At times of great sporting theatre on television, no words are really necessary.
Good commentators know exactly when to just shut up and let the pictures tell their own tragic story in respectful silence.
Nick Faldo is usually such a commentator but in the early hours of last Monday morning, as I sat on the well-worn edge of my armchair, he uttered one of the cruellest prophesies I've heard: "Ernie Els has won the British Open - and Adam Scott is going to be scarred for life."
I hope he is wrong. I fancy Faldo hopes he's wrong as well.
Sometimes, in the white-hot heat of the moment, things are said which should be, but can't be, taken back.
But, if we're being brutally honest there is a chance Faldo will be proved right.
And, if he is, Adam Scott won't be the last professional golfer to be shattered by his own fallibilities and frailties and never, ever, be quite the same again.
Golf's rich history is littered with broken hearts, minds and psyches - surely that's what makes it such a compelling, absorbing and cruel sport.
Television can take much of the credit for that, I believe.
In it's hold-nothing-back efforts to satisfy and entertain millions of golf fans worldwide, the people who direct and devise golfing broadcasts know two undeniable truths about their business: (1) ratings are everything and (2) the only thing guaranteed to get the ratings soaring into the stratosphere, where the really big advertising dollars are found, is either a Tiger Woods win or a dramatic collapse, a la Adam Scott at Royal Lytham and St Annes last weekend.
Why?
Because golf, unlike any other sport that I can think of, is the most individualistic game played by human beings.
Sure, there are golfing team events such as the Ryder Cup (also very good for ratings) but, cut to its essence, golf requires its top participants to lay bare their thoughts, emotions and their very souls, stroke by stroke, hole by hole, week in and week out.
And it's all there for the fans to see, in their living rooms, in full living high-definition super slow-mo colour.
Every facial expression, every fist pump, every grimace, every nervous twitch, every forced smile, every sly spit and every tear, is captured live, from a dozen different angles.
Even something as fundamental as a golfer closing his or her eyelids can be turned into a compelling, tell-all reaction through the slow-motion camera.
Throw in a plethora of graphics and gimmicky gadgetry like the "protracer", the blue line on your screen that shows the ball's flight, plus the often cutting analysis from a line-up of former superstars who usually know exactly what they are talking about (OK, some are better than others) and you could argue golfers are the most scrutinised - and publicly humiliated - professional sports people on the planet.
Take Adam Scott's sensational collapse in the Open.
I'm not going to call it a "choke" because I believe the difference between the two is quite marked.
If he had choked, then he would have been unable to swing the club or take his broomstick putter back on that last putt; that's a paralysing mental affliction that even the greatest golfers have had to endure.
No, Scott "collapsed"; he threw away a four-shot lead with four holes to play because, I believe, he thought he had the Open won, his first major in more than 40 attempts.
And why wouldn't he be thinking that?; he had played so beautifully for the previous 68 holes.
But one missed putt, on the 15th, which seemed innocuous at the time, sparked a series of self-perpetuating mistakes that snowballed into a heartbreaking loss.
More significantly, from a weekend golfer's perspective, it showed us that Scott is just as human as the rest of us, that when things start to go wrong, as they often do in golf, even in a club competition, then the pros seem as powerless as a 16-handicapper to stop the runaway train.
And surely it's that very flaw in their focus, their concentration, that mental lapse, that draws golf fans back in front of the TV weekend after weekend to see who's going to fold under pressure (the biggest P word in sport) - as well as watching the game they love played in its purest and (at times) most perfect way.
Ironically, Scott's big lead may well have been his undoing.
Had the contest been more of a bruiser's head-to-head scrap rather than a walk in the park, Scott would more likely have stuck to one of golf's greatest truisms - play one shot at a time (in other words, stay in the now).
Instead, we watched him slowly unravel, disbelieving at first that anyone could throw away a four-shot lead.
Yet it was more of a slow-motion self-destruction, certainly nothing as spectacular as Rory McIlroy's triple-bogey, double-bogey disaster on the 10th and 12th holes at the 2011 Masters.
Now that was dramatic.
Nor did it become the comical farce that was Jean van de Velde's last-hole brain explosion in the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie when he squandered a three-shot lead.
But it was every bit as cruel to watch, right up there with Greg Norman's catastrophic implosion at the 1996 Masters, Phil Mickelson's crazy last-hole play at the 2006 US Open and, perhaps the most poignant of all, 59-year-old Tom Watson's three-putt on the last hole of the 2009 British Open at Turnberry, which cost him what would have been, arguably, the greatest win in golfing history.
I watched all of those, live and unexpurgated, all with the same sense of dread and fascination.
The memories will stay with me forever.
Indeed, they came flooding back as I watched Adam Scott's freefall plummet last Monday morning.
Of course, he could have avoided joining this select group.
All he had to do was broomhandle-putt a 41.5mm golf ball less than 3m across well-manicured grass and into a hole measuring 10.8cm on the 18th green. Simple.
But, cruelly (there's that word again) we knew virtually at the same time as Scott that dimple by dimple, his Titleist ball was rolling its way to the edge of the cup, thanks to a worm's-eye view from a close-up camera.
And when he sank to his knees and looked away (to who knows where), bang, another camera quickly zeroed in on his handsome face contorted in agony and disbelief; again we were able to simultaneously share his nightmare of a broken date with destiny, for one of golf's most coveted prizes.
I stared and stared at the scene and tried, impossibly, to imagine even a sliver of what Scott was feeling.
Graciously he managed a smile and handshakes with playing partner Graeme McDowell and the caddies.
But we were not done with Scott yet.
There was still that must-do "how do you feel" stand-up TV interview against an R and A backdrop where he confessed the numbness was only just starting to set in.
Yet he kept smiling and albeit on automatic pilot, talked optimistically about the future.
Then he had to stand on the 18th green for an interminable presentation ceremony, swapping from one hand to the other the runner-up's silver salver, and watch as his good friend, 42-year-old Ernie Els, lovingly fondled the famous claret jug, the one he should have been holding instead.
And finally, just when he probably wished he could jump in his car and head down the motorway to a waiting jet, he had to grit his teeth and front the world's golfing media contingent who all wanted to know just one thing - how the hell did that happen?
You don't reckon that's cruel?
Funny thing though.
Like every other golfing "junkie" who, year after year sacrifices sleep and common sense to his addiction, I can't wait until the next time it happens.
