Golfpocalypse
Confession: I break clubs when I'm mad
Golfpocalypse is a weekly collection of words about (mostly) professional golf with very little in the way of a point, and the Surgeon General says it will make you a worse person. Reach out to The Golfpocalypse with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at shane.spr8@gmail.com.
It will be a long time before I forget the look on Golf Digest colleague Joel Beall's face when I told him that, on rare occasions, I get extremely pissed off on a golf course and snap a club over my leg. We were having dinner one night while covering the Open in Troon, the conversation had turned to on-course behavior, and he was genuinely shocked at the idea that I'd get mad enough to physically destroy a club like some juiced-up power hitter who just struck out for the fourth time. We've known each other for a couple years as work colleagues, we're good friends, and I don't think he saw me as a particularly angry person; I didn't fit his idea of a club-breaker. He also had another objection:
"You're not good enough to get that mad."
But I think what shocked him the most is that I don't really beat myself up about it, or consider it a problem. My rule on the course is that I allow myself a few seconds of anger after a bad shot, and then it's on to the next. Sometimes, though, if things are going south in a bad way, those few seconds of anger reach a crescendo, and a club gets murdered in a satisfying snap.
Now, let me contextualize this: It's rare. It would clearly not be sustainable either emotionally or financially to break shafts every time the rage boiled over. In ten years of playing golf, I've had maybe ten snapping incidents. I would also never do it in front of anyone I didn't know well. In fact, it's very important to me around new friends or strangers that the course vibes are good. I don't even think I'm a particularly angry player. I try very hard not to be whiny, and if I find myself sliding into an emotional abyss, I'm good at climbing out of it or knowing when to just leave. I'll drop an f-bomb in familiar company, gladly, but I won't shout. I also feel the need to mention that in actual life, I'm not a hothead, I don't get in fights, and I don't yell more than the average adult ... even at my kids, when they're in full pain-in-the-ass mode.
Of the ten times I've snapped a club, I'd estimate that seven have been solo rounds, and the other three were around very good friends who know me well enough that it wouldn't faze them; we've seen each other's emotional lows, and a snapped club barely registers on the Richter Scale of Golf Fury. It's also not uncontrollable—this year, it happened twice, which was a career high and which I already sensed was too much. Then, in a moment of frustration maybe two weeks after the second break, I did something I regret: I swung my putter at a flagstick (not that hard, I thought) and watch it break off at the hozel. That legitimately embarrassed me, both because I didn't want to break the putter, and because while hitting a flagstick may seem like a victimless crime, it made me feel too much like the assholes who dig their clubs into the actual green. That was two months ago, and I vowed then that I wouldn't break another club this year. And I won't! I might even keep it going into 2025.
Thinkstock Images
It will sound like a rationalization, but on some level, I think controlled outbursts on the course are a necessary emotional release valve. I also didn't quite agree with Joel's take that as an 11 handicap who has broken 80 just three times, I'm not good enough to be getting upset; he's much better than me, but I argued that even he isn't good enough, because he and I have played for the exact same amount of money in our lives, $0, and exist in the same broader category of recreational golfing irrelevance. Simply trying to get better at a frustrating game puts you on the same level as literally everybody else who isn't a professional, and whether you're scratch or an 11 or struggling to break 100 for the first time, I think you have the same right to get mad.
But, okay, let's be honest: There is something a bit shameful about breaking a club. The experience of bringing it in to the pro shop for repair is a little excruciating, even when they laugh. Paying $30 for a new shaft feels like proper penance for going a little too far, but is also embarrassing. If it wasn't off, on some level, I wouldn't have felt the need to quit cold turkey, and I wouldn't have a running tally in my head like the safety signs you see at some factories: "It has been ____ days since our last club-snapping incident."
Even as I write, though, my chief concern isn't about myself, or any perceived lack of self-control. It's about what you, the reader, will think. There's a part of me even now going, "mannnn, maybe I shouldn't write this." In my mind, it's mostly cathartic in the moment, and mostly funny after the fact. Something that requires a little tweaking, a little bit of zen, but in general not a big deal. In your mind? I might be a psychopath.
I accept that. When you're a breaker of clubs, even a reformed one, you've got to own it. But I maintain that in the grand scheme of things, this is not some big character flaw, and that sometimes, in the course of our lives, there comes a moment when you reach the golf boiling point and there's something liberating about going over that forbidden line, placing one hand on each side of the club, bringing it down with great velocity, and watching that sucker crack in two.
FIVE TOUR THOUGHTS, WYNDHAM EDITION
1. Matt Kuchar being the only dude to finish on Monday at the Wyndham, when he wasn't even in contention to win, has to go down as one of the funniest stories of the year, and this sequence of tweets is a comic masterpiece:
However, despite the fact that Kuchar has taken a lot of well-deserved shit over the last decade or so, and his reputation has generally followed the Kyrie Irving arc, I actually kinda get this one. I say this with the caveat that I have no clue if he was just pissed off at the Tour and being petulant, but his explanation on Monday made at least a little sense to me—he thought there was no chance that Greyserman would finish with a tournament win on the line, he didn't realize Rai had made birdie, and he maybe even thought he could offer Greyserman some protection by being the first guy to pack it in. That's not totally crazy! He probably should have talked to Greyserman beforehand, and hitting into the group ahead of him remains weird, but you can chalk those up to misunderstandings. And now I'm going to stop typing, because it is very uncomfortable to be the Kuchar defender.
