Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick, who is 27 but would still get carded in a pub, hit the shot of his life from the 18th fairway Sunday and minutes later was hugging his mum and dad — the U.S. Open victory his in Brookline, Massachusetts. His first major win was also his first professional win on American soil.
Sweet story.
For a minute, golf almost seemed normal again.
Golf is anything but.
Brooks Koepka, one of the PGA Tour loyalists (at least for now), said a “black cloud” hovered over this U.S. Open, the first battlefield, really, in the sport’s sudden civil war. The cloud is there because Saudi Arabian megamillions, ding business as the upstart LIV Golf Invitational Series, is betting on greed and winning.
Bryson DeChambeau is one of the defectors. His agent, Brad Falkoff: “Professional golf as we know it is changing., and it’s happening quickly.”
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He could be talking about sports in general, because what we are seeing coming out of the pandemic, all around, is the biggest tumult in sports history.
College football teams hop from one conference to another with regularity now, as players flood the transfer portal. The new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules take a sledgehammer to the last quaint notion of amateurism at the collegiate level. The grip of the NCAA disintegrates before us.
The Olympics and individual sport governing bodies grapple with the growing issue of transgender athletes. Just Monday, FINA, which rules swimming, drew backlash for its new “gender inclusion policy” that bans biological men from competing in women’s events — as Penn swimmer Lia Thomas has with such success — unless they had transitioned before age 12.
A European Super League led by powers Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid threatened to disrupt and redefine international soccer until collapsing under its own weight, the threat dormant, not disappeared.
Sports is all over the map on how to handle athletes from Russia and Belarus in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Wimbledon has banned such players, including the world’s No. 1-ranked man. No such ban in the NHL, where Tampa Bay’s Russian goalkeeper is in the Stanley Cup Final.
Athlete empowerment embodied by LeBron James and others frays at the very notion as free agency. Mental health is a growing issue in all sports. NFTs are a new revenue stream.
Now, as nobody seems bothered by the NBA’s massive financial ties to China and the next FIFA World Cup plays out this fall in human rights-violating Qatar, the PGA Tour begins to rend at its seams as the lure of Saudi riches buys golfers willing to sell their souls by engaging in that kingdom’s blatant sportswashing.
The challenge to the PGA Tour makes one wonder about the ability of the ATP and WTA tours in tennis, for example, to fend off a similar hostile takeover. What prevents world’s richest man Elon Musk from seeing what’s happening in a golf as a fun opportunity in tenns? Nothing, is the short answer.
It is happening in golf despite the obvious deterrent:
Saudi Arabia has abhorrent laws criminalizing the LGBTQ community. The CIA believes the Saudi government murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The group 9/11 Families United sent a sharply critical letter to Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and other prominent defectors to LIV Golf reminding that Saudi Arabian ties to the 9/11 catastrophe of 2001 included the fact 15 of 19 hijack pilots were Saudi.
The PGA Tour and commissioner Jay Monahan have drawn mostly praise for taking a hard line against the LIV defectors, an us-or-them-but-not-both edict that included indefinite suspensions of the defectors who played in the inaugural LIV event outside London last week.
The U.S. Open, independent of the PGA Tour, allowed the defectors to compete this past week, but, interestingly, only four of 15 who did made the cut in Brookline.
Whether the four golf majors will fall in line with the Tour against the LIV defectors remains to be seen. As does the golf war’s impact on the beloved Ryder Cup. Now LIV commissioner Greg Norman says the rogue tour will apply for Official World Golf Ranking points, which would be a major step toward legitimizing it.
The bitterness between PGA Tour loyalist players and those volunteering as Saudi pawns for the guaranteed money showed when loyalists Rory McIlroy won the PGA Tour event preceding the Open.
He made an emphasis to note with delight that, with the win, he surpassed Norman in career Tour victories.
Golf is an unlikely landscape for a civil war.
This is the gentleman’s game, one of decorum, tradition, “Quiet Please” signs and reverent adherence to persnickety rules.
Money talks, though. Check that. It screams. And it is a common denominator across the tumult in sports.
