Obnoxious Fans Just Won’t Go Away

The debate over unruly crowd behavior at golf tournaments is – much like those troublesome fans – growing louder, increasingly fractious and more persistent. A welcome respite looms at golf’s marquee event.

You probably won’t hear much chatter on that subject during the Masters, chiefly because you won’t hear much of the hecklers either. Enforcing rules that seem outdated is a tradition unlike any other at Augusta National, but one tradition warrants celebrating: A patron who bellows abuse or inanities at a player quickly will feel security on his collar (it’s always a “him”) and swiftly be shown to the street.

You won’t hear Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley asking for patience or acceptance of the lobotomized louts, or requesting that players simply deal with the disruption. Spectators pay to watch the show, not to be part of it. The Masters Committee understands that.

Why can’t the PGA Tour?

Continue reading “Obnoxious Fans Just Won’t Go Away”

Zurich Classic Brings Spice Tour Badly Needs

This week’s port of call on the PGA Tour showcases what golf needs more of, as surely as last week’s stop represented what it has too much of.

The Zurich Classic went to a two-man team format in 2017, becoming the first team event on Tour since 1981. The innovations continue this week as each team selects first-tee walk-up music on the weekend. Assuming Kevin Na doesn’t need an entire symphony before actually hitting the ball, this further enhances the cool vibe in New Orleans.

Continue reading “Zurich Classic Brings Spice Tour Badly Needs”

Rory’s Grand Slam Dream Far From Over

Two things tend to blight sporting careers with a bleak predictability: unforeseen injury and untethered expectations. The psychological toxicity often comes not from the aspirations of the athlete – since those can be managed or adjusted – but from the expectations he cannot control: those of others, the insistent chorus that chirps today about his tremendous potential and tomorrow about his dismal underachieving.

That chorus must now be as familiar a feature of spring as the first birdsong for Rory McIlroy.

Continue reading “Rory’s Grand Slam Dream Far From Over”

Sergio’s Horrors at Augusta: Been There, Done That, Says Crenshaw

Just above the doorway through which players walk onto center court at Wimbledon is etched a line from Rudyard Kipling’s celebrated poem If: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two imposters just the same.”

Sergio Garcia could make a case for having that same inscription carved into the Sarazen Bridge at Augusta National. Gene’s bridge crosses the pond fronting the 15th green, a journey Garcia himself memorably failed to make with five balls during the opening round of the Masters. He signed for a 13 on the par-5 and shot 81. A second-round 78 gave him the worst-ever two-day total by a defending champion. Only two amateur rookies fared worse.

Screen Shot 2018-10-30 at 12.33.50 PM

Continue reading “Sergio’s Horrors at Augusta: Been There, Done That, Says Crenshaw”

Patrick Reed Steals Show at Masters

There are a handful of constant themes in the Masters script produced every year on the movie set that is Augusta National Golf Club. Drama, of course. Often some tragedy. Scenes of euphoric joy, moments of quiet despair. The occasional old love affair rekindled. A healthy dose of sentimentality. Heroes are abundant, villains invisible.

Well, until this year.

Continue reading “Patrick Reed Steals Show at Masters”

The Agony of Augusta National

Heartbreak at the Masters is like a doomed first love affair, the one whose ache never quite dulls. Sure, players can go on to find love in other places — the Opens, a PGA Championship — but the pain of a loss at Augusta National doesn’t ever fully disappear.

Some of that is owed to familiarity. As the Open returns to Carnoustie this summer, Jean Van De Velde will field a flurry of calls to autopsy his 1999 collapse. But at least the Frenchman only has to relive his fiasco every decade or so when the rota returns to the scene of le horreur.

Fail at Augusta National and the ghosts will start whispering every year on the drive down Magnolia Lane.

Screen Shot 2018-10-30 at 12.07.54 PM
Curtis Strange found the water twice on the closing holes in the 1985 Masters at Augusta National.

