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It’s been two weeks since Phil Mickelson’s inspiring and unexpected victory in the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island and we’re still talking about it.
Not Phil’s win.
We got enough of that when it happened, though Phil posted a clever video reminder of his PGA victory on social media during the weekend, lest he be forgotten in what feels as gossipy as Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah.
Brooksy and Bryson.
It started at Kiawah with the leaked Golf Channel video that everyone has seen a dozen times by now, the one where Koepka stops an interview and looks like DeNiro when he’s disgusted while DeChambeau walks behind him.
It carried over last week to the Memorial where DeChambeau was called “Brooksy” by a few fans, some of whom were reportedly escorted off the Muirfield Village property for their impropriety. Whether DeChambeau actually suggested they be sent home remains a murky point but it was quite a coincidence.
Now golf has a feud.
A tame one, for sure, but in the polite, “who’s away” world of golf, this is like Patrick Swayze in Road House. You shouldn’t watch but you can’t help yourself.
Let’s face it, golfers like a good ruckus as much as anyone, but the game rarely has one.
It’s not like auto racing where pit-crew members occasionally throw punches or a frustrated driver hurls his helmet at the guy who wrecked him. No one is firing fastballs at someone’s head. No one is body-slamming the quarterback after the whistle or walking into the other team’s locker room after the game.
We got a version of that a few years ago when Keegan Bradley and Miguel Ángel Jiménez went jaw-to-jaw during the World Golf Championship match-play event at Harding Park, their dispute eventually spilling into the tiny clubhouse there, but it came and went in a few moments. Back in the day, there was Zinger vs. Seve in some robust gamesmanship and Watson vs. Player hurling untoward accusations.
More recently, Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth stood in opposite corners for a time and that apparently has been smoothed over, but that’s about as spicy as golf gets.
Until this.
And it’s not the worst thing for golf.
Sure, it’s tacky.
But it’s amusing, too.
Kind of like Myrtle Beach.
If there is some granular truth to the axiom that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, this is an example. How convenient it comes just weeks after the PGA Tour’s $40 million Player Impact Program came to light, the needles on the tour’s various algorithms undoubtedly spiking the potential bonuses for both of the beefy bombers.
Like any other sport, the game is better when it’s driven by rivalries. Jack and Arnie. Phil and Tiger. Bryceps against Brooksy.
“I sent Brooks a message last Monday morning when it all came out. I said I don’t care what happens to me for the rest of this week, this has made my week, this is like the best thing ever.”
Rory McIlroy
“I sent Brooks a message last Monday morning when it all came out. I said I don’t care what happens to me for the rest of this week, this has made my week, this is like the best thing ever,” Rory McIlroy admitted.
It’s like keeping up with the royal family. You may pretend not to care but chances are you watched The Crown and, if you didn’t, you’re missing out. Maybe this can be the impetus for a golf miniseries with John Cena as Koepka and Dwayne Johnson as DeChambeau.
Let’s face it, DeChambeau is an easy target and he has to understand that. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. He’s not. In fact, he’s pleasant to be around, polite and courteous and patient with questions from people who don’t fully understand the stuff he’s often talking about.
But he’s different and different draws attention.
DeChambeau claimed the gentle name-calling was “flattering” and didn’t bother him, but he appeared to lose that argument in the court of public opinion.
For a guy who projects the image that nothing bothers him and he exists in his own tight bubble, Koepka is adept at chumming the waters on social media. He’s playful, which goes against character, but it offers a glimpse into the Koepka he tells us exists away from the golf course.
The Friday video offering free beer to fans whose time at the Memorial “was cut short” felt one step too far even if marketing execs might see it as a stroke of genius.
The danger here is allowing fans to impact the action rather than react to it. There’s already a growing concern about how legalized gambling will affect fans at tournament sites and while fans will always have their favorites – can’t most of us still hear the reaction when Seve Ballesteros dunked his second shot into the pond on the 15th hole in the 1986 Masters? – it should remain about the players, not the watchers.
At a time when fans are throwing water bottles at NBA players and Koepka himself got caught in the human stampede up the 18th hole at the PGA Championship, the line between the action and the reaction is almost blurred.
As for two of the game’s best players and most interesting personalities not being besties?
It’s nothing new.
It’s just the packaging that has changed.
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