In golf (once more with feeling: as in life!) there are always corrections. For instance, you could consider saving up for the newest and baddest TaylorMade driver, the Qi4D Designer Series Shadowfall, available at Dick’s for $700. Or, with less financial stress, you could buy a 2017 TaylorMade M2, the make and model that Brandt Snedeker used when winning at Myrtle Beach this month. Saw one listed on 2nd Swing for $209.99.
Talk about corrections: Part of the appeal of Aaron Rai’s feel-good win at the PGA Championship, at nine under par, is his underlying modesty, in this age of bake-at-home celebrity. He has no social-media presence, a driver nearly as old as Snedeker’s and a home in suburban Jacksonville, Fla., that Henry David Thoreau would likely recognize. Thoreau, in one sentence: “Simplify, simplify.”
You might want to check out Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond, where he lived for two years, two months and two days. You can walk there in six hours from Fenway Park, faster via public transit.
What is Bryson DeChambeau worth on the open market, if he leaves LIV for green pastures? Don’t know, don’t care. Aaron Rai earned $3.7 million for winning the PGA Championship. If he’s worried about anything it’s money and fame and success changing him. Doesn’t seem likely. He takes his cues from Thoreau. You could tell that on Sunday afternoon. Golf reveals character as few things do. That’s been true forever.
Golf does tried-and-true well. The game changes over time, of course, as all things do, but here’s a quick Big Three of keepers: the 14-club limit, a ball weighing 1.62 ounces, play-it-as-it lies as a fundamental. They work, and they come out of golf’s sacred text, the rulebook. No rulebook, no golf. No tournament golf, anyhow.
I’ve cited this sentence, from an earlier version and preamble of the ever-changing rulebook, more than a few times. I do so because it says it all:
“All players should conduct themselves in a disciplined manner, demonstrating courtesy and sportsmanship at all times, irrespective of how competitive they may be. This is the spirit of the game of golf.”
Aaron Rai is the spirit of the game of golf.
I am fond of Robert MacIntyre, the Scottish left-hander and Ryder Cupper. And believe me, I understand the spirit by which he gave the middle finger to the pond on 15 at Augusta National during the Masters last month. We’ve all been there. The game can do weird things to any of us, anywhere. (I have been there many, many times, playing in front of nobody, for nothing.) But, truly, that whole first-round middle-finger thing, funny though it was in the moment, is beyond unacceptable when you think about it all. For starters, MacIntyre is playing Augusta National as a guest. That pond is part of the challenge the club is presenting, part of the greatness of the course and the tournament. That millions are watching goes without saying.
Conduct yourself in a disciplined manner, demonstrate courtesy and sportsmanship. It’s not complicated.
Sergio Garcia’s hissy fit on the second tee in the Sunday round at Augusta last month was even worse —he defiled a tiny piece of the course, site of Garcia’s greatest golf accomplishment. (He won there in 2017.) Garcia’s behavior rose to such a level that an Augusta National member, Geoff Yang, the tournament’s new rules chairman, felt compelled to go out to the course and discuss the matter with Garcia. I don’t know what Yang said but I can give you an educated guess and will reduce it to everyday language we all know: Not even close, dude.
And then there’s Rory McIlroy, after the first round of last week’s PGA Championship. He came into the press tent to meet with a small group of reporters. A PGA of America public relations official, Greg Dillard, opened the proceedings with this:
“Rory McIlroy is with us at the 108th PGA Championship. How would you describe your opening round?”
“Shit,” McIlroy said. No mirth, all heat.
I get it, we all get it. I’ve been there (in totally different circumstances) as we all have been. You’re hot, you take it out on the wrong person. In this case, McIlroy shot 74 and wasn’t happy about it. He was four strokes away from a good mood. McIlroy’s response was an honest one, and his candor, for getting on 20 years now, is one of the things that makes McIlroy special.
But a couple things here. His one-word answer degrades what Dillard’s job, appropriately, requires him to do — help get word about the proceedings from the PGA Championship out into the broader world. But here’s a more most significant point: McIlroy is lucky that anyone cares about his first-round score in the 108th PGA Championship at all. It’s easy to lose track of that, when you’ve been doing this whole play-the-world-elite-golfer thing, for big bucks and a lot of attention, for a long time. But that is the starting point that makes McIlroy’s whole public life possible: People care. His one-word response was not courteous, and it was not disciplined. Broadly, it lacked sportsmanship.
“All right, thank you — we’ll open it up for questions,” Dillard said, about as perfect response as a press-tent moderator could have in that situation. With one word, McIlroy seemed to have a reset, and from there on out he did his job. Really, he’s been a joy to cover, by and large and over the years. Every last one of us has our moments.
Aaron Rai’s are coming. He’ll be a public figure from here on out in a way he was not before the PGA Championship last week. Human nature is human nature. But this guy has so much at his core. We could all see it in a single afternoon. But this game will push any of to our limits, even Aaron Rai. That old preamble is always there as a useful reminder.
