TALOR SWIFT
Gooch races up leaderboard then does rapid retreat from his crazy Ryder comments
TALOR GOOCH admits he’s been slaughtered for his brainless comparisons between LIV Golf and The Ryder Cup.
But while the American might have been overexuberant with his dumb chat, he’s also not shy about embracing the game’s traditions and history.
Even if Gooch still hopes the Saudi-series boys stick it to their critics and get their hands on the Claret Jug, he’s not dismissive of the old values that the R&A defend.
The 30-year-old was slaughtered by PGA and DP Tour boys for mouthing off about LIV’s atmosphere being the replica of the Ryder and Presidents Cups, even though he’s never played in them.
Gooch said: “I was just in the moment. I watch F1 and I was so pumped to be able to spray champagne like they do.
“It was maybe a little aggressive a comment and rightfully so I’ve taken a little bit of heat for it.
“A bunch of players came up and they’re like, ‘Really? Really?’ I said, ‘Hold on a second, guys. Give me a little break. I’d just won. I was in the moment’. I don’t know if I can say their comments out loud. It’s everything you’d expect. Dumb kid from Oklahoma, blah, blah. You’re never going to blah, blah.”
It’s not that Gooch is disrespectful to golf ’s traditions. Quite the opposite, it seems, given his behaviour this week at the Home of Golf.
He added: “It’s the mecca, it’s super, super special. That’s why I dragged my wife and oneyear-old girl overseas just to experience this one week and dealt with all the travel hassle of it all because it’s hopefully not a once-in-alifetime experience.
“This is my first one here so I wanted to be sure we were here to enjoy it all.”
Gooch and his 23 LIV colleagues appear to be on a double mission this week – to win the 150th Open and to prove the standard of their Saudi series is deserving of recognition and respect. He said: “It’s cool for me to see other guys out there playing well.
“We’ve caught a lot of flak for what we’ve done here recently but one thing that can’t be questioned is the quality of players that are there.
‘It feels like everybody is against us. That’s okay. It’s kind of banded us together.”