This being the rowdiest week in professional golf – the WM Phoenix Open loudly and proudly embraces that distinction – it is a raucous reminder of golf’s sometimes reluctant embrace of something Ben Hogan never imagined.
It’s not just driving distances that have steadily crept up over the years. So has the game’s decibel level.
Silence may be golden, but it’s become harder to find on golf courses these days.
There are still plenty of places where music on the course is treated like wine from a box and there is a soothing sensibility to communing with nature, interrupted only occasionally by a playing companion’s muttered curse after skulling a 7-iron.
Part of the game’s enduring romance is the quiet that comes with it.
Or did.
Both things can be true: music works for some players; silence works for others. Phoenix works one week a year.
Before LIV adopted its “Golf, but louder” mantra, portable speakers already had made their way into golf carts, thanks to the USB ports built into the modern machinery and the magic of cellphones.
LIV, having seen what Phoenix has created, decided to turn it up rather than turn it down because it’s trying to sell more than golf. Don’t expect that to come to the PGA Tour if the proposed merger ever happens, but Phoenix is a one-week excursion into a different world.
Golf tournaments have figured out they need to be about more than the golf. They are entertainment venues, some louder than others, but every event has its party spot (except, of course, the Masters, where decorum remains sacrosanct and “Quiet, please, Tiger Woods now driving” means something).
Purists may think music on the course is heresy, but a soft soundtrack can be nice on the course, provided everyone in the group agrees to the volume level and the playlist.
Could a Spotify-sponsored tournament be in our future?
There are still few things better than a nice golf walk with friends, chatting about whatever, free from the ringing of cellphones and, if you’re fortunate, the not-so-distant hum of traffic passing by.
It’s a place where – for a few minutes, anyway – you can be alone with your thoughts.
There’s no escaping that noise.
Ron Green Jr.
E-MAIL RON
Top: The rowdy par-3 16th stands out as the toast of the Phoenix Open.
BEN JARED, PGA TOUR/GETTY IMAGES