Why do tennis and golf professionals complain about crowd noise? Almost all other sports the crowd is very loud, why not tennis and golf?

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Tennis and golf seem so much different than almost all other sports. Baseball is the most intense with a pitcher throwing a ball towards you at over 100mph. NFL quarterbacks have to go to a silent count to snap the ball because they can’t hear the call. Basketball, Soccer (futball), Rugby, NFL, hockey, etc… all allow as much noise as you can make. Most teams will also encourage noise when the opponent has the ball. Why is tennis and golf an outlier?

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>Basketball, Soccer (futball), Rugby, NFL, hockey, etc… all allow as much noise as you can make.

What all of these sports have that tennis and golf do not is *home teams* and *visiting teams*. In sports with the home-vistor dynamic, the crowd is considered part of the “playing field.” The crowd helps gives you a home-field advantage, which varies by sport but typically provides at least *some* benefit. Golf and tennis are tournament sports on neutral territory. No one is supposed to have a built-in advantage by playing “at home,” so the customs of the sport are designed around giving everyone fair and equitable conditions. One way to do that is by asking spectators to be quiet *at certain points of the competition* — before the serve, or as the golfer is making their shot — so that the crowd doesn’t benefit one player over another.

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