In golf now, the money is screaming so loud a man might misplace his soul chasing it. All it took for Mickelson was $200 million from the Saudis, guaranteed, as a sign-on bonus. Johnson sold out for $125 mill.
When the money behind LIV Golf is this loud and the well of it this deep, well, the civil war has only just begun.
No ‘Quiet Please’ sign will stop the noise an obscenity of riches can make.
McIlroy questions competitive desire of players in LIV Golf
NOT SO PERFECT GOLF
Jon Rahm knows as well as anyone how hard it is to win a major, much less a U.S. Open. It was only reviewing highlights of his win last year at Torrey Pines that he realized that great golf and perfect golf are not the same.
It helps to already have one major, so he said that eases a little of the pressure. He feels he can enjoy the U.S. Open a little more knowing he doesn't have to do anything special.
“It's easy to think you need to be playing perfect golf,” Rahm said. "And I remember watching my highlights of Sunday last year, and I thought I played one of the best rounds of my life. And I kept thinking, ‘I cannot believe how many fairway bunkers I hit that day, how many greens I missed, and how many putts I missed.’
“It's golf, and that's how it is,” he said. “You truly don’t have to play perfect, and that’s I think the best lesson I can take from that.”
BROOKLINE MEMORIES
Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Sergio Garcia are the only players at the U.S. Open who played in the 1999 Ryder Cup. Those aren't the only players making a return to The Country Club.
Four players who reached the quarterfinals of the 2013 U.S. Amateur also made it into the U.S. Open at Brookline. That starts with Matt Fitzpatrick, the winner. It also includes Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, Corey Conners of Canada and Brandon Matthews.
Scheffler had an amazing run. He needed 20 holes to beat Stewart Jolly in the first round, 20 holes to beat Brandon Hagy in the second round and he beat Matthias Schwab on the 18th hole to reach the quarterfinals. He lost to Brady Watt, 2 and 1.
“I remember being down in pretty much all my matches and coming back,” Scheffler said. “On the three that I won, I came back late on all of them. I think I made a big putt against maybe Brandon Hagy — may have been Brandon — on 17. I have good memories of this place.”
QUALIFYING BLUES
Collin Morikawa is a two-time major champion at age 25, the No. 7 player in the world who can expect to be exempt in the U.S. Open for years to come.
It wasn't always that easy.
“Yeah, well, I suck at qualifying. I really do," Morikawa said Tuesday.
He said he never made it to a U.S. Junior and he can think of only one U.S. Amateur appearance when he was exempt through his amateur ranking. As for the U.S. Open? He went through qualifying three times while at Cal and never came particularly close.
“I decided I hate California — no, I'm kidding,” the California native said.
He missed out by four shots at Lake Merced in San Francisco in 2016 and in 2018. In between, the U.S. Open sectional was in Newport Beach. He missed that by seven shots.
“I just never played well in those events and decided to go to the Ohio one three years ago,” he said. “Made that. The rest is history.”
He made it through Columbus — known as the PGA Tour qualifier because it has the strongest field and the most spots — without a shot to spare. That was in 2019, and he tied for 35th at Pebble Beach in his second tournament as a pro.
Four starts later, he was a PGA Tour winner. A year later, he was a major champion. Yes, the rest is history.
A CADDIE'S LIFE
Rory McIlroy is back to work with his old caddie for the U.S. Open.
Harry Diamond, a longtime friend and Irish amateur player, has been on McIlroy's bag the last five years but was home last week as his wife gave birth to their second child. McIlroy had a backup plan — former Irish rugby union player Niall O'Connor — when he won the RBC Canadian Open for his first win this year.
“Niall and I's run has come to an end at this point,” McIlroy said. “Pretty good record. Had a fourth in Dubai and a first in Canada. If I ever need someone to jump in for Harry, I've got a pretty good substitute there.”
STAT OF THE DAY
Of the six news conferences Tuesday, Scottie Scheffler was the only player who was not asked about the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series.
FINAL WORD
“If you want to be one of the best players in the world, this is the country where you need to play the majority of your golf.” — Rory McIlroy.
