On Golf: Fans’ subpar behavior too common

SAN DIEGO

Golf has long been largely immune to certain untoward behavior.

It’s always been a civil game, played by a self-policing group of practitioners in front of typically muted, respectful galleries.

That halcyon history was rudely interrupted near the conclusion of Friday’s second round at the 108th U.S. Open, when an overserved father-son tandem sparked an ugly and potentially dangerous incident involving Adam Scott’s caddie, Tony Navarro.

The pair, Thomas W. Campbell, 62, and Thomas J. Campbell, 37, of Apple Valley, Calif., began accosting Scott and Navarro as the two walked up their final hole Friday in the same grouping with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Apparently, the younger Campbell used a racial slur in reference to Navarro, and the veteran caddie ducked under the ropes with Scott’s bag still on his back and head-butted him, according to witnesses, knocking off Campbell’s cap.

Navarro and the younger Campbell then wrestled for several seconds, Campbell missing the caddie with a wild swing. Mickelson’s caddie, Jim Mackay, then arrived to try and stabilize the situation. And moments later San Diego cops arrested Campbell and his father, who hurled himself into the fray to try and rescue his son, injuring two female officers in the process. Both were charged with public drunkenness and hauled away to the local bastille.

“Well, they were being a little loud and a little rude,” Woods said. “Stuey [Stuart Appleby] is over there on 18 trying to tee off, and Tony is trying to make sure that he doesn’t have these guys yelling on their swing. And they didn’t like that very much.”

There is a lot not to like about what transpired Friday afternoon.

First, galleries have become increasingly more raucous in recent years. The game’s growing popularity has brought more fans to the game, clearly a net positive. But with the influx of new fans has come a higher percentage of the uninitiated, sports fans (not necessarily golf fans) who either don’t understand or refuse to respect the game’s etiquette and fairly strict code of gallery behavior.

Throw in a profusion of available on-course alcohol options, and you’ve got a situation that sooner or later was bound to result in Friday’s fiasco.

Golf has never invited its galleries to openly participate in the experience. You watch. You clap. You moan. But most of all, you shut up. It’s not like basketball, football or hockey, where heckling, booing and interacting to some degree with officials and players is part of your right as a paying fan. That expected decorum has been breached more and more since Woods took golf from the country club to the masses.

Crowds at the PGA Tour stop in Phoenix are notoriously irreverent and well-oiled. The British Open has its streakers. The gallery behavior in the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage was shocking, as fans relentlessly heckled Sergio Garcia for his admittedly tedious preshot routine.

By and large, the players and caddies have attempted to ignore the change in decorum. But Friday, Navarro lost his cool.

A 30-year veteran, Navarro caddied for the likes of Ray Floyd, Hal Sutton and Greg Norman before picking up Scott’s bag several years back. As a looper, he’s the consummate pro. But he’s partly culpable for Friday’s mess. Navarro should have never gone outside the ropes after a fan, much less carrying Scott’s bag. And though Navarro denies head-butting the younger Campbell, he crossed another line by making contact with a fan.

Sanctions and/or fines should be forthcoming for Navarro, though that decision is now in the hands of Mike Davis, the USGA’s senior director of rules and competitions. Thus far, Davis has remained mum on the subject.

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