Unruly golf fans show hazards of large crowds

Tuesday, February 2, 1999

Unruly golf fans show hazards of large crowds

COLUMN: Event security not prepared to handle firearm-bearing
hecklers

I know attendance is a big deal to the individual sports. It’s
what separates the arena football leagues from the NFL, the CBA
from the NBA, and the WNBA from the, well, now defunct ABL.

It’s no secret that the sporting world has become more
fan-friendly in recent years. In Cleveland’s Jacobs Field, wealthy
patrons can sit directly behind home plate and read Mike Hargrove’s
lineup even before the opposing team does.

But I have to wonder if this "fan friendly" environment is
getting out of hand. Take last weekend’s Phoenix Open, for example,
where a golf course has been sculpted out of the Scottsdale desert
and surrounded by large mounds designed to accommodate enormous
crowds.

The result: over 450,000 spectators for the four-day event.

The Player’s Championship of Scottsdale was built around the
aura of Tiger Woods. A year ago in Phoenix, his hole-in-one set off
a New Year’s-like party in the gallery, as every man, woman and
child cheered on the flamboyant Woods while he "raised the roof" on
his walk to the green.

This year the fans were out again in support of Woods, hollering
loud enough to give him a distinct home-course advantage. But there
was also the heckler who followed the final threesome for four
holes and shouted obscenities at the 23-year-old Woods.

The verbal assault came as Woods and tournament leader Rocco
Mediate laughed at the drunken heckler. An undercover police
officer in the crowd asked the man to be quiet, and when he
discovered a semiautomatic pistol in his fanny pack, arrested
him.

So the man had a permit to carry a concealed weapon – since when
did a golf tournament become a meeting of the National Guard? I
used to be afraid of sneaking my own food into a sporting event;
now we’re allowing firearms?

I can’t help but recall the horrific sight of Monica Seles being
stabbed courtside earlier this decade by a delirious fan of Steffi
Graf’s. I know that the ’90s have been concerned with civil
liberties, but even in Roman times spectators were asked to leave
their swords outside the Coliseum.

The Player’s Championship of Scottsdale may be a desert oasis
for golf – since its panoramic views enable fans to view activity
on several holes at once – but with more attendance than the last
four Super Bowls combined and far less security, I have to wonder
when too much is enough.

I am grateful that the heckler was arrested. Beyond the obvious
physical threat he posed to Woods, he also presented a distinct
threat to the gallery by carrying a loaded weapon.

The more serious question lies in how the man managed to enter a
secured event with a handgun. I suppose in their attempts to locate
fans smuggling in six-packs of Coke, security officers neglected a
concealed gun.

Honestly, though, golf has never concerned itself greatly with
security. A sport marketed to the social elite, it has relied on
its codes of dignity and politeness, a sport in which silence is
observed for the player and those who break it are stared at
menacingly and asked to leave the hole. In what other sport do you
have a player acknowledge the crowd with a bow or tip of the hat
after a successful play? I’ve seen Albert Belle tip his, well, it
wasn’t his hat, to crowds after blasting a home run.

In reality, in what other sport are the crowds as appreciative
and supportive as golf? You generally cheer for a player and almost
never cheer against one. There are rarely boos after a player sinks
a long putt but universal applause, even if it is Fuzzy
Zoeller.

And how about the legion of men who helped Tiger move that
"loose impediment" on Sunday that happened to come in the form of a
large boulder? Did you see Tiger slapping hands with the group
afterwards? In other sports that would cost you $20 per
handshake.

Golf has finally come full-circle on the social scale, from a
sport whose greatest championship (the Masters) until recently
banned African Americans in its clubhouse, to the Masters of 1997,
where a young African American man named Tiger Woods donned its
Green Jacket.

Without a doubt, the 450,000 fans brought into the Phoenix Open
help golf enormously. For a sport whose dress code has always been
slacks and polos, massive crowds and chants of "Ti-ger, Ti-ger"
cannot hurt.

But if golf is going to enter the world of overflow crowds and
drunken galleries, they had better prepare their security forces.
Someone once said, "The masses are asses," and though the crowds
may be worth millions, the time will come when we have to ask, at
what expense?

Street hopes "Cops" does not start filming episodes on the golf
course. Please send comments to [email protected].

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