Continue reading “The Agony of Augusta National”

Falling Short at the Masters: Tom Kite Can Relate to Rory

Each time Rory McIlroy arrives at Augusta National, the burden of expectation is a little heavier. It’s been that way since 2011, when he lost a four-stroke lead on Sunday. He won the very next major by eight shots and three more since, but those trophies may as well be checked at the public end of Magnolia Lane. The Masters is a major onto itself – what you accomplish elsewhere doesn’t subtract from the pressure of anticipation, it only adds to it.

Continue reading “Falling Short at the Masters: Tom Kite Can Relate to Rory”

What Golf Needs: A Generational Rivalry

Screen Shot 2018-10-30 at 11.45.15 AM
The once and future kings: Woods and Spieth.

The PGA Tour has hewed to a familiar script over the last few years, as a succession of recent high schoolers hoist trophies that almost weigh more than they do.

It’s a generation of fine players – these Justin Thomases, Jordan Spieths and Jon Rahms – and many of them seem destined for the Hall of Fame. But there’s a uniformity to their cohort, well-adjusted kids who are more likely to spend tournament nights downing kale smoothies at the gym than shots of bourbon at a saloon.

Which is fair enough. That Tour is long dead, as are most of the guys who lived it.

Continue reading “What Golf Needs: A Generational Rivalry”

Mark Hensby’s Curious Suspension

Mark Hensby is familiar with punishment that seems harsh for the crime. He learned that growing up in Australia, when a sloppily made bed, an untidy closet, even cutlery held the wrong way, led to brutal beatings by his father.

Continue reading “Mark Hensby’s Curious Suspension”

Time To Drop Hammer on Boorish Fans

It’s hard to avoid Golf Bro these days. He’s at every PGA Tour event, usually carrying more beer than brain cells, and always possessed of a garrulous self-regard while destitute of self-awareness.

If you’re not fortunate enough to attend a tournament to hear Golf Bro holler his witticisms in person, fear not, for he pollutes the airwaves as enthusiastically he does the fairways. When did you last enjoy a broadcast without shots being punctuated with cries of “Baba Booey” or “Mashed Potato?” Those well-worn phrases are seemingly akin to reciting Shakespeare for the sloshed.

Continue reading “Time To Drop Hammer on Boorish Fans”

Time PGA Tour Took Stand On Slow Play

 

It’s probably for the best that J.B. Holmes didn’t play the Sony Open in Hawaii a few weeks ago, since a man who can’t pull the trigger on laying up into the rough within four minutes surely would be paralyzed with uncertainty when faced with an alert about an incoming ballistic missile.

Screen Shot 2018-10-29 at 5.38.31 PM
J.B. Holmes.

Continue reading “Time PGA Tour Took Stand On Slow Play”

Wasted Management Phoenix Open Not For All

One year during the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Kenny Perry went to get a haircut, during which the stylist asked why he was in town. “I’m playing in the golf tournament,” Perry said.

“I love the golf event,” she replied enthusiastically. “I go every night.”

There is much to admire about the WMPO in daylight hours, too. It has raised more than $120 million for charity and every year draws more fans than any other PGA Tour stop – 655,434 in 2017. But some other statistics aren’t so admirable.

416418725_4732207381001_Thumb
The most lubricated show on grass: the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Continue reading “Wasted Management Phoenix Open Not For All”

Tour Pros See Opportunity, Not Nuance in Course Design

Golfers who play for a living tend to look at courses the way the rest of us look at office cubicles – just a functional place in which to ply one’s trade. Sure, some feel more comfortable and fit the eye better than others, but you’re there to make money, not study the artistry of the workspace.

newplant6_cac3c85f-a078-4ee7-8e0c-7c48dbdf9910
The Coore-Crenshaw course at Kapalua in Maui.

Continue reading “Tour Pros See Opportunity, Not Nuance in Course Design”

Rancor over Anchoring Riles Senior Set

Two years have passed since anchored putting was banned, but the USGA’s wording of the rule is still causing some consternation on the PGA Tour Champions. The two most dominant players in 2017—Bernhard Langer (below) and Scott McCarron—finished 1st and 2nd in Putting Average. Both use a long putter and a controversial method, that rules officials have declared legal. I wrote about the issue for Golfweek. You can read it here.

PowerShares QQQ Championship - Final Round