American Sports and the Concept of Fairness

This is only a partially-formed thought, derived in part from my previous post.
I find it odd, though, that American sports commenters have a different idea of fairness that much of the world. On ESPN yesterday Scott Van Pelt whined about how "you can hit a perfect shot" at the British Open, "and still end up off the fairway." He said "you wouldn't design a golf course like that now, but it's called 'Royal' so what are you going to do?" My colleague in favor of disposing of plate umpires said the same thing: if you were inventing the game now, you would not use human umpires."
Somehow these people have reached the conclusion that if a player or a person does his job perfectly the sport owes him success. But that's not true. Success is not owed. Sometimes we do everything right and fail. Sometimes we get lucky and succeed despite ourselves.
Only the most privileged people on the planet, as we Americans are, could believe that bad luck should never play in.