Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick, who is 27 but would still get carded in a pub, hit the shot of his life from the 18th fairway Sunday and minutes later was hugging his mum and dad — the U.S. Open victory his in Brookline, Massachusetts. His first major win was also his first professional win on American soil.
Sweet story.
For a minute, golf almost seemed normal again.
Golf is anything but.
Brooks Koepka — more on him later — said a “black cloud” hovered over this U.S. Open, the first battlefield, really, in the sport’s sudden civil war. The cloud is there because Saudi Arabian megamillions, ding business as the upstart LIV Golf Invitational Series, is betting on greed and winning.
Bryson DeChambeau is one of the defectors. His agent, Brad Falkoff: “Professional golf as we know it is changing., and it’s happening quickly.”
He could be talking about sports in general, because what we are seeing coming out of the pandemic, all around, is the biggest tumult in sports history.
College football teams hop from one conference to another with regularity now, as players flood the transfer portal. The new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules take a sledgehammer to the last quaint notion of amateurism at the collegiate level. The grip of the NCAA disintegrates before us.
The Olympics and individual sport governing bodies grapple with the growing issue of transgender athletes. Just Monday, FINA, which rules swimming, drew backlash for its new “gender inclusion policy” that bans biological men from competing in women’s events — as Penn swimmer Lia Thomas has with such success — unless they had transitioned before age 12.
A European Super League led by powers Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid threatened to disrupt and redefine international soccer until collapsing under its own weight, the threat dormant, not disappeared.
Sports is all over the map on how to handle athletes from Russia and Belarus in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Wimbledon has banned such players, including the world’s No. 1-ranked man. No such ban in the NHL, where Tampa Bay’s Russian goalkeeper is in the Stanley Cup Final.
Athlete empowerment embodied by LeBron James and others frays at the very notion as free agency. Mental health is a growing issue in all sports. NFTs are a new revenue stream.
Now, as nobody seems bothered by the NBA’s massive financial ties to China and the next FIFA World Cup plays out this fall in human rights-violating Qatar, the PGA Tour begins to rend at its seams as the lure of Saudi riches buys golfers willing to sell their souls by engaging in that kingdom’s blatant sportswashing.
The challenge to the PGA Tour makes one wonder about the ability of the ATP and WTA tours in tennis, for example, to fend off a similar hostile takeover. What prevents world’s richest man Elon Musk from seeing what’s happening in a golf as a fun opportunity in tenns? Nothing, is the short answer.
It is happening in golf despite the obvious deterrent:
