The golf season is officially coming to a close on the PGA and European Tour schedules, but not before two final tournaments that really didn’t mean a whole lot: the World Challenge and the Nedbank Golf Challenge. While the latter turned out to be rather uneventful, the former included heckling, gallery shouting and Graeme McDowell getting annoyed. Oh, and Keegan Bradley was called a nasty name. Yay golf!
Bunker Rake: G-Mac wants you to be quiet, please
In case you missed this weekend’s exciting golf action, here is a quick recap of tournament results and other golfy things.
Stephen Dunn
- McDowell not pleased with gallery shouting. If you’ve watched golf at all over the last few months, chances are you heard some moron in the tournament gallery shout “mashed potatoes!” or “get in the hole!” shortly after a player’s golf swing. During that time it seems what had originally been funny for 0.3 seconds has now escalated into a full-out competition to see who can yelled the dumbest phrase possible. This week’s World Challenge was no exception, and eventual winner McDowell has had enough.
”I’m kind of fed up with all this “mashed potatoes” and all this rubbish that the crowd are kind of enjoying shouting right now,” McDowell said. “It’s something for the players, it’s not a lot of fun and it’s kind of becoming a little bit of a cool thing to do for the spectators. It kind of gives them their two or three seconds of fame. But it gets a little frustrating for everyone.”
During his final round, a fan yelled “yabba dabba doo!” after one of McDowell’s swings, prompting G-Mac to yell back at the fan and reportedly call him a “wanker”. Is there a cooler way to be insulted than getting called a wanker by an Irishman? I think not.
- Keegan gets called a cheater for using long putter. Who knew that the World Challenge would be such a thuggish event? As was reported earlier this weekend, Keegan Bradley was called a cheater by another galley member on Saturday because the former PGA Champion still uses a belly putter. Since then the USGA has issued a statement apologizing to Keegan for the outburst, even though they should have seen something like this coming.
This is the issue with delaying the enforcement of the new ruling until 2016; players will continue to use the long putters until that time, opening the door for idiots in the gallery to shout accusations for the next three years. I’m not saying the USGA is responsible for fan behavior, but they are responsible for maintaining the integrity of the game.
- Martin Kaymer wins a tournament in 2012. Be honest with me for a second; am I the only guy who didn’t realize Kaymer hadn’t won anything this season? Seems to me the former world No. 1 should be given a trophy every season for simply being one of the coolest cats on any tour. The guy is as German as someone can be yet is also one of the softest spoken in the game. His victory at the Nedbank Golf Challenge is well-deserved and the tournament should forever be renamed to the Martin Kaymer Week of Excellence, because “Nedbank” sounds dumb.
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