An old line in sports is that golf is a four-letter word. That saying is no doubt from all the words you might hear on a golf course from all the golfers in the world hitting bad shots.
But the new adage might be that golf is a five-letter word. And that word is chaos. Nowhere has the chaos that is engulfing the golf world been more obvious than in the last month.
What once was a sport with a reputation for sportsmanship, civility and good fellowship is showing cracks at the professional level. Sniping, name-calling and greed seem to have taken over.
Ryder Cup money
Was the U.S. Ryder Cup team a house divided? At least one of the players involved has denied this, but both Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele have been connected in stories (including one interview with Schauffele’s father) about wanting to be paid for their Ryder Cup participation.
The point is made that the PGA of America makes a ton of money off the Ryder Cup, and perhaps the money should be shared with the players. This is nothing new, since in 1999 several U.S. players including Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara and David Duval were involved in a pay-for-play controversy that eventually produced money for a player’s designated charity. But there was acrimony then and apparently acrimony now.
Caddie issues
A Ryder Cup caddie got involved with an opposing player. What exactly Joe LaCava thought he was doing taunting opposing fans while standing in the way of Europe’s Rory McIlroy sizing up a putt is anyone’s guess.
But it spilled over into a parking lot where McIlroy and NBC commentator and former high-profile caddie Jim “Bones” McKay were involved in a shouting match. Some people think it is adorable that a caddie stood his ground. Others wonder how an experienced caddie allowed himself to get suckered into the fray.
If we can’t have a Ryder Cup without opposing caddies and players getting into it verbally, then why are we bothering to contest this event at all?
LIV backlash
Even as Brooks Koepka was posting a 1-1-1 record, better than most of his U.S. teammates, some argued that Koepka’s presence on the U.S. team was an insult because he has played on the LIV tour for two years and is suspended from the PGA Tour.
The Ryder Cup is not a PGA Tour event, of course, but those who point to Koepka being greedy and a mercenary might now have the same opinions about Cantlay and Schauffele.
Koepka did make a mistake early in the week saying not many players would mean it if they said they wanted to play the anchor match. Would Koepka mean it?
No PGA Tour deal?
Speaking of the LIV tour, the money behind that tour, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, has a framework deal for a new organization that would include the PGA Tour. But that deal was announced in June, and here we are in October with still very few details revealed about the new organization.
Now Bloomberg is reporting the PGA Tour is looking for additional investors, perhaps in an effort to reduce the backlash over the PIF and Saudi Arabia. It now appears a new structure won’t be in place by the start of the 2024 season.
And does the PIF really want other investors in this deal? Money, greed and power struggles are popping up again, it appears.
Lexi in Vegas
Lexi Thompson, who bristled at being asked about a cold-stone shank chip shot during the Solheim Cup, will become the seventh woman to play in a PGA Tour event at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas on Oct. 12-15. There will be far more scrutiny on her game in Las Vegas than there was in Spain at the Solheim Cup. Can she handle that?
That’s just two weeks of news in a sport that generally generates positive stories. And some of these stories might still be positive, like a strong result for Thompson in Las Vegas, or a negotiated peace at the Ryder Cup or even a palatable solution to the PGA Tour-PIF framework.
But maybe it would be best if the game could just, well, calm down a bit for a few weeks.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan.
