Yes, it was Night of the Living Wireless Mobile Device Addicts at this year’s PGA Merchandise Show. Zombie-like attendees wandering aimlessly and texting incessantly, all but oblivious to the myriad exhibits that had supposedly drawn them there in the first place. Who were they calling, I wondered? A career change service? Their local supplier to cancel that order of $150 shirts, $200 slacks and $300 shoes? Or maybe the PGA Tour lost-and-found line to see if his Tigerness might arrive in time to save a sinking ship.

Follow up:
Whatever was consuming them, their detachment had a deeper meaning – people are losing interest in this game.

As uneventful as the show was, it was a welcome sight on the Thursday morning after the previous night’s hockey game in Tampa. Talk about losing interest! Only several minutes into this stinker between the Lightning and the Canadiens I was on life support. My beloved Habs are pretty much the garden-variety standard in today’s NHL – a dreadfully pedestrian lot, not unlike today’s average tour player. If golf is in trouble, then hockey is in much deeper caca. Yeah, I know that tiresome platitude – today’s player is bigger, faster and stronger. Yet almost to a man they can’t pass the puck or get it out of their own end to save their lives. For my money only one player on either team – Tampa’s Martin St. Louis –could have made the late-‘70s Canadiens.

I know I digress, but after watching these faceless, over-priced giants deliver one errant pass after another, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the current state of hockey and golf. Both have wonderful histories but tradition and passion have been sucked out of these sports to the point where the skeletal remains aren’t enough to hold our interest. Where are the stars, the real stars? The ones who lift us out of our seats and never give half-hearted performances. And never, ever, fail to connect with the fans when the opportunity presents itself.

It’s that connection, or rather lack of it, that’s hurting golf at the tour level. And I’m not talking about a bit of faulty wiring that will fix itself once Eldrick gets his act together. While I suspect that Finchem and the other players still see Woods as the panacea for the tour’s ills, they better not hold their breath. Sure he’ll be back and contrite, in a choreographed kind of way, but most likely he’ll be just as phony, surly, aloof, annoyingly predictable and autograph-sensitive as ever. He’ll put the blinders back on and win his 19 majors. With his rather pathetic life complete, just as programmed, he can sail off into the sunset with what has always mattered most – his Privacy, his greatness and his trophies (wife likely not included).

Sticking around to support a tour that has given him so much won’t figure into his plans. Besides, he’s never cared that much for the tour anyways. If he did, he’d play it more, instead of leaving it to flounder while he accepts outrageous appearance fees to play in places like China and Australia. Enough is never enough with this guy, as he publicly confirmed prior to his sabbatical. He’s done more than bite the hand that feeds him; he’s chewed it right off.

Point is, the tour needs a lot more than a rehabilitated cash cow to shore up the cracks in its foundation. As the standard by which all things golf are measured, and as a lifeline for many charities, the tour needs to give some serious thought to how it can help grow the game at the grassroots level. Doing way more to get its players to engage the fans would be a great place to start. We know these guys are good, but just how many of them are good guys. We can’t tell because so many of them don’t smile, don’t acknowledge applause, or brush off fans as they make a beeline for their courtesy car. They’re paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to play a club or wear a shirt, yet too often they show contempt for the fans funding those endorsements. And hard as it is to believe, watch almost any tournament and you’ll never find more apparently unhappy multi-millionaires in one gathering.

The irony is that while golf is the one sport that allows fans to get close to their heroes, many of those heroes couldn’t be any more distant. Since there seems to be on-tour gurus for everything – swing problems, head problems, weight problems – why not one who can reverse charisma bypasses. Give us players we can warm up to, not another pampered collegiate star or a Leadbetter-groomed android with a perfect swing. Because you know what, many of us are growing weary of these wet blankets. Don’t give us the guy who hits driver-wedge to eight feet on a 560-yard par 5, knocks it in for eagle, and then leaves the green with an expression that suggests he just buried his best friend. Give us someone who has to lay up and makes only birdie, yet reacts like he may have given some thought to how good life has been to him.

This is all wishful thinking, I suppose, and legislating contrived smiles and waves certainly isn’t the answer. But as more and more of us tire of what we see, the disconnect grows, just as it has in hockey. And ask some of the owners in that sport how that’s working.

If you think I’m way off base, consider this observation from the PGA Merchandise Show. The show is many things – an industry love-in of sorts; an equipment, apparel and gadget buffet to satiate every taste imaginable; and a great barometer for how the industry is doing and where it may be headed. When exhibitors and attendees are up, so is the mood of those looking to have a good year in the business.

The show is also a chance to catch a glimpse of, or even talk to, PGA and LPGA players. Some are there to support the companies that endorse them. Others, like one well-known player I spotted, apparently come just to browse. Oddly enough, no one else seemed to notice this former U.S. Open champion who had a distinguished career on the regular tour and is now a prominent figure on the senior tour.

Because he’s always seemed like the fan-friendly type, I thought this might be a perfect chance to get a picture with him. So I grabbed a photographer friend, who couldn’t believe that his favourite player of all time was within chipping distance. We were careful not to approach him like some crazed autograph hunters, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with us. Without uttering a word or even casting a glance, the great Tom Kite basically told us to go fly one. Remember, we weren’t interrupting him while he was having dinner with his family or going about his business on the course. He was fair game, so to speak. He was in a public forum that he chose to attend. Did it not dawn on him that someone might want an autograph or a picture or just to say hello? Apparently not, because he was having nothing to do with anyone.

If you’re keeping score, mark down one admirer lost forever and an already jaded fan who hopes Kite doesn’t break par this year. This is a familiar story that you’ll hear all too often if you talk to enough fans. And we always ask ourselves the same thing – wasn’t this person ever in our shoes, and didn’t he or she have heroes like we do? I’ll bet my life that Tom Kite was, and did, but obviously he has a short memory.

Have a nice year, Tom. We’ll be watching Fuzzy Zoeller.

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