True legend Ali leaves Azinger lost for words of inspiration
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The more he tried to inspire his American team, the more desperate Paul Azinger seemed to become.
He talked about the recent Olympics, the coming presidential election, warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan and, finally, in what some golf aficionados worried was a nightmare reversion to the jingoistic horrors of Kiawah Island 17 years ago, he declared: "It's a great time to wear the red, white and blue and represent your country."
Strange, this floundering for a point of take-off from the captain of America, because almost within earshot, just a block and a half of downtown Louisville away, was an American who can still hold not just his nation and a bunch of multimillionaire golfers but the entire world in the palm of his hand.
Finally, on the eve of the 37th Ryder Cup, Muhammad Ali was wheeled -- literally -- on to the stage. Naturally and instantly, he dominated every sun-splashed nook of it.
When final practice was suspended while the American and European teams were summoned, separately, for sport's ultimate picture call, it was the second stage of the great man's annexation of the event which, like the annual running of the Kentucky Derby at nearby Churchill Downs, was always destined to do no more than share the spotlight with arguably the greatest figure sport has ever known.
On Wednesday night, the former world heavyweight champion welcomed the world to his home town at the shining Ali Centre museum on the banks of the Ohio River, from one of whose bridges he claimed to have thrown his 1960 Olympic gold medal after being ejected from a whites-only diner.
At the museum, dignitaries, including the 2010 Ryder Cup hosts headed by Wales' deputy first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones, eagerly shook hands with the man from whom inspiration, ever since he lost the capacity to make a speech, has been provided by his mere presence.
Sublime
When the ceremonials were done, he was taken around the corner to the Ryder Cup's gala dinner celebration, where the players of both teams crowded around the hometown boy who conquered the world not just because of his sublime ring technique but, as his wife Lonnie explained, because of a spirit that took him beyond any challenge, any hardship.
"Muhammad Ali has always believed that a man's most vital quality is his spirit, that this is what makes true greatness, and he believes it as much today as when he first stepped into the ring all those years ago.
"He has just one weakness. He believes everything the press writes about him."
At this point Ali made a circling gesture against his forehead suggesting that his wife was quite mad. However, he later applauded her so vigorously and warmly that he confounded all those of us who feared -- after he made some halting public appearances, several accomplished only with the help of a Zimmer frame and minders -- that he was on the point of dwindling away.
Dwindling away? Here his spirit seems to be carried on every little breeze in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and if the players of America, so anxious to stop a run of three straight defeats by Europe, needed any emphasising of the meaning of his life to their sport and everyone else's under the sun, the job was done with poignancy and bite by the veteran golfer Lee Elder.
Elder, the first black American to make the Ryder Cup team -- and play at Augusta National -- sat among the crowd at the Ali Centre listening to west African tribal music, and a tribute to Ali by an up-and-coming Texan country and western star named Dustin James, before declaring: "It's wonderful just to sit here and see the effect Muhammad Ali still has on anyone who comes into contact with him.
"For me, he was a light -- and I know it is true of so many young African-Americans of the time. Of course there were other heroes, people like Jackie Robinson [the first to cross baseball's colour line] but no-one ever had the impact of Muhammad, and I doubt that a single sportsman ever will again."
Elder was orphaned early and lived most of his youth in extreme poverty. He learned to play golf at night, alone, on the course where he caddied by day.
When he made it to the PGA tour -- and eventually won four tournaments -- he was breaking the most extraordinary ground. At the time, the US Masters saw two roles for members of the local black community: serving cocktails on the clubhouse terrace and caddying.
"They were bitter times," Elder recalled, "and a young guy like me might not have had the nerve to go on if it wasn't for someone like Muhammad. You saw how he captured the world, how he was respected by people of every creed and colour, and that made all the challenges in front of someone like me suddenly seem possible."
Elder was angry and impatient as a young man, but he made it to Augusta and then to the Ryder Cup at the Greenbrier in West Virginia in 1979. He did well in the foursomes and fourballs but lost a closely fought singles with a promising young European named Nick Faldo.
"Nick didn't say much at all during the game but he was quite sociable afterwards. I think it's going to be a lot closer this year because I don't think we Americans can afford to lose a fourth straight tournament. I think it is time we levelled things up a bit. Maybe spending a little time with Muhammad Ali will have the right influence on our boys."
It would certainly seem to be a more enduring aid to seriously competitive performance from the Americans than any of the contents of Azinger's first ragbag assortment of rabble-rousing possibilities.
Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasingly rabid election exchanges might just provide a few last-minute pointers in any development of the psychological warfare between Azinger and Nick Faldo but, when Muhammad Ali was first wheeled on the beautiful golf course yesterday, a different kind of incentive might just have been provided.
It came from the fierce light of a man who, even while locked by the chains of disease and physical decline, can still make with one brief and restricted gesture a statement about the eternal requirements of a winning sportsman.
"Muhammad," said his wife Lonnie, "is proud to see the great golfers in his hometown. His only message to them is that the most important quality they bring is the belief in their own ability and that he hopes that they will find all the best of their spirit and their talent while they are here."
That, and some basic nerve by America's Azinger, might just make something more of a competition than was seen in Co Kildare two years ago, when even the presence of Tiger Woods brought scarcely a pause to European dominance.
If a little of Muhammad Ali cannot be absorbed, the Ryder Cup will surely slide into crisis. It would be ironic in a place where a young and brilliant American declared his unbreakable belief that he could beat the world.
Not with the help of a flag-waving mob. But by the insistence of a fighting heart which still, plainly, beats with formidable strength.
- James Lawton
