A numbers game

Gentlemen Behaving Badly

There’s an issue I’ve been wanting to discuss.

After watching the Barcelona Open I felt it was time to address it.

Men behaving badly in sport.

This has become the norm across multiple sporting codes.

As kids, sport taught us respect, discipline, sportsmanship, and many other great values which are handy in the big bad world.

However, these qualities are almost always discarded and disregarded when athletes turn professional.

Footballers (soccer players to my American readers) are the first to get criticised for their poor behaviour on the field.

From faking injuries, exaggerated dives to the downright disrespect for referees, footballers are often portrayed in a negative light by the sporting world and deservedly so.

But there are other sporting codes whose athletes display actions just as vile if not worse but these are treated like isolated incidents.

Let’s talk Golf.

Golf is a beautiful game, but despite what those who run it want you to believe, it is far from prefect.

Golf almost tries to stick its nose up at other sports while marketing itself as a game for the honest

‘There’s no need for refs because you call a penalty on yourself”.

In a world full of corruption this is a breath of fresh air and watching players penalise themselves almost gives you some glimmer of hope for planet earth.

But if you’ve played the game you will also know that this isn’t entirely true.

Cheating happens in golf, even at the highest levels, but this blog is not about Patrick, I mean cheating.

If golf is what it claims to be, then it needs to address the bratty behaviour of some of its highly paid members.

It is not uncommon to see professional players, throwing or breaking clubs, hitting bags, smashing tee markers, or even verbally abusing their caddies after a poor shot.

Sometimes it is called out, but a lot of the time this conduct is sold to the viewers as passion, the hunger to win and hating to lose.

In simple terms it’s just poor sportsmanship and a lack of self-control.

Anyone remember when Miguel Angel Jimenez and Keegan Bradley almost came to blows at the 2015 WGC Match Play?

 

Let’s move to Tennis:

Now tennis takes thing to another level.

You wouldn’t think so because, you hardly read about tennis players verbally abusing umpires or even injuring line judges in fits of rage.

But it happens, more often than the sport would like to admit.

This past weekend, ‘New-Kid on the Block' Carlos Alcarez was the latest star to throw his toys when a decision did not go his way. Which inspired this blog.

Whether the call was right or wrong his tirade in the semi-finals of the Barcelona Open, towards the umpire, would be considered unacceptable in society, but it has become the norm in the sport.

The poor umpires are regularly used as verbal punching bags by frustrated players who believe it’s everyone else’s fault that they are losing.

Alcarez went on to win the tournament and some will say that ‘fire’ is what makes a champion. Rubbish!

Screaming has become the norm in tennis, so much so, that other players have taken things up a notch.

Earlier this year, world number three Alexander Zverev was disqualified from the Mexico Open for attacking the umpires chair with his racquet.

Yep, a grown man smashed his racquet at the umpire’s chair four times after losing a doubles match.

In the past David Nalbandian and Novak Djokovic have taken things a step too far, injuring officials because they couldn’t keep their emotions in check.

The media are also to blame here because we are easily willing to turn a blind eye away from this type of conduct. Unless it’s done by women. Of course.

Imagine for a second the headlines, if a woman injured an official while throwing a tantrum? How she would be persecuted by the male-dominated media?

Some of my colleagues would probably even call for a life-time ban.

Why not the same reaction when it is gentlemen behaving badly?