Where's the noise now?
The stadium becomes the state in miniature
Earlier, English golfer Matt Fitzpatrick edged out local favourite Scottie Scheffler, the world’s #1-ranked golfer, in a sudden-death playoff. Sudden-death. The phrase felt apt.
Last September, we saw a boorish New York crowd reducing the Ryder Cup to a rolling street fight. Personal verbal assaults on the winning European players dwarfed patriotic chants. I’m all for barracking for your team—Australians ‘barrack’, it simply translates to ‘shouting for your side’. But wishing harm on the opposition? No sir. Sacrilegious.
The behaviour isn’t just about golf or country; it’s about what trickles down.
When leadership models isolation, suspicion, and the threat as a negotiating tool, the crowd follows. The stadium becomes the state in miniature. Fitzpatrick is a quiet lad, he played in that Ryder Cup. Today’s rhetoric would have taken him straight back to that Bethpage crowd. When the winning putt went down, he turned to the crowd, gesturing to his ear - “where’s the noise now?”
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Leaders—and we all fall into this category—make promises, not threats.
Nick
Links:
Matt Fitzpatrick
RBC Heritage
Credit: Scott Galloway—”Leaders make promises, not threats” quote