Tour championship sees a parade of golf personalities
Welcome to the Tour Championship, which as it turns out, is also something of an actual tour. Come, explore the various peaks, canyons and plateaus of a golfer’s temperament.
At the top of FedEx Cup points list, where all the interest and the bulk of the money lives, is an intriguing assortment of emotional approaches to this oft-maddening game. The extremes among the top five in points range from ultra-unflappable (Dustin Johnson) to fiery (young Jon Rahm). From stoic to volcanic. With all the stops in between (see Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas).
How these players react to a ball wandering into East Lake’s Bermuda rough or the inevitable putt that behaves badly will be significant to the show this week, beginning Thursday. And good for that, for how boring it would be if they were all the same, like so many slices of melba toast.
In their varied ways, all must deal with golf’s treacheries.
“Most players have learned that this game is so sensitive to changes in emotion,” said sports psychologist Bob Rotella, a most widely quoted and published authority on the golfing mind. “Whether it causes you to change the rhythm of your swing or your stroke or you start hitting the ball a lot further or shorter or change your sequence. Anything like that. You better know what hurts your game and you better learn how to stay calm.”
From the outside looking in, the process of coping can be a hoot to watch. And to hear.
Take Spieth, as he offers a soliloquy after each shot, most often condemning an inanimate dimpled object for not doing precisely as he commands. Even on those shots that would leave the weekend golfer giddy. All the world can eavesdrop on his thought bubble.
Why, wire him up, he could put guys like NBC’s roving oncourse reporter Roger Maltbie out of work. But that’s OK by him.
“I think Jordan is fun to watch because of his personality. He’s young. I still see a little bit of junior golfer in him, which I like. He’s excitable. The passion is obviously there. It’s a kick to hear his ongoing commentary — ‘Don’t bury! Don’t this! Don’t that!’”
To another member of the on-course broadcasting set, Spieth’s good buddy Thomas is a fascination for the way he deals with the competitive pressures.
“I’ve been blown away by him when we’ve been able to hear the conversations he and his caddie have, down the stretch at the PGA or down the stretch in Boston a couple weeks ago,” said Jim “Bones” Mackay, Phil Mickelson’s longtime caddie who recently took up the microphone. He was referencing two of the five tournament’s Thomas has won this season.
“He’s the most relaxed guy you’ve seen in those kind of spots. He looks like he should be playing in shorts and a T-shirt with his buddies for $5, and he’s out there trying to win a major.”
In building a career that has featured at least one PGA Tour victory each of the last 10 years, a 2016 U.S. Open championship and a current No. 1 world ranking, Johnson also has built the reputation as one of the least outwardly emotional guys on the course. The face on the coin Johnson uses to mark his ball changes expressions more than he does. From a distance, you start to believe, no matter the mess he’s in, that his heartbeat has the slow, constant beat of a dripping faucet.
Hit ball far. Lope athletically and purposefully to next shot. Repeat. As Johnson sees it, why get all worked up about a game?
“I just don’t get angry,” he said. “If I hit a bad shot I’ve already seen it before.”
Which brings us to the Spaniard Rahm. He’s trying to get a handle on that red mist, which occasionally gathers between his ears when the golf goes bad. You see it in the low boil after a bad shot. You saw it during the U.S. Open as he executed a nice wedge toss with a kicking flourish and had a disagreement with a bunker rake. You await the next eruption, like the crowd gathered expectantly around Old Faithful. His mental coach is a former bomb disposal expert. Insert pithy aside here.