Sunday was Father’s Day, and, as is tradition, the final round of golf’s U.S. Open, and my children honored the holiday in the proper manner: They let their father attempt a brief nap while watching the U.S. Open.
Nap report: I executed a modest afternoon nap, approximately 26 to 28 minutes long, which ended unceremoniously when my 7-year-old daughter arrived, and, despite knowing full well how to open a refrigerator, asked if we had any orange juice left. The nap was still enjoyable, and appreciated.
I want to be clear: This nap didn’t interfere (that much) with my professional sports-watching obligations. I was (mostly) riveted to what proved to be an outstanding final day of golf in Brookline, Mass. I did not miss Matt Fitzpatrick’s steely run for his first major tournament victory. I definitely didn’t miss his gutsy iron from the sand on 18 that landed on the green and Jack Nicklaus himself called “one of the great iron shots under pressure” he’d ever seen.
Fitzpatrick’s go-for-broke lifted me off the couch like a lightning bolt. Moments like that are what sports are all about.
Still, I consider a good golf nap one of the quiet joys of the sports viewing life. I don’t think you’re a true sports fan if you don’t occasionally doze off and wake up to the final minutes of the fourth quarter (“where was I?”), or to an unexpected champion hoisting a trophy, or, game long finished, to a 5:30 p.m. news report about a moose that keeps breaking into the same restaurant.
None of this is intended to insult any sport—or any athlete. I think it’s possible to fall asleep in any sport, including ax-throwing. You’ve probably (surely) fallen asleep reading this column. I’m not offended! I hope it was a quality snooze.
But my golf nap got me thinking: What sports are (and aren’t) the best sports to nap to? My list is personal, and unscientific, and I am sure you have your own opinions, but I believe it is a relatively undiscussed aspect of the sports-viewing life, so let’s talk. No one should be ashamed here. We’re all human. We nap.
I think we can all agree that golf is probably the sports nap summit. Golf has it all, really: It’s long, it’s quiet, there are a lot of khakis, and its announcers are trained to whisper softly, like they’re holding an infant. After a while, you, too, feel as if you’re back in your childhood crib, listening to Mom or Dad read “Make Way for Ducklings.” Golf is basically tryptophan, and the only thing standing between you and a solid 40 of Zzzzs is an eagle chip and a burst of crowd noise, or a loud commercial for an oversized pickup truck.
Baseball has to be up there, too. Baseball’s pace-of-play issues have reached the point where the sport is no longer concerned about the audience falling asleep—they’re concerned about the players themselves. Baseball, too, has plenty of somnambulant qualities: hitters stepping out of the box; the hum of a summer crowd; the snap of the ball in a catcher’s mitt; the muffled screaming as the Pirates concede another season.
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