Golf and the Haiti Tragedy
I’m sure that you, like me, are moved beyond belief by what’s happened in Haiti. Today it’s about the immense scale of human tragedy that is unfolding. Tomorrow it needs to be about what the Western Hemisphere let Haiti become and how to fix it. Our failure took place decades, if not centuries ago. So what does this have to do with golf?
Could the Haiti earthquake be a tipping point for the way professional sports interact with the ‘real’ world? Golf has a tremendous track record of raising money for worthy causes. Everyone involved deserves credit and profuse thanks. But….. as I’ve written before, the professional game seems to be getting further and further from the real world in which most of us live.
If you’ve been watching the news this morning, you know about many of the fund raising events that are underway, particularly the joint effort of presidents Clinton and Bush. Addressing the immediate crisis is the tip of the iceburg, that small 10% of a much larger problem that is mainly hidden from view.
Long term, we have to rebuild and remake an entire country and this takes a concerted effort over years if not decades. I’m wondering if professional sports can’t be a big part of that. Just as people like to identify many aspects of their lives with their favorite sport, why can’t this human tendency be tapped to do more good for the planet.
How about professional golf, the commissioner and its superstars adopting some project in Haiti which all of us fans can help fund. I can envision Tiger, Phil, Sean, Anthony, Tim Finchem and the rest commit to something like building a hospital. Then make it a public campaign by asking all of us golf fanatics to tap into our love of the game and get on board to make it happen.
This wouldn’t replace any of the good works, of which there are lots, that golf and golfers already do. This would be in addition to. I think we have it in us. I’d like to see the NBA, NFL, and NHL and other sports organizations around the world do the same thing.
Call me a dreamer or just over stimulated by the magnitude of the suffering that’s being broadcast, but I think it would get more of us involved. We could get our golf foursomes to buy hospital beds. Why couldn’t the golf industry start making some of our equipment or accessories there?
Together we could do a lot, but what’s critical is for an organization like the PGA to be a focal point in the longterm and sustained effort that will be needed to fix what was broken in Haiti long before the earthquake. I don’t believe Alister MacKenzie was a dreamer when he said that golf can change societies for the better.
Related posts:
- Pro Golf Takes, But Does It Give Enough?
- ‘We Are Golf’ Campaign – What Does It Mean?
- Professional Golf in 2010
- Disconnect In World of Sports
- One Way To Kill A Sport
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What a truly wonderful idea.