This weekend here, at the corporate and sporting home of the PGA Tour, is supposed to be about the golf. It should be about Wyndham Clark, your 2023 U.S. Open champion, trying to join the Jerry Pate-Martin Kaymer-Webb Simpson-Tiger Woods club, the four guys who have won U.S. Opens and the PV Beach Classic, aka The Players, here at the Stadium Course. But all of golf — men’s elite professional golf, with its outsized influence on the game — is distracted now. These are the times that try golf fans’ souls.
“At this moment, we are directionless. Following two days of subpar performance and failing to make the cut, Jordan Spieth briefly spoke to a small group of journalists on Friday night.
The majority of the questions revolved around the two penalty drops his playing partner, Rory McIlroy, took on Thursday, while the remaining queries focused on a scheduled meeting on Monday regarding a potential partnership between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Spieth serves on the PGA Tour board, while McIlroy was a former member.
The individual backing LIV Golf, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, currently holds significant influence in the golf industry due to the vast financial resources at his disposal.” In today’s world, greed is the main driving force behind golf, as it is for many other things.
The pursuit of luxury and excellence in golf is being disregarded. Wyndham Clark is making headlines for the second time in two weeks.
This time, it’s for his impressive performance at Sawgrass. Just last week, he was also in the news for his unique approach to a tricky situation at Bay Hill.
During the final hole of the third round of a high-stakes tournament, Clark found himself in the thick rough, reminiscent of a challenging course like Oakmont during the U.S. Open. In order to get out of this tough spot, he had to rely on his strength to power through. It was a difficult lie that no golfer would want to be in.
As he prepared to play, he positioned his clubhead in the thick grass right next to the ball.
The more he pressed down, the deeper his ball sank into the rough. While the rulebook allows a golfer to touch the ground lightly with the club at address, Clark was not penalized, so technically speaking, he was in the clear.
However, some questioned whether he was violating the core principle of golf, which is to play the ball as it lies. You can make your own judgment on the matter.
Many armchair commentators on social media certainly did.
Clark only became aware of the incident at the 18th hole after the round, when officials showed him the video in the scoring tent.
He stated that he had no intention of cheating or improving his lie. These statements alone have caused a distraction.”
Various familiar names will chase Clark this weekend, including Matthew Fitzpatrick, Scottie Scheffler, Brian Harman, Hideki Matsuyama and Jason Day, to cite a fivesome of major winners, plus 60 or so other players. You get $4.5 million for winning and last place pays $53,750. Bring on the golf. Right? But all these damn distractions, robbing this beautiful game of its civil dogfight greatness.
When you get right down to it, the players, here and everywhere, are obligated to do only one thing: play by the rules. The vast sums they play for should give them more incentive to do the right thing. Nobody’s starving out here. Have you seen player dining? To keep the whole thing going, you have to put the game ahead of yourself. And that attitude will come back to serve you well.
Rory McIlroy is a smart, caring person, often a voice of reason. Let’s not rehash all the details on his semi-heated, intra-group where-did-it-cross drop conversation on the 7th hole on Thursday. (The group was Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and Jordan Spieth, and the conversation included caddies, too.) A player, absolutely, should stand up for what he believes happened, as McIlroy did. But let’s get this situation and every last one like it down to its essence: If you can’t say with virtual certainty what happened, bend over backward to be to be fair to the rest of the field. And the rest of the field will do the same for you.
That’s the spirit of the game. Long-term karma (a phenomenon in which McIlroy believes; he said so after his first round) will reward you, and you might make some more PIP money, too. Not that such things motivated Bob Jones, Charlie Sifford, Mickey Wright, Jack Nicklaus and anybody else you might call a golfing hero with genuine pride.
Golf is all yin and yang. Aim left and the ball goes right. The tap-in putt and the monster drive count equally. Professional golf at its northernmost reaches has powerful and conflicting forces working in tandem. It’s a jungle out there and you’re all alone. But all the while, you’re a member of the community of golfers. And not just your fellow touring pros — all golfers, everywhere.
