PGA Tour will allow walk-up music for the first time, so we guessed the golfers’ songs

The PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic is doing work to revolutionize the sport’s often stuffy tournaments. In 2017, the event shook things up by changing from a traditional stroke play event two a two-man, alternate shot, team excursion. In 2018, it’s going a step further by hyping up the world’s best athletes like baseball does — with hand-picked walk-up music.

That’s a step forward for a sport slowly embracing the rowdier aspects of its fan base. Soon, the first tee at the TPC of Louisiana will be booming with rock anthems and the low rumble of country music ballads as some of the Tour’s best golfers compete for more than $2 million in prize money.

There’s room for a wide mix of music to echo through the fairways in New Orleans, but we won’t know just what each golfer will be coming out to until the event starts April 26th. That doesn’t mean we can’t muster up some guesses, however.

Patrick Reed: Imagine Dragons - Radioactive

CBS fleshed Reed out as a fully-realized villain by noting he listens to Imagine Dragons, the inexplicably popular American band that tries to do six things at once in every song while doing none of them well, before every round. Patrick Reed is a monster.

Jordan Spieth: Kenny Chesney - Summertime

Spieth’s Texas roots shined through on his five-song Pebble Beach Pro-Am Spotify playlist. If he’s gonna go all-out country, I think he’d go with something a little more high energy than Chesney’s duet with P!nk, and She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy is too mainstream. Summertime’s got a good, twangy intro and seems on brand, just swap out all the “ball park” references with “golf course.”

Dustin Johnson: Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA

Dustin doesn’t really care for Miley, but his wife absolutely does, as evidenced in this Instagram video where DJ lip-syncs with all the enthusiasm of a kidnapping victim.

BLINK TWICE IF THEY AREN’T FEEDING YOU, DUSTIN

Rory McIlroy: Calvin Harris - Summer

McIlroy is leans hard into his European roots with a documented diet of house music at the driving range. He also has no idea if Flogging Molly is a band or just an elaborate prank being played on him by Golf.com. Northern Ireland is basically just pale Jersey Shore.

Rickie Fowler: Dierks Bentley - Drunk on a Plane

Magical things happen when Dierks Bentley and Rickie Fowler team up. Like that time we got to see the eight-time PGA Tour winner pull off a C- tallboy shotgun after bombing out of the 2016 Masters.

Bubba Watson: Yacht Rock Revue - Africa (Toto cover)

There’s an 30% chance Watson was the lead singer of Yacht Rock Revue all along. They’re both well known for their accomplishments in the great state of Georgia (two wins at the Masters for Bubba, the Yacht Rock Revival for YRR), and they both look like they just finished doing backing work on a Christopher Cross record.

Phil Mickelson: Phil Collins - Sussudio

Phils stick together. Also, Sussudio is a banger, and Mickelson’s wife’s maiden name? Susan Sudio.*

Tiger Woods: Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack

Woods’ has displayed questionable judgment in his past, but his choice of music is rock solid. He loves Mark Morrison’s one-hit wonder so much his favorite Christmas tradition is playing “Mac Daddy Santa” who, much like traditional Santa, has a white goatee and refuses to wear a shirt.

Apologies, I was thinking of Scott Steiner.

Sergio Garcia: the audio from his Michelob commercial.

I just wanted to use this opportunity to remind people a beer company once thought the best way to sell its product was Garcia throwing garbage into a woman’s belly button.

Tommy Fleetwood: ...

Oh man. Too easy. The name alone conjures up warm memories of the band that redefined relationship rock in the 1970s, cutting a path of relatable songs that showcased the growth of a marriage, the distance that forms as time marches forward, and the depressing passion that escapes like sand through your fingertips as you look back at your life and try to retrace the steps that led you to where you are now.

That’s right, REO Speedwagon. For Fleetwood, I’d go with It’s Time for Me to Fly.

*citation needed.