Quiet....the tennis/golf is on!

Ok.  What's the deal?

This morning, the kids were watching Sesame Street and it was the episode were Gordon is practising his golf (albeit on a mini golf setup) and the red muppet.....Tully (?)... "helps" him perfect his game by adding various components to the practise area (such as a pillow for a hill, a paddling pool for a water hazard etc..)

But what caught my attention was that at one point, Gordon got fed up with the chatter around him and asked for quiet as he wasn't able to make his shot.  This got me thinking - and discussing with Mark - about the whole issue that surrounds golf, and for that matter tennis as well.

Why are these professional sports people only able to perform a task that they have done hundreds - nay thousands or hundreds of thousands - of times in the absence of sound?  Golfers are seemingly unable to play any shot if someone utters a squeak, and how many times have you heard a tennis ref ask for "Quiet please"?  What other sports are like this?  Billiards spring to mind.

Some may say that these professionals should be awarded the best possible conditions in which to play their shot.  But let's contrast this with let's say baseball, cricket or Aussie Rules (or in fact, any type of footy).  Not only is a batter in baseball facing a fast pitch of in excess of sometimes 80-100km/hr, but the ball is coming AT HIM and is moving around.  It is certainly not a set shot.  And he is doing this with not only ear splitting decibel level crowd involvement, but also the chatter of the catcher (which would be derogatory if anything), encouragement from teammates, and advice from base coaches.  And he can do it.  Usually on a regular basis, or he is out of the team.

Aussie Rules players also have the added dynamic of crowd involvement of the opposing cheer squads using not only verbal abuse to put them off kicking a goal, but visual cues in the form of waving flags, pom poms and scarves to distract the player.  And these players kick goals.  Regularly.

And when the crowd at the "G" gets fired up at not the opposition team, but the drunken yahoo that is being kicked out of the ground much to everyone's delight and singing "you're going home in the back of a divvy van" do you really think that Michael Clarke is going to put the brakes on Daniel Vittori and ask for him to wait until there is quiet so he can face the ball?  Doubt it.

So why are some sports allowed the grace of noiseless vacuums while others have to just carry on regardless?  Is it where the game has stemmed from way back?  A sort of aristocracy versus working stiff?  But that doesn't hold water in respect to cricket.

Whilst Mark and I agreed that we thought the need for silence was a whole lot of BS, we never finished our conversation about it.  So I'm really none the wiser.  But from my point of view, I believe that any professional player should be able to perform under any sound situation.  And perhaps, that's why I don't go to the tennis or golf.