winds up to 40 mph, the ball would be hit and land a lot farther away than the golfer wanted it to. The odd part about the day, though, was not the weather conditions, because golfers can usually manage the wind; the problem seemed to come from a decision taken by the organisers of the Open.
In the middle of the day, the decision was taken to stop play because they felt the conditions were unplayable. The call to stop play came at 2:40 in the afternoon, just after world number 1 Tiger Woods had started his round. The problem was that a lot of golfers felt that the organisers had shown special consideration and favouritism for Woods and stopped play right after he started. They felt it showed that the organisers did not want Woods to have a bad round, when during the first part of the morning, a lot of golfers had had very poor sessions because of the weather. They could not understand why the organisers had not stopped play earlier in the day, when they were having a very tough time.
Then the organisers went and did something even stranger. They had play resumed, even though the conditions and the weather had not changed. If anything, the weather had gotten worse. The winds were even stronger than they were before, and the players found it even harder to go out and play a good game of golf. When the organisers got wind (pun intended) of the fact that some players were complaining that they felt favouritism had been shown to Tiger Woods, they quickly said the claims were ludicrous. They said they took the decision to stop play when they did because of the fact that four different officials at four different areas of the ground said that the ball was moving. Players such as Martin Kaymer and Zach Johnson did not buy the explanation from the officials. They stated that they had twice asked the officials to suspend play because the ball was moving very heavily for them, but their complaints had fallen on deaf ears. They thought maybe they were saving stopping play to help better players later on.
What is interesting is that older players have been saying that this weather controversy and stoppage of play is nonsense. They used to play in harsher conditions than this, and the current crop of youngsters should just get on with it and stop complaining. Even those that did not complain had a very tough time today. Yesterday’s leader, the very talented youngster Rory Mcllroy, had a tough day today and could not match his great performance of the previous day. The current leader board has Louis Oosthuizen at the top, and Tiger Woods in second place, 8 shots behind him at the moment. Rory Mcllroy is 11 shots behind Oosthuizen after a tough day.
A lot more golf is in the works and it will be a very exciting and entertaining next couple of days at the Open. Will Tiger Woods claim the lead or will Oosthuizen hold on to the top spot? Maybe the young Mcllroy will charge through and beat both the number 1 and number 2. Let’s hope the weather does not mess with the players too much, and the organisers get their act together so the golfers can put in solid performances the next time out on the green.
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