There is perhaps no more testosterone laden moment in all of sports than the pre-fight weigh in of a boxing match. The moment when two muscular guys stand on scales in their underwear and pose nose-to-nose for photographs. They make it look like they’re one insult from complete chaos, a bar fight from a Tom Cruise movie. It rarely does come to blows, but the idea is that they can at least build an arc towards the moment when they will actually try to knock each other out in the squared circle, and that when they do that, they do in fact really dislike each other. That’s the actual value and function of a weigh-in – not simply to establish that each fighter is in-fact under the prescribed weight requirement, but as something of a hype machine for the big event. If you’ve ever seen a single Rocky movie, you know exactly what I mean.
There’s a million reasons why that spectacle works, none the least of which is the muscular athleticism of the athletes themselves and the imposing and brutish task at hand. And unlike some other spectator sports, boxing is truly a test of two individuals, one-on-one, without the help of teammates or even much equipment.
So imagine that same scenario, only with golf. It’s not quite as imposing, as you can imagine. But that’s kind of what we got this week in a pre-match press event between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, the two most imposing figures in the sport of the past 20 years. Tiger Woods is, well, simply perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, and certainly changed the complexion of the sport. Mickelson is his foil, if but only one step behind. For every grand slam Tiger won, and there were a lot, Mickelson was a shot behind. For some, that made him a fan favorite, outside of the millions who became apostles of Tiger Woods. And particularly with Woods’ descent and personal issues, a lot of fans saw Mickelson as the virtuously alternative. Leaving aside the personality and, to be blunt, racial differences between the two golfers, in some ways, it was a bit Coke vs Pepsi, if Coke could drive 50 yards longer down the fairway.
Of course, at their current age, Tiger and Phil are no longer the dominant athletes in the sport. Neither are ranked in the world’s top 10, nor are they aged in their 20’s. Or 30’s. If Tiger and Phil were a band, they would be far more The Who than Twenty-One Pilots. Which made this the perfect time for a legacy tour, one big show to capitalize on all the hits. That’s what we’ll get this weekend when Phil takes on Tiger in a winner take all, mono-a-mono golf match. The champion gets nine million dollars, the loser nothing. That’s why they were together this week for a pre-event press conference to show just how much they were ready to square off, just how much they wanted to destroy each other. Only they couldn’t quite pull it off. They tried to take a photo with the two of them nose to nose, only they started laughing. And they also talked about how much they really wanted to win, but they really respected each other. Oh, and they threw in a side bet of $200,000 on the first hole, which seems like it can’t be legal. That’s golf’s version of the boxing weigh in – two really rich guys telling jokes and making side bets larger than most families earn in a few years.
Which brings us to the questions at hand. Can a sport like golf, a gentlemen’s game played in resort environs, can they go to market like boxing? Are people really interested in watching two guys play a round together so one of them can claim bragging rights? And more importantly, will they fork out 20 bucks for the privilege, the retail price to watch this thing via pay per view. Perhaps the easy answer is that enough people with capital might tune in simply out of affinity for one of the two stars, kind of like how you might watch any movie with a Bradley Cooper scene. But for a long-term play, it’s hard to imagine golf, a good walk spoiled, evolving into something of a head to head affair. And perhaps more to the point, maybe part of the joy of golf is that it’s not boxing. The athletes don’t pretend to hate each other, they follow a fairly formal set of norms, and they even admit their own errors. Trading that for guys to play head to head for the sake of a Vegas betting line, maybe not so much. Maybe golf does well enough without the added testosterone. There’s more than enough of that at a boxing weigh in.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.