Got to watch some of the US Open over the last couple of days, it was interesting to say the least. The last day of the event, when the #1 and #2 players in the tournament walked up to the tee, the #2 player was a guy named Jason Gore, a no-name who's ranked 818th in the tour and made all of twenty-nine thousand bucks throughout last year.
And boy did the news hounds chomp onto that making him out to be a "Cinderella Man", and because of it as Gore walked up to the first tee for the last time, he was met with thunderous applause, the loudest of any of the golfers. I thought it odd, almost like the sport news folks jinxed the guy, talking grandly of him, sharing with the world all the problems he had to overcome to get there. And initially he got off to a good start, although he seemed nervous (the guy was sweating so much you would have thought it was 200 degrees on the course), he seemed in good shape. For the first two holes. And after that it was all downhill from there. I felt bad for the guy, he went from a #2 finish (a $700,000 check) to ending the day 49th (a $20,000 check).
But what I thought was interesting was the feeling that the crowd and folks watching at home were rallying for this guy, this poor schlub, who's car was vandalized on the way to the course, who had to qualify just to be there. Rallying for the big guy who seemed much closer to them than the likes of a Retief Goosen or Tiger Woods. But what happened? Both Goosen (the leader) and Gore feel apart, they started doing so bad NBC stopped following them around, instead focusing on Woods and Campbell (the eventual winner). And what's more American than that?