Greetings,
I know I already posted the article that I we will discuss tomorrow as a part of my "choose your own assignment." I did, though, want to show you all another point of inspiration for me this week. I think this is an excellent piece of narrative writing and the author takes some great fictional liberties in places not typically reserved for sports writers. I thought it was significant to post this article because after reading it I made up a statistic in my mind that no one has ever lead the masters for 4 days and won. I found out from a friend, though, that this is not the case and I realized that this article internalized the feelings I felt everytime I watched a young player break down on the final 18 holes at Augusta after leading the previous three rounds. I grew up watching the Masters every year with my dad and this article brought me back to the emotion of a player unraveling under pressure before my eyes after a single fowl up. But most of all I think that the article does so by showing, not telling - a piece of the narrative process I am still working on.
I really enjoyed reading this article.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's because I know very little about golf, the Masters, and sports writing in general, but I didn't pick up instantly on the fictional liberties you wrote about in the description.
I loved the way the writer described the moments just before and after the interviews. My favorite line is definitely when he wrote that the fans applauded him and cheered his name for the entire 20 seconds it took for him to walk from the green to the locker room. Its briefness was so intense, and I found it almost tragic that his limelight was only that long in front of a few fans.
Also, why do you think you came up with that statistic? Were you doing that to in some way defend McIlroy, or did it come from something else?
What other things do you feel/were you feeling that this article internalized for you? Is there a link between those feelings and memories of spending time with your dad?
Thanks for showing me a new method of writing I knew very little about before, man. I appreciate it.
Hi Jon, thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is a little less about fictional liberties and instead about inferences but its sentences like these that you dont always find in sports pieces that really stuck out to me.
-"but he looked as if he knew some members of his family had probably shed a tear or two."
-"at the cheers he did not expect to hear"
As for the statistic, I think it was more about how this article did such a good job of making McIlroy the center of attention which brought out all the emotion I felt for the poor guys who unravel in the last round (there is typically at least one who does break down under the intense pressure of the last round at the Masters.) It reminded me of how I also often made their plight the focus of the Masters for myself rather than focusing on the incredible finishes of the ones who managed to handle the pressure and win a green jacket (one of the spoils of victory to those who win the masters.)