Here's an interesting item from a week ago:

http://ww1.theherald.co.uk/sport/70559-print.shtml

"That's the new way of American censorship," said Jesper
Parnevik, as he baked on the driving range in Fort Worth.
"People get hurt very badly if they speak out."

[...]

Perhaps because of his public Christianity and several
incidents of less-than-Christian-like behaviour, Lehman
has developed an unflattering reputation in some golf
circles. [...] "How dare you?" Lehman told John Huggan
[Golf Digest writer]. "How dare you sum up my whole
character on the basis of that one incident."

Huggan replied that it was the only negative story he had
ever written about Lehman, among many flattering ones, and
that his whining was unprofessional. To which Lehman said,
"Well, ***** you then," and marched off.

Isn't that two incidents now?

Maybe this explains the actions of US and Europeans golfers at
recent Ryder Cup events: in 1999, the US team members' opinion
on the Ryder Cup's importance depended on when they were ahead
or behind, or how the Europeans went all-out to decimate the US
in the last three tournaments. (I don't point that out to bash
US readers in alt.atheism, but to note the boorishness of the
godbots on the US squad.)

It certainly explains Fuzzy Zealot's crack (or should that be
cracker?) about "tasting the fried chicken and collard greens"
when Tiger Woods won the Master's.
Playing the patriot game

BRUCE SELCRAIG September 22 2006

DURING this week's Ryder Cup, were it not for the zesty uniforms
or a tell-tale buenos dias, the casual fan might be excused for
not seeing much difference between the European pros and their
American counterparts.

They all seem to have their retinues of personal trainers,
agents and nutritionists. They swing and dress much alike. They
drive the same luxury cars, have similar messy divorces and,
whether they be from Denmark or Denver, offer up the same golf
cliches in a globalised television-ready English that pleases
their corporate sponsors.

It is not really surprising considering that more Europeans than
ever play the US tour, and many of them, including Ryder Cup
team members Colin Montgomerie, Luke Donald and Paul Casey,
played their college golf in the America.

But there is still one significant cultural divide that is so
sensitive an issue that most players simply avoid addressing it
when they are on the others' turf.

Simply put, many Europeans and other international players are
put off by the overwhelming number of American PGA Tour players
who identify themselves as George Bush-loving Republicans who
support the US occupation of Iraq.

Geoff Ogilvy, the affable and well-read Australian who won the
US Open and has lived in Arizona with his Texan wife for four
years, says: "A lot of their conservative views [on tour] are
way off the map . . . I think George Bush is a bit dangerous. I
think the world is scared while he's in office, [but] there's
less tolerance of diversity [in opinions] over here [and] people
have more blind faith in their government."

Various Europeans have hinted that they have similar views, but
say privately they'll be crucified in American locker rooms and
newspapers if they publicly oppose Bush, his fundamentalist
Christian agenda or the Iraq war.

"That's the new way of American censorship," said Jesper Parnevik,
as he baked on the driving range in Fort Worth. "People get hurt
very badly if they speak out."

Two years ago, American baseball star Carlos Delgado, who is
from Puerto Rico, silently protested the Iraq war by refusing to
participate in the ceremonial singing of God Bless America
during games.

He was later booed at many stadiums and called "un-American" on
radio talk shows. Americans boycotted the Dixie Chicks band when
lead singer of the Texas trio, Natalie Maines, told a London
audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the
United States is from Texas."

Now no one is suggesting the world of professional golf is some
cauldron of political dissent or that pro golfers anywhere care
more about foreign policy than hitting crisp irons.

In America, with several notable exceptions, most pros seem like
friendly apolitical athletes who, if the conversation veers from
golf, might talk about football or reality TV, but seem
incurious about world affairs and, as Bush memorably once
confessed, have little inclination to read books. In the US PGA
Tour media guide by far the most popular "special interest"
listed by players is fishing, followed by hunting.

Rarely does any player mention current events, history, film or
politics. The famously laid-back but college-educated Fred
Couples, no doubt speaking for many on tour, once told me during
the Bill Clinton years that he had never voted in his life.

But there is definitely a sizeable and often vocal element among
the Americans that follows politics, advocates right-wing
Republican policies - tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare,
pro death penalty, anti-gay marriage, anti-labour unions - and
increasingly, identifies with evangelical Christian ideology.

In a Sports Illustrated survey of 76 US Tour players published
in March, 88% said they supported the American invasion of Iraq,
and 91% supported Bush's controversial nomination of Samuel
Alito to the US Supreme Court - a judge who was welcomed by
Republican and fundamentalist Christian groups as the court's
possible swing vote in one day outlawing abortion.

This Republican tilt on tour has been documented since at least
the Ronald Reagan administration and is so widely accepted as
fact that in the presidential election year of 1996, Golf Digest
asked me to do a story on tour politics and specifically hunt
for any golfer who would actually admit to supporting Clinton, a
Democrat (in 1993, some Republicans on the American Ryder Cup
team threatened to boycott a visit to the White House to protest
against a Clinton tax plan that raised taxes on the rich).

My search only turned up one heretic - former US Open winner
Scott Simpson - a free spirit and "born again Christian" who has
now reversed his thinking and supports Bush.

For those unfamiliar with American politics, the Republican
Party has become inextricably tied to the evangelical Christian
movement, which can mobilise millions of votes through its
churches to affect local, state and national elections.

George Bush, who campaigned for office as a born-again Christian,
is the icon of the evangelical movement and once famously told
a group of Amish farmers: "I trust God speaks through me.
Without that, I couldn't do my job."

Not coincidentally, the American pro golf world, which has been
heavily influenced by corporate America and Republican politics
for at least 30 years, now has such a strong element of
Christian fundamentalists that the entire Ryder Cup leadership -
Tom Lehman, Corey Pavin and Loren Roberts - are all self-
professed born-again Christians. Roberts was even converted and
baptised at a tournament.

