Don’t offer up a poem or video essay that attempts to remind us, with an aristocratic air, that golf has a history of honorable, gentlemanly behavior, not so casually implying that tossing Brooks and Bryson into the same threesome might cheapen the first two rounds of America’s national championship.
Your ethos is the best players in the world whining about the unfairness of the setup, claiming you’ve lost the course, then storming to the parking lot, slamming trunks and blowing off all interviews.
Every major has its own identity, and it’s time you dropped the haughty pretense and leaned into yours.
Golf execs, in their corporate boardrooms, are always talking about “growing the game.” Well, here is an opportunity to do exactly that, to bring in a new audience eager to obsess over every sneer, every fist pump, every exasperated sigh, and turn them into a shareable GIF.
What if the league had decided to make sure they never played against anyone they trash-talked? In that alternate universe, the clip of Kyrie Irving stomping on the Boston Celtics logo wouldn’t have provided us with three days of delightful talk show and Twitter fodder; it would have been wiped from the internet.
“I think it’s good for the game.
You know who cares about Brooks and Bryson squabbling with each other? People who don’t care about golf, people who don’t know the difference between a gap wedge and a three wood.
In one corner, Team Brooks: We love crushing light beers, playing quickly and pantsing nerds who, we’re convinced, totally deserve it.
Sure, we make every interaction a little more awkward than it needs to be, and we have a weird affection for Kings of Leon songs, but even if we make people cringe, we matter.
They both claim they don’t care what anyone else thinks, yet both are extremely online, obviously name-searching in private to find slights, both real and imagined.
But if Bryson really is unnerved by people calling him “Brooksy,” then that’s part of the mountain he needs to climb if he wants to do what Brooks did in 2018, win back-to-back U.S.
“I think it’s absolutely flattering what they’re doing,” DeChambeau said at the Memorial Tournament, where fans were ejected for shouting Koepka’s name at him.
Over there, it’s all about the polite post-round handshake, a glass of white wine in the clubhouse and a promise to donate to each other’s charities.
You can borrow a little from the WWE, now and then, and give the people what we actually want.
Make it Max Homa, if you want someone who could crack jokes and lighten the mood.
To heck with anyone who grouses that it’s manufactured.
If Tiger Woods can win on this course with a broken leg, surely Brooks or Bryson can be asked to overcome a little awkward silence between shots.