Brooks Koepka didn’t deliver the first eye roll in golf. Turns out PGA Tour history is rich in feud-inspired ridicule and rip jobs.
Koepka’s disdain for Bryson DeChambeau is well-documented, the latest installment coming less than two weeks ago at the PGA Championship, when during a post-round Golf Channel interview Koepka rolled his eyes, lost focus and uttered obscenities as DeChambeau walked behind him.
The video, which never aired and was never meant to, was leaked and posted to Twitter, where it went viral and led to a cascade of amusing memes.
What prompted Koepka’s reaction remains unclear; theories range from him being bothered by the sound of DeChambeau’s metal spikes on the sidewalk to DeChambeau making a veiled comment about Koepka’s struggles with putting.
Sourcing revealed that neither of those hypotheses hold water. Instead, this was simply a case of Koepka kerfuffling at the sight of a player he views as a science fair nerd. Koepka, meanwhile, fancies himself the starting quarterback. If that means coming off looking like the too-cool-for-school jock from a 1980s John Hughes movie, so be it.
More than a few tour insiders think Koepka revels in his image as a James Dean without a cause, besides winning majors. He has four of them. DeChambeau has one, just enough to be a competitive nuisance to Koepka.
I contend such feuds are good for golf; anything that adds interest to a game that younger people increasingly find boring is a positive. I also point out that the Koepka-DeChambeau brouhaha, which takes a break this week with the starting quarterback not playing the Memorial Tournament, is far from being the first example of Knives Out behavior. It is not even the most vicious, despite social media fanning the flames of unrest.
Memorial host Jack Nicklaus chimed in on the Koepka-DeChambeau soap opera on Tuesday, saying most of it is driven by the media. But he did confirm that feuding on and off the fairways is nothing new.
“Did we have arguments with guys? Sure, we all had arguments,” Nicklaus said. “Arnold (Palmer) and I were the best of friends, but did Arnold and I have a feud every once in awhile? Sure.”
Nicklaus and Palmer were more rivals than enemies — think Magic Johnson-Larry Bird more than Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant — but not all rivalries are built on such mutual respect. Some are bloody messes. A look at some of the more heated:
from Golfweek https://ift.tt/3cjsb93