In the book The Way of an Eagle, Lehman says: "God has
definitely used golf in a great way over the last several years.
I think of myself as a Christian who plays golf, not as a golfer
who is a Christian. So whatever kind of job I do, there is a way
for God to use that as a tool. In society at large, especially
the way golf is growing, there is a huge platform for golfers."

Perhaps because of his public Christianity and several incidents
of less-than-Christian-like behaviour, Lehman has developed an
unflattering reputation in some golf circles. John Huggan, the
European golf correspondent for Golf Digest, recounts how Lehman
confronted him angrily when he wrote about Lehman's much-
criticised behaviour in 1999 at the Ryder Cup near Boston, when
he led the ghastly American charge of players across the 17th
green following Justin Leonard's miraculous putt.

"How dare you?" Lehman told Huggan. "How dare you sum up my
whole character on the basis of that one incident."

Huggan replied that it was the only negative story he had ever
written about Lehman, among many flattering ones, and that his
whining was unprofessional. To which Lehman said, "Well, f***
you then," and marched off.

I would have thought maybe Huggan just caught the stormy Lehman
on a bad day, but I had my own brief glimpse of the inner zealot
some years earlier. Lehman, who has never hidden his right-wing
politics, once overheard me say the words "Bill Clinton" while I
was interviewing a caddie on the driving range of the Texas Open
in San Antonio.

Unsmiling, he stopped in mid-stride, walked over and said, "You
mean that draft-dodging baby-killer?" and then walked on
[Clinton opposed criminalising abortion, which most Republicans
support, and he openly admits that as a Rhodes scholar he used
family influence, just as Bush did, to avoid the Vietnam War].

There are now official chaplains and weekly Bible study groups,
or "fellowships," on each of the four American pro tours, and
various players either display the Christian fish symbol on
their golf bag or wear a popular cloth bracelet that says 'WWJD'
[What Would Jesus Do?]

"It's not seen as so strange anymore for a player to be open
about his faith," former tour pro Bobby Clampett told Golf World.
"They're no longer called The God Squad or Jesus Freaks like we
were 20 years ago. Now it's cool."

Well, perhaps not everywhere.

David Feherty, the former European Ryder Cup member from
Northern Ireland who is now a popular TV golf commentator in
America, believes the very public display of fire-and-brimstone
Christianity is still unsettling to most Europeans.

"I think a lot of Europeans find that conservative Christian
thing as frightening as conservative Muslims," he said. "If you
find any European pros who are in that Bible-thumping category,
it's usually because they've been to the United States."

Feherty, who lives in Bush's home state of Texas, offered that
the Europeans shouldn't be seen as a bunch of "godless heathens"
because they don't advertise their Christianity. "I think they
believe it's your own business. Keep it to yourself."

But the larger question of why so many American pro golfers -
more than football, basketball or baseball players - relate to
right-wing Republicans would be fodder for a political science
class. When I've asked that question of tour players over the
past decade, the initial response is a familiar one among the
upper class. It goes something like this: "We pull ourselves up
by our own bootstraps, and we don't like the government giving
away our money."

Or, as American journeyman Robert Gamez told me in May: "We love
our money . . . Democrats want you to pay for everyone . . .
George Bush is all about family values. Look at us. We're all
into our families. And we believe what Bush stands for. He's
done a great job so far."

In reality, Bush and the Republican Congress have gutted many
programmes for the poor and cut benefits for war veterans to
help fund tax cuts for the wealthy, but true fiscal
conservatives are not happy. According to the Congressional
Budget Office, Bush has produced America's third largest budget
deficit in the last century, at more than £236bn for 2006.

The conventional wisdom for why so many American golf pros vote
Republican is that, unlike their European mates, many of them
were raised in upper class, homogenised neighbourhoods - often
gated suburban estates - and learned their golf at private, all-
white country clubs. Born from that mentality, the American PGA
Tour expressly prohibited blacks from playing in their
tournaments until 1961.

In that environment they were surrounded by like-minded
Republicans who shared their love for golf. When the young
players arrived on tour they found virtually everything of any
value literally handed to them, from Dell laptop computers to
new cars, clothing and stock market advice, all happily provided
by corporate sponsors who love to associate themselves with the
squeaky-clean image of the PGA Tour.

From that lap of luxury it's not hard to imagine that the

American tour pros see their lifestyle being attacked by those
less fortunate.

"My taxes are wasted on people who don't give a damn," I heard
10 years ago from former 1993 Ryder Cup member John Cook, who
has earned £6.2m in his career and now lives in the elite
Florida community of Isleworth, outside Orlando.

Tanned like the California surfer he once was, and eminently
likeable, Cook surveyed the typical tournament scene of
corporate tents, courtesy Cadillacs and gentle pop tunes wafting
from a Four Seasons Hotel and declared without a hint of irony
how he was adamantly opposed to raising the US minimum wage,
which at the time was £2.28 per hour.

In a full decade it has risen to only £2.80, less than half the
UK minimum.

"I'm the luckiest man alive," Cook told me, "but I've earned my
money. I pay my taxes. Liberals are always fighting what this is
all about - the corporate boxes, people working hard, not
getting something for nothing . . . I don't know many liberals."

And therein lies the problem.

America has become a very polarised place, where people of like
religion and politics carefully gather themselves in "right-
thinking" communities, schools, churches and workplaces.

"There is a lot of ethnic and racial diversity in the US,"
Parnevik told me, pausing to choose his words carefully. Like
all the foreign players I spoke to he has found much to love
about Americans and did not want to sound unkind.

"But they all seem to hang with each other. Rich with rich.
Republican with Republican. In Europe, we seem to have a broader
mix of friends."