2. I still can't wrap my mind around the two-hole sequence on the back nine Sunday when Greyersman holed out for eagle and then made a quad, thus securing victory and blowing it in the space of about ten minutes. And all because of a cart path that turned a bad drive into a disastrous one, sending the ball careening out of bounds ... this is a brutal sport.
3. I think I like the concept of a fall series to decide who stays on the PGA Tour and who goes, but as a North Carolina guy who has covered the Wyndham Championship many, many years in a row, not having Greensboro be the last stand for players trying to keep their Tour cards does this tournament no favors. Sure, there's still some "drama" about who makes the playoffs, and you need to make the playoffs in order to reach the top 50 and get automatic eligibility for next year's signature events, but who cares? Seriously, why would any fan care about that? Sunday was a special day at the Wyndham because of the real-life stakes at play, but you could almost feel the juice missing this year. And it ain't coming back.
4. If you love chaos, you have to root for Keegan Bradley to light up the playoffs, make the U.S. Presidents Cup team, and absolutely dominate a la Medinah, just to start the inevitable year-long Ryder Cup narrative of, "wait ... is he going to play?" As I've said before, I think there's every chance Bradley could do a good job as captain, and I liked his initial press conference, but from an organizational level there are so many pitfalls here and the "rooting for insanity" part of my brain wants things to get crazy.
5. Is there a better example of something that is critical to players but irrelevant to fans than this week's race to make the top 50 and gain entry to next year's signature events? It'll be a major talking point all week in Memphis, but the only actual "stakes" are which very rich men will get extra free money in 2025. Granted, the bulk of the attention will be on the actually meaningful part, which is who wins the tournament, but I'm dreading the top 50 discourse for how out-of-touch it all feels.
THE ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD LOCKS OF THE WEEK
The Golfpocalypse is not a gambling advice service, and you should never heed anything written here. Better picks are here.
Record through 3 weeks: 1-12. (I came so close to having a 2-11 record where both wins were Ernie Els, but he fell a shot short at the Boeing Classic.)
At the FedEx St. Jude Championship, I'm riding with Super Swede Ludvig Aberg. I've been hanging on to a potential nickname for him for a while, hoping it comes true, and while it hasn't yet, I can't keep it to myself any longer: The Swedish Scheff.
At LIV Greenbrier, I'm going with Bryson DeChambeau, because literally the only thing I remember from LIV last year is him shooting a 58 there.
At the Handa Women's Scottish Open, I'm riding with Linn Grant both because I want to pick a European and she's the one with the lowest odds, and also because we've got a Swedish theme going here.
Czech Masters? Obviously Jesper Svensson. Swedish? Check. Already -5 as I turn in this post? Check. Czech mate.
Finally, at the Rogers Charity Classic, screw it, Ernie Els is in the field, LET IT RIDE BIG EASY.
THE "DUMB TAKE I KIND OF BELIEVE"
This is an idea I've had for a literal decade, there are parts of it that don't even make sense to me, but what the hell, let's spit it out on paper: A cool format for a Tour event would be to start with 73 players, all of them playing a single hole, and exactly one player gets eliminated each hole until, after four days, you have the final two guys coming down to the 72nd hole for the tournament championship. It's like knockout, but for golf.
Now, is it a logistical nightmare to make those eliminations early on (I guess you'd need massive playoffs?), would it take forever, and would be it doomed to fail? Almost definitely. But if you don't think about it too hard, is it awesome? Ohhhh yeah.
THE READER STORY OF THE WEEK
Here are a couple on the topic of RAGE.
Paul:
Playing a meaningless weekend morning round at my home track a few years ago. Sixth hole is a par three over a pond. Missed green, chipped on and three putted missing a short putt. Promptly helicoptered Scotty Cameron into the pond. Had to putt with other clubs for the last 12 holes.
Same weekend - Playing partner gets his fins and a snorkel and goes in after the putter and videos the retrieval. Posts the recovery on Twitter.
We're playing another course later that week and he's now using the aqua-putter.
Adam:
Waiting to hit lay ups on par 5 with water in front of green and guy in front of us splashes 5 wedges in water. Proceeds to unhook clubs from bag and throw them in the water as well and drives off. 5 minutes later we are putting on the green and we see him drive back and we think he’s coming back to get the clubs. He jumps in the water, finds his bag, unzips the pocket and gets his car keys which he forgot. He leaves the clubs and tells us “have a good round” like all is normal.
Considering my history, I am extremely grateful that there is no water at my home course.
Previously on Golfpocalypse: