It’s the first hole of the U.S. Open, and Tiger Woods is about to hit the ball. The signs say “QUIET.” The gallery at Olympia Fields Country Club is silent. Photographers freeze, not daring to click their shutters.
Just as Woods swings, a whistle pierces the silence. Woods, disgusted after a wayward shot, drops his club, puts his hands on his hips, whips around and glares at the gallery in search of the culprit. The shot lands in a bunker.
Rewind a few weeks to the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. The Florida Marlins and Reds are tied 2-2. Juan Pierre is up to bat for the Marlins, and Paul Wilson is on the mound. The crowd of 41,285 whistles and heckles as Pierre swings at the white ball, moving faster than a car on an interstate highway. WHACK! Two runners score. Marlins up 4-2.
Two pressure situations. Two world-class athletes.
One is rattled by a whistle from an adjacent fairway. The other is able to block out a crowd of 41,000 fans.
Why?
Why is it that golfers and tennis players require silence and still audiences to strike a ball, while baseball players, basketball players and football kickers can ignore–and often favor–noise while performing feats requiring intense concentration?
Why does Greg Rusedski erupt into a four-letter rant and unravel after a Wimbledon spectator calls a ball “Out!” but North Carolina basketball players routinely hit free throws as Duke’s Cameron Crazies assault the Tar Heels with verbal barbs?
Can you imagine NFL referees announcing “Quiet, please” when a kicker is about to attempt a field goal? Or soccer linesmen holding up “QUIET” signs before each David Beckham free kick?
Is there truly something different about their sports, or are golfers and tennis players just spoiled into thinking the world must stop when they whack a ball?
“That’s a really good question, and one I’ve actually wondered myself because, for a golfer, I’m bothered very little by noises,” PGA veteran Pat Bates said. “I guess it starts with the tradition of golf and tennis, games that generated a quiet type of crowd, so that’s what we’ve been accustomed to. I think continuous noise is fine, but an abrupt sound like a whistle or a Porta-Potty door slamming can be distracting. If there are 10,000 people behind the green, it’s fine. But one person walking behind the green throws you off because you’re not expecting it.”
Tracy Kerdyk, vice president of the LPGA Futures Tour, adds: “I was so used to quiet that when I first played in Japan and fans had plastic bags that crinkled, I’d back off shots left and right. I was used to silence, so any unexpected noise bothered me.”
Several athletes from different sports agreed that the difference between golf and tennis and other sports is that golfers and tennis players don’t expect noise, and thus don’t prepare for it.
“I think if a golfer was expecting noise, the way we do, he’d be able to hit the ball no problem, but they’re expecting silence, so any little noise sounds loud,” Florida Marlins first baseman Derrek Lee said. “When I’m golfing, I like quiet. But when I’m batting, I want as much noise as possible. When it’s quiet, like it is at Pro Player sometimes, you hear that singular voice heckling, whereas when it’s 40,000 people yelling, you just hear a buzz, like static on the radio.”
Miami Heat guard Caron Butler agreed.
“If I was all alone in the gym, practicing free throws, and someone walked in and yelled, or their cell phone went off, I’d probably miss the shot,” Butler said. “But when I’m at the line and thousands of people are waving their arms and yelling stuff at me, I block that out and focus my eyes on the rim. You can’t block out what you’re not expecting.”
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In other words, NBA and baseball fans, you are going about it all wrong. If you really want to distract opposing players, don’t shout all at once. Get completely silent and let one fan blurt out an insult. Better yet, one fan call another on a cell phone.
“We’re programmed to hit with noise, and golfers and tennis players are programmed to hit without noise,” Marlins shortstop Andy Fox said. “I’m a huge tennis fan, went to lots of U.S. Opens, and I never really understood why they can’t learn to play with noisier crowds. I guess it’s just tradition.”
Tennis great Martina Navratilova, who Sunday won her 20th Wimbledon title, has played in every conceivable atmosphere since turning pro 28 years ago.
Asked if she could play in a ballpark environment, Navratilova replied, “No, because you have to hear the ball bounce. In tennis, if you put headphones on and listen to music and play tennis it would be like you’re blind, totally out of sorts. I’ve lived it in New York with the planes flying over. You can’t hear the ball bounce, and you can’t hear the ball hitting your opponent’s racket, and you depend on the sound first.
“You hear the ball, then you react to the flight of it. You don’t see it, you hear it.”
Andy Roddick and Lindsay Davenport agreed.
“I’m all for the crowd really getting into it, but a big thing in tennis is you hear how hard someone hits a ball,” Roddick said. “If they hit it hard and flat, it really makes a popping sound, so we need to hear.”
Davenport said: “On changeovers, I think anything goes. If they want to play music, I think that’s fine. But while a point is in progress, the reactions we get from the sound of the ball coming off the other person’s racket, and the concentration it takes, I really think it does need to be quiet.”
Navratilova went on to say even an opponent’s grunting can throw her off.
“You get really out of sorts when you can’t hear the ball bounce, which is why I had a hard time with Monica Seles that one year at Wimbledon when she was really loud,” she said.
“One player I played against, I’m not going to say who it was, she made such a long grunt she’s still making the sound as I’m hitting the ball. You don’t need to be making all that noise.”
Miami Dolphins kicker Olindo Mare, an avid golfer, said golf course banter does not affect him, but that’s because he’s accustomed to wild football crowds. When he, Jay Fiedler, Terrell Buckley and Sage Rosenfels play golf together, there is no etiquette. They like it that way.
“When I’m practicing my kicks on the sideline into the little net, people throw pennies and M&Ms at me, all kinds of stuff,” he said.
“Then, when I go out for a field goal, there can be 75,000 people yelling, but I don’t hear anything they’re saying. It’s background noise, and I need it. It would be much harder to kick in silence.”
Golf crowds don’t generally root against athletes the way fans do in head-to-head sports, making them more genteel by nature.
But as golf becomes more popular and mainstream, polite applause is often interrupted by whoops and “You da man!” and jokes from growing–and more inexperienced–galleries.
Sergio Garcia endured teasing about his former romance with tennis player Martina Hingis. Phil Mickelson is subjected to taunts about his physique.
A few weeks ago, Vijay Singh had a spectator escorted from the Buick Invitational when the man shouted, “Keep on rolling” as Singh’s putt rolled away from the hole.
“I’ve never been paired with Tiger, but I hear it’s chaos because it’s a whole different crew that follows him around,” Bates said.
“He draws new fans to the sport, and sometimes they don’t understand the tradition. But still, it’s great for the sport. If it causes distractions, that’s a small negative to pay for the tremendous growth he offers the game.”
PGA golfer Briny Baird agreed: “It used to be a gentleman’s game, as they called it, quiet, country-club atmosphere. Now it’s cool, so people who know nothing about golf come out, drink beer and are oblivious to golf etiquette. But we have to get used to the buzz from the gallery because we need those fans.”
Tennis crowds are also changing. It isn’t unusual to see “the wave” at Roland Garros or Wimbledon. Serena Williams welcomes the new attitude.
“I think there is room for more rowdy crowds,” she said.
“The only problem is that tennis players now are trained every day, `Be quiet, you can’t talk.’ If someone in the new generation comes along and they’re trained to play with noise, it’s OK. It’s definitely fun to go to an NBA game and make a lot of noise. But that’s a totally different environment.”