You should want to be held in esteem. How can that not be a goal? Tom Watson was not a warm and fuzzy person in his sporting prime. At all. But people respected his scorecard and by extension him. You can take that to your grave, which is nice.
Spieth and McIlroy, two of golf’s most well-liked players, were publicly arguing with each other on Thursday. Did it escalate beyond just a disagreement?
Let’s delve deeper into the underlying meaning! However, it is impossible to do so as subtext does not have a clear language. It can be difficult to understand the motives behind our words, actions, and thoughts.
The enigmatic nature of life can be likened to Bob Dylan’s lyrics and Jerry Lewis’s appeal in Paris. Spieth and McIlroy are heavily involved in the politics and business of golf, as well as the ethical and financial aspects of the PGA Tour-LIV Golf conflict.
They are unable to avoid being distracted by these issues. “Subtext and controversial rules situations have existed for a long time.
An example of this occurred during the 1995 World Series of Golf, a PGA Tour event held at the Firestone Country Club. Greg Norman caused a stir by refusing to sign Mark McCumber’s first-round score, alleging that McCumber had taken a piece of live turf from a putting green.”
During that period, McCumber, a respected golfer familiar to the leaders of golf in Ponte Vedra Beach, was among those who opposed Norman’s proposal for a world golf tour.
This disagreement seemed to anger Norman. McCumber believed that Norman was not in favor of the idea.
The situation was chaotic and lacked a definite solution. A Tour official validated McCumber’s scorecard.
Norman emerged as the victor of the tournament. The total prize money for the event was $2 million.
Disagreements over rules have been around for as long as the game itself. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald depicted a rules dispute involving the character Jordan Baker. Jordan Baker’s personality is shaped by this incident.
However, the past ten years have experienced more than their fair share of difficult moments. In 2013, during the BMW Championship in Chicago, Tiger Woods attempted (within the rules) to remove a piece of wood debris resting on his ball. As a result, his ball shifted position.
Despite not reporting the penalty on himself, a rules official named Slugger White enforced a two-stroke penalty on him – one for moving the ball and one for not returning it to its original position. Woods’ handling of the situation was deemed inappropriate as he prioritized his own interests.
This incident was part of a series of rule violations he faced that year.
The time period was challenging for him personally, as he was attempting to move on from events such as the incident with the fire hydrant.
And since then:
Patrick Reed’s actions in the Bahamas in 2019, where he altered his lie, were unfortunate.
Similarly, in 2021 at Torrey Pines, Patrick Reed’s assertion that a ball had become embedded after bouncing was also questionable.
During the first round of the previous year’s Masters, Brooks Koepka was at 15 when it appeared to me that his caddie was communicating club information to another caddie by silently mouthing “Five. Five!”.
Although Koepka did not gain any advantage from this, it is important to uphold the rules of golf. Instead of ignoring the incident, it would be better to review the footage and accept the penalty for sharing information.
This would not only be in the best interest of the game but also for maintaining one’s reputation. It is crucial to do what is right in situations like these.
Last week at Bay Hill, Clark was addressing his ball. “Currently, Wyndham Clark is in the lead at this tournament, which is considered to be one of the most significant events on the PGA Tour season, apart from the four majors.
Just think about the reaction from the golf community if he had admitted to a penalty at Bay Hill by saying, “I saw the footage. I clearly broke the rules. Give me the penalty.” Consider how fans would perceive him during this weekend.”
Woods had the opportunity to improve golf during his time in Chicago. Similarly, Reed, Koepka, and Clark also had the potential to positively impact the sport.
All of them had the chance to enhance the game of golf.
Did you notice the quick and cold handshake between McIlroy and Spieth at the end of play on Friday? It seemed like Spieth missing the cut played a part in it. Maybe their discussion from Thursday was still on their minds.
The possibility of a new model for men’s professional golf causing distress for these two players is high. There could be underlying issues that even they are not aware of.
This weekend, professional golf will be televised. It is the responsibility of the players to engage the golfing community and make them interested. They should understand that even the smallest details can make a big difference in golf.