If there's a sudden baby boom among quintagenerians in nine months' time, blame Greg Norman. I suspect there were more than a few cardiganed arms reaching across the sofa as Greg led the Open until the last few holes of the final round, then turned to the cameras and dedicated it all to his new wife, Chris Evert.
Romantic though the tale was, the soupy excitement about Greg'n'Chris - in particular, her "inspiration" of his storming feat - did strike me as a bit ironic. Firstly, and forgive me for sounding catty, but isn't she quite practised at this stuff, having been previously married to first a tennis pro and then a skier? And secondly - and this is more to the point - isn't the golf course where most guys go to get away from their wives? I believe this is generally the argument that clubs use when banning women members.
Luckily for Evert, her husband is Australian, thus relieving her of the greatest misery of being a professional golfer's wife: the Ryder Cup outfits. This year, the tradition of dressing-your-spouses-like-ageing-air-hostesses took on a whole new dimension of weirdness, when Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo announced that the outfits would be designed by one of his former partners. Sadly, not the one who remodelled his Porsche with a nine-iron; I feel sure her talent for bold self-expression would have resulted in some very interesting T-shirts indeed.
Anyway, it strikes me that in the context of 21st-century sport, Evert's efforts are oddly old-fashioned. Here's a woman who has been feted for her own career, who gave it all up to settle down (more than once) and who supports her new husband in his career not by writing a column in Grazia or launching her own perfume, but by turning up and following him round wind-battered links. She is, in these respects, the anti-Wag.
So what should the role of a sporting wife be today? The idea used to be that a professional sportsman had to be so single-minded that his career required utter devotion and self-sacrifice not only from him but from his good lady, too. Football managers have always been keen to have their players marry early, as the stability and lack of distraction is good for their game. But now every Wag needs to launch her own career and "position herself" within the increasingly saturated celebrity marketplace, there's a serious danger of backfiring.
In the light of this, I'd like to see sporting wives and girlfriends assessed on their merits. If they're making a career out of being an other half, and getting paid Premiership sums for it, surely we should be able to compare performance, see who's giving it 110 per cent, whose form is dipping and who's in danger of relegation to the divorce courts. I think it would be highly useful for the players themselves, who as professionals are keen to scrutinise and improve every possible aspect of their game.
I propose a rankings system, like in fantasy football, where Wags earn points for "assists" such as turning up to grotty Cup ties at Kenilworth Road, or displaying a basic understanding of their husband's sport. I would bet on Kim Sears, Andy Murray's girlfriend, to top the list: having taken a gap year to travel with him this season, she sat through every tournament and kept a decorous low profile throughout, shunning the red carpet to help him prepare for matches with quiet evenings of board games. Surely a model first lady.
Emma John is deputy editor of Observer Sport Monthly
