(Posted 6-22-26)
Greetings from The Booth!
I hope all the Dads out there had a great Sunday! I actually got to watch 7 hours of golf on Father’s Day without any complaints from my better half. That only happens once a year–Sunday at the US Open. If I tried to watch 7 hours of the “XYZ Dot Com Classic,” I would be sent straight to the Dog House, where there probably is no wi-fi.
In case you missed golf’s third major, Wyndham Clark won his second US Open in four years (he was the 2023 Champion), by holding off fellow American Sam Burns. World number-one Scottie Scheffler, who was paired with Clark on Sunday and was clearly the fan favorite, was stuck in neutral all day and finished at even par on the brutal Shinnecock Hills course on Long Island.
SIDEBAR: I like Scheffler. In fact, he was my pick to win the US Open and complete the “Scottie Slam.” But enough about the “World Number One” crap. Because of golf’s complicated ranking system that only a math major from MIT can figure out, Scheffler remains at number one. He hasn’t had a great year by his standards, with several runner-up finishes, and eight top-tens, but no “major wins,” which is a benchmark of the top player in the world. I’m not the biggest Tiger Woods fan, but Tiger in his prime would have found a way to win yesterday, if only by intimidation. Jack Nicklaus within 4 shots of a lead in a major was a frightening thought to those in contention on the Sunday of a major. Scheffler never made the big putts yesterday when he had several chances to grab the tournament by the short hair. This is a discussion for another day.
Let’s talk about the fan behavior at Shinnecock on Sunday. Clearly, the majority wanted Scheffler to win. After all, it was his birthday, and he was trying to complete the aforementioned “Scottie Slam,” needing only to add the US Open to his 2 Masters wins, his PGA victory, and his Open championship. I get it. It would have been a great story. But rooting for your favorite player doesn’t mean being a jackass toward his competitor, and that’s what happened yesterday.
To say the reaction toward Clark was lukewarm would be an understatement. You would have thought we were watching the Ryder Cup, where disgusting fan behavior rears it’s ugly head every two years (just ask Rory McIlroy, who is loved on Tour, but has to listen to absolute verbal bile at the Ryder Cup when it’s on American soil). Clark had to listen to hecklers all afternoon, and it’s safe to say he felt the negative vibe from the New York crowd.
To his credit, Clark made crucial par saves and several huge birdies yesterday, never losing the lead, all in the face of a gallery that made it clear they wanted him to lose. In fact, Clark led the US Open from 7:09 PM Thursday until his tap-in on number 18 on Sunday. That’s the equivalent of a Steve Austin double middle finger to a crowd that deserved it.
In golf , we root for our favorites, but don’t root against the other guy. That’s the spirit of the game many of us grew up with. That spirit was sadly lacking yesterday.
RW
