The Last Word: Was it worth going?

Reaction has been mixed to our columns earlier this week debating whether or not it was worth New Zealand sending a team to the Winter Olympics.

If you recall, rugby writer Steve Hepburn took a break from writing about yet another gallant Highlanders loss to stage a brutal attack on our snow sport athletes, while your more supportive Last Word columnist shamelessly invoked the "think of the children" line.

Public opinion seems just as divided.

In my corner is, among others, Peter Becker, patriarch of the great Central Otago curling dynasty.

Becker shares my view that it is important to provide aspiration for athletes in any sport, and the only way to do that is by providing opportunities.

He pointed out the New Zealand curling team finished 10th in Turin four years ago but could easily have finished as high as sixth, while the women's team has recent wins over China and Japan, both of which are in Vancouver.

Another reader, Jessica Sanford, said the New Zealand athletes in Vancouver had fairly earned their place, and their dedication could not be questioned.

She said wintersport athletes struggled for recognition and often relied entirely on their own funding to get anywhere.

Ice effort not appreciated by all
Vic Isbister, on the other hand, agreed completely with my colleague.

He said the performances of the New Zealanders had not been up to scratch, and questioned whether some of them should have been selected at all.

"The selectors must have known that they were not good enough to perform with distinction," Isbister wrote.

"That means they were spending good cash on people who are not up to it.

The Olympics, winter and summer, are the place for the elite of the sporting world to compete against each other."

Paul Roth said New Zealanders had done as well as could be expected.

He felt the country had a small-minded approach to supporting sport, saying Sparc was not doing enough provide infrastructure and coaching for potential champions.

Finally, Ervin "Strauss" Steck blamed the media for our "superficial and impatient" columns, and our "ignorant, hasty judgements".

He suggested we all needed to cultivate a broader understanding of the "fascinating" winter sports that were available.

The little blaster
We probably shouldn't be surprised that someone has scored a one-day cricket double century, nor that the batsman concerned is the great Sachin Tendulkar.

I remember the days when scoring 200 was considered more than good enough for a TEAM.

But cricket's evolution, and the rise of the big-hitting twenty/20 format, has changed everything.

Scores of 300-plus are now commonplace in one-day cricket, and it won't be long before 350-400 is regularly being struck.

Individually, you can bet more double-centuries will be on the way.

As for Tendulkar, wow.

The little master was considered to be on the slide a year ago but his appetite for runs has not diminished.

By the end of his career, he will have set scoring records that might never be beaten.

The rise of the Phoenix
New Zealand football's renaissance continues with the success of the Wellington Phoenix, which won its first play-off game in a penalty shootout last Sunday.

The job Terry Serepisos, Tony Pignata, Ricki Herbert, Tim Brown and company have done in resurrecting our only major profession team has been extraordinary.

Those painful memories of the Kingz and the Knights have been washed away in a flood of gold and black.

With the All Whites heading for the World Cup in South Africa and the Phoenix firing, football is on a rare roll.

A golfing trio . . .
The sporting world is riddled with coincidences and strange quirks of fate.

Mike Harwood, Wayne Grady and Simon Owen were drawn together in the final threesome on the last day of the Handa NZ Senior Masters golf tournament at Millbrook last weekend.

Apart from being pretty darned good golfers, what else did this trio have in common? Well, all three had finished second in British Opens in their prime playing days.

Taupo's Owen (59) was second to Jack Nicklaus in the 1978 Open at St Andrews (Owen was a complete unknown, Nicklaus admitting he had never heard of him); Grady (52) lost a four-hole play-off in 1989 at Royal Troon to American Mark Calcavecchia (Greg Norman was also in that play-off); and Harwood (51) was beaten by fellow Australian Ian Baker-Finch (now a TV golf commentator) in 1991 at Royal Birkdale.

But the coincidences did not end there at Millbrook.

Ninth-placed Rodger Davis (58), who is playing at Balmacewen today, also has a second place in the Open to his credit, behind Nick Faldo at Turnberry in 1987, while 73-year-old Sir Bob Charles, apart from winning the Open in 1963 at Royal Lytham and St Annes, also finished runner-up to Gary Player at Carnoustie in 1968 and to Tony Jacklin in 1969, again at Royal Lytham and St Annes.

. . . with a common theme
Some golfers never recover from the huge disappointment of losing a Major but not the easy-going, wise-cracking Grady, who told our reporter at the event, Dave Cannan, he had made a conscious effort after his narrow loss in 1989 to work harder on his game and not to let it affect him "otherwise, it would have haunted me to this day".

Grady's reward followed a year later, when he won the PGA Championship at Shoal Creek.

These days Grady, who finished third on Sunday, takes a much more laid-back approach to his golfing career, being content to play only occasionally and do more TV commentary work, admitting he didn't have the drive any more to compete at the top level for senior (over-50) golfers.

But, looking back on his 30-year career, Grady said Charles had put it best about the life of a professional golfer when he told him "It"s the hardest way I know to make an easy living."

hayden.meikle@odt.co.nz