The US Open Tennis Championships will get underway in New York this coming weekend. Fans of the sport will be hoping the men’s final is a third straight Grand Slam shoot-out between Carlos Alcaraz (who won in Paris) and Jannik Sinner (who won at Wimbledon) but there is quite a lot of tennis to be played before we get to that (match) point. In the case of the former, quite a lot of golf, too, I should imagine.
In his on-court post-match interviews at Wimbledon, Alcaraz, who had won that title in the two years prior to this one, made evident his love of playing golf. It was what the 22-year-old Spaniard did on the day between his semi-final and the final. It was what he had done last year as well, taking full advantage of the offer of effectively temporary membership at a local club.
In a recent interview, Alcaraz told the Financial Times: “I love playing golf and I have played a few courses here in the UK.” He added: “With the amount of rain you have, there should be a lot of great courses.” Well, there are, but given the weather of this summer I think a few greenkeepers would take issue with his point about natural irrigation.
Alcaraz is not the only two-time Spanish Wimbledon singles champion to have a fondness for golf. “Rafa [Nadal] plays really well,” said Alcaraz. “Alex de Minaur plays, too. I played Andy Murray the other day and he beat me. He’s spent a lot of time on the course practising, and you can tell.” They played at Beaverbrook in Surrey. Murray characterised his victory “in tennis terms like a 6-2, 6-2”. Alcaraz thought that was harsh. He put it at 7-5, 6-3.
It is well-known that professional athletes in other sports are frequently drawn to play golf. (Golfers, of course, often opt for fishing as their getaway pastime.) Golf can occupy a large part of the day when they are not in training for what they do for a living (“and it keeps them out of the pub,” as one football manager put it) and it is comparatively risk-free health-wise. Or is it? Three years ago, the England batter and wicketkeeper, Jonny Bairstow, was playing at Pannal in Yorkshire when he slipped on a slope, dislocated his ankle and broke his leg in three places.
Back to where we came in, I presume Carlos has long had a course lined up for his golf rounds in between his tennis matches in the US over the coming fortnight. It’s less than an hour’s drive from Flushing Meadows to the courses at Bethpage on Long Island, but the Black Course there is the venue for the Ryder Cup in a month’s time, so that will be out-of-bounds. I guess he’ll maybe have to settle for Winged Foot. That’s an 18-mile journey – nice for a nifty 18 holes.