Attention swings to fans’ behavior
Taunts toward DeChambeau hot topic at FedEx Cup finale
ATLANTA — The PGA Tour has reached its Super Bowl or its Game 7, an appropriate analogy only because the Tour Championship is the final event of the FedEx Cup season.
That’s where any comparison ends. The loudest message emanating from East Lake this year: Golf is different from other sports.
It’s not just about the postseason format in which Patrick Cantlay has a two-shot lead before hitting a shot as the No. 1 seed, or the very real possibility that a player who takes the fewest shots over four rounds might not win the $15 million prize or leave town with a trophy.
It’s as much about the behavior of some fans starting to treat golf like other sports.
And that conversation these days typically starts with Bryson DeChambeau.
“I certainly feel some sympathy for him because I don’t think that you should be ostracized or criticized for being different, and I think we have all known from the start that Bryson is different and he is not going to conform to the way people want him to be,” Rory McIlroy said. “There’re certainly things that he has done in the past that have brought some of this on himself. I’m not saying he’s completely blameless in this.
“But at the same time, I think he has been getting a pretty rough go of it of late.”
DeChambeau already is an outlier in an otherwise buttoned-down sport, from his single-length shafts in his irons to his fanatical pursuit of speed and distance with the driver. He simply smashes it, and that makes him must-see golf.
It’s different now. Whether it’s a social media spat with Brooks Koepka that has led fans to calling him “Brooksie” as a taunt or DeChambeau’s occasional fits of pouting when golf doesn’t go his way, his popularity has made him an easy target.
The voices in the gallery were tough at the Memorial and at Memphis. And while practically everyone at Caves Valley was pulling for DeChambeau last week, he wasn’t immune to heckling.
Patrick Cantlay, who made a name for himself with sheer resolve and clutch putting to beat DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff, witnessed all of it at the BMW Championship. And part of him saw it coming long before that.
“I think, unfortunately, it might be a symptom of a larger problem, which is social media driven and which is potentially Player Impact Program derived,” Cantlay said. “I think when you have people that go for attention-seeking maneuvers, you leave yourself potentially open to having the wrong type of attention.”
The Player Impact Program is new this year, a $40 million bonus pool for the top 10 players who drive fan engagement through five metrics. Cantlay isn’t a fan of it. He also isn’t big on social media. He’s an old-school player who prefers to be judged by his scores.
“But it can be awesome, too, because if you succeed and you do the perfect things all the time, and then you also go for the right attention-seeking moves, you get like double bonus points because everyone loves you and you’re on the perfect side of it,” Cantlay said. “I think it’s just a very ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ type of deal. And when you leave it to a jury, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Monahan said under the PGA Tour’s code of conduct, updated earlier this year, ejection would occur for those who are vulgar, harassing and disrespectful. “Brooksie” would fall into that category. This is nothing new, even in golf. Jack Nicklaus was called “Fat Jack” when he arrived and started beating the beloved Arnold Palmer. Galleries used to count off how many times Sergio Garcia regripped his clubs.
“I think certain other sports culture has fed into our game and fed into the fan base that’s definitely affected it,” McIlroy said. “And people will make the argument that, ‘Well, it happens in every other sport.’ But I would say that we’re not any other sport.
“And I think golf should hold itself to a higher standard. The players are certainly held to a higher standard than other sports, so why wouldn’t our fan base be?”