The truce in professional golf this week spoke of the power of the dollar but money will never taint the attraction of grassroots sport, writes Jim Tucker
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The extraordinary speed with which the golf war was resolved this week has further painted sport as a spectacle of extremes.
Who has the biggest pile of money calls the shots at one end and the thoroughly engaging green shoots of the grassroots are at the other.
The Saudis’ bottomless pit of money bought a grudging chunk of the action with the PGA Tour.
There will be many more multi-millionaires in golf than in most small less developed nations of the world by the end of 2024 if there are not already.
Instantly, the 2024 PGA Tour will not just loop through Reno or Rochester but the best course in Riyadh. Cash-strapped outposts like Australia will miss out on the action yet again.
The pulsating entertainment of LIV Golf’s 2023 visit to The Grange in Adelaide will become a historic outlier like a cricket Super Test at Melbourne’s Waverley Park in the 1970s.
In Brisbane on Friday there was a wonderful unveiling of a made-for-TV cricket project that drips with aspiration and teenage dreams.
It will be called “The Hunt.”
Scouts will scour India for the best emerging cricket talent. Across 18 episodes, the backgrounds and motivations of these eager teenagers will be explored with an Indian cricket great as mentor.
The local slant is that the series will be replicated in Australia with former Australian captain Steve Waugh as a permanent “skipper” for the kids through the project.
Sixty finalists will attend a boot camp. This group will be chiselled to a squad of 16 by Waugh and other Australian cricket luminaries.
Brisbane’s Marist College Ashgrove has been selected as the base for the Australian series with shooting to begin in January.
The youngsters will sleep in the same dormitories and practice on the same Marist College pitches where Australian great Matthew Hayden honed his batting.
They will also use the nets at Valley Cricket Club where the Allan Border & Matthew Hayden Nets are year-round some of the busiest in Brisbane for boys and girls.
“I’ve believed in this concept of nurturing and finding and giving kids the opportunity to fulfil their potential since it was first discussed eight years ago,” Waugh said.
“It’s especially so in places like India where they don’t always have the chances like kids in Australia. Their back stories are going to be fascinating and I’m really interested to be part of the mentoring.
“This show has got exciting potential. For sure, there’s a chance for someone to come out of nowhere who hasn’t been identified before. I’ve been in the Northern Territory at different times and seen the natural skills of Indigenous kids with the pick-up and throwing of a ball and they don’t even play the game regularly.
“My dream, personally, is for someone from the outskirts of Kolkata, perhaps, who hasn’t had an opportunity, all of a sudden wins an IPL contract. Or, in Australia, gets into the Big Bash.”
There’ll be a cutting edge to this cricket-style version of singing’s The X-Factor.
A winning teen will be chosen from the Australian group, who will then lead the squad to a tournament against similar squads from India, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Global production house Endemol Shine (India) will be a partner and the insatiable cricket appetite of Indian fans suggests this show will be an instant hit.
The show’s engaging scope is that it won’t just be looking for city kids but actively trying to unearth a gem in country Australia.
It’s worth retelling how Mitchell Johnson had a sliding doors moment where joining the army looked more certain than a fast bowling career.
It was Test great Dennis Lillee who spotted his prodigious talent in Townsville and helped with a break. The rest became history, 313 Test wickets and plenty of rattled English Test batsmen.
Likewise, Ian Healy was a kid in short pants playing against the maturity and sledging of adult bush cricketers in Biloela long before he was a world record-holding Test wicket-keeper.
Current spinner Nathan Lyon was born in Young in country NSW before heading to Canberra and the first steps on the road to more than 480 Test wickets.
Former Test spinner Brad Hogg is part of “The Hunt.” He might find himself in an auto-rickshaw in a remote part of India or in a 4WD in outback Queensland looking for one of those gems.
One of the spin-offs will be the motivation it stirs in budding cricketers at Hayden’s alma mater. Kids like young keeper-batsman Will Nickelson are already on the rise in the school’s First XI. He averaged over 100 in AIC cricket in first term.
Hayden himself may become involved in the series. He’s Kingaroy born. He learnt early not to be tempted by slashes towards gully in backyard games at home with brother Gary.
That’s where the windows were and the scolding of his parents was plenty enough of a deterrent in his imagination.
Cricket’s heartbeat is rising again with the Ashes almost upon us in England.
The World Test Championship at The Oval is a precursor but a summit in its own right.
Travis Head’s supreme 163 against India this week told us many things and not just about his fearless strokeplay.
It told us never ever to equate having the most money with having the most brains.
How any selection panel could drop him from that Test in India earlier this year defied all logic. The propeller hats they wore then look even bigger now.
The money and brains argument is true too in the golf saga. In a sport where the “money list” of prizemoney is more prominent than in just about any other sport, no one can be surprised that the dollars won no matter which side of the golf divide you sit on.
Jim Tucker has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.
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