Players are (thankfully) still telling us how they really feel, Dustin Johnson takes a page out of Billy Madison’s book and even when he’s down, Justin Thomas’ friends are there to give him a hard time. All that and more in this week’s edition of The Social.
A couple of weeks ago Pat Perez was vilified after giving his opinion on Tiger Woods’ latest injury issues, and it was fair to wonder if the trickle-down effect would be less honesty and more robot-like answers from professional golfers looking to avoid what could be a distracting spotlight in the age of the 24-hour news cycle.
If the past week is any indication, we have nothing to worry about.
The USGA and R&A rolled out some proposed changes to the Rules of Golf, which were met with plenty of reaction on social media. While much of it was positive, the pros who weren’t 100 percent on board with the new rules opted for a not-so subtle approach to express their opinion, for which we thank them.
We should have our own book and distance ourselves from amateur governing bodies. https://t.co/ss8YUdRjQC
— DeLetty (@GrahamDeLaet) March 1, 2017
Fact is, there's an old boys club based in New Jersey that have never hit a shot on Tour who make decisions that affect our families
— DeLetty (@GrahamDeLaet) March 1, 2017
Maybe there should be professional rules and amateur rules because I'm not getting a good vibe about some of these proposed changes
— Daniel Berger (@DanielBerger59) March 1, 2017
that doesn't even make sense!!!! You get 40 seconds to hit the shot I should able to whatever I want
— Brittany Lincicome (@Brittany1golf) March 1, 2017
They say honesty is the best policy, and that is unequivocally true ... for us. So here’s to hoping the truth serum continues to flow through the world of golf.
As for the golf this past week, here’s a quick recap of what went down at the WGC-Mexico Championship, where Dustin Johnson once again came out on top:
DJ cemented his status as world No. 1 with his fourth WGC victory on Sunday, and then he went home to his adorable son,Tatum, new puppy, Perla, and pregnant swing pupil, Paulina Gretzky, who were cheering him on from Instagram. It doesn’t suck to be Dustin Johnson right now.
As for the guys Johnson beat in Mexico, well, they had their moments. The best of which probably came from Thomas, who aced the 232-yard par-3 13th hole on Saturday - forever immortalized by a Spanish soccer announcer calling it as if JT had just won the World Cup in extra time:
The worst of which? Well, that would also be from Thomas, not only fading into a tie for fifth on Sunday, but also immediately letting go of his driver out of frustration on the par-5 11th hole and nearly hitting the gallery with it.
Thomas apologized afterward but caught some heat from television analysts and folks on social media for his actions. Luckily, his friends were there to console him ... by making fun of him on Twitter, like real friends do.
.@JustinThomas34 it was so on plane though... should be proud of that! pic.twitter.com/CwKoIEpIXF
— Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) March 5, 2017
As for the fan, hey, at least it wasn’t a hockey game. Those guys make sure the gallery gets involved.
Forgot something back there, bud.
Back to hockey.
Another PGA Tour event for Andrew “Beef” Johnston, another outing to see one of the local professional sports teams.
On the west coast of Florida for this week’s Valspar Championship, Beef made his way to the Tampa Bay Lightning game on Monday.
Despite it being his very first “ice hockey” game, he ended up on live TV and taking pictures with the mascot, so it looks like he got the hang of it pretty quick.
And if we use last year’s U.S. Open as a barometer, there’s a good chance Beef made a large deposit at the team’s pro shop and walked out of the arena with enough Lightning swag to clothe a small Beef-sized army.
Fresh off a girls trip to Las Vegas, Cheyenne Woods was lucky enough to be sitting courtside for the weekend’s most exciting sporting event, a Phoenix Suns basketball game (seriously).
Tiger’s niece just happened to have the camera rolling from her seat as the Suns scored 5 points in the final 5 seconds to stun the Boston Celtics. Down by 2 with less than 10 seconds left in the game, the Suns got a layup, a steal and a 3-pointer to win the game.
Here’s what the crazy finish looked like from the floor:
Now about that girls trip to Vegas, don’t worry, we got you covered.
