From the PGA Tour dumping Trump to drama at the Ryder Cup and Olympics, take a look back at the biggest controversies of 2016.
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From the PGA Tour dumping Trump to drama at the Ryder Cup and Olympics, take a look back at the biggest controversies of 2016.
Players WD all the time for various reasons, but rarely do they get called out by their fellow pros. Graham DeLaet did just that on Twitter after Patrick Reed withdrew following an 81 in the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open. Reed cited an ankle injury. DeLaet didn’t buy it. “Does anyone have Pat Reed’s #?,” DeLaet tweeted. “I need to call him out for WD’ing and leaving us as a twosome in the final group off 10 in brutal weather.”
Ryan Ruffels’ pro career got off to a rocky start when he shared some details of a round with Phil Mickelson. Ruffels told the Sydney Morning Herald he won $5,000 off of Mickelson, but he later said the story was “exaggerated out of proportion.” Lefty didn’t hide his displeasure. “He’s young, and he’s got some things to learn. One of them is you don’t discuss certain things. You don’t discuss specifics of what you play for. And you certainly don’t embellish and create a false amount just for your own benefit.”
Despite his good record at TPC Scottsdale, Bubba Watson didn’t bite his tongue when asked about the recent changes to toughen up the course. ''I’m not going to PC it. I don’t like it at all.’' He also didn’t win over fans when he said he was only playing because of his “three beautiful sponsors that love it here.’' He later apologized. “I have nothing against the fans and the tournament.”
More than a year after a group of caddies filed a lawsuit against the PGA Tour, a federal judge in California threw out the lawsuit. The judge did not agree that the PGA Tour was using the caddies as “human billboards.” The caddies filed an appeal in June.
Rory McIlroy. Jordan Spieth. Dustin Johnson. Jason Day. Adam Scott. Those were just some of the big names who took a pass on playing in the Olympics in Rio. Several players cited Zika. Spieth said he had “health concerns.” For players like Camilo Villegas, he simply couldn’t pass up a start on the PGA Tour as he tried to keep his card. Fortunately, golf’s return to the Olympics was a success, and there likely won’t be as many WDs in Tokyo in 2020.
While he was not charged in an insider trading case, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Phil Mickelson profited from the scheme and was forced to return $931,000. ''Simply put, Mickelson made money that wasn’t his to make,’' Andrew Ceresney, head of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, said in May. “I’m disappointed to have been a part of that whole thing,” Mickelson said at the Memorial. “But after a thorough investigation, I’m pleased that it’s behind me.”
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said it was business, not politics, that made the Tour leave Doral and the Miami market after 54 years. Now president-elect Donald Trump, who owns Doral, wasn’t happy with the decision and said the “PGA Tour has put profit ahead of thousands of American jobs.” Finchem said the move to Mexico City was strictly a sponsorship issue. “When you’re asking a company to invest millions of dollars in branding a tournament, and they’re going to share that brand with the host, it’s a difficult conversation.”
Dustin Johnson said he didn’t cause his ball to move on the fifth green in the final round of the U.S. Open. The USGA felt differently, and they notified Johnson on the 12th tee as he was trying to win his first major. Unable to reach a conclusion, they decided to wait until after the round to make a final ruling, meaning Johnson played the rest of the back nine not knowing if he would be penalized. He eventually was given a one-shot penalty, but fortunately it didn’t matter and Johnson still won by three strokes. The USGA announced a local rule in December that would waive a penalty if a ball accidentally moves on the green.
Danny Willett’s first Ryder Cup got off to a bad start before he even put a tee in the ground. Willett’s brother, Pete, authored what he thought was a humorous essay for the National Club Golfer website that poked fun at American fans, but all it did was cause a headache for his sibling and gave the home crowd plenty of ammo for heckling the Masters champion. He then went 0-3 as Europe lost the Ryder Cup and summed up his week by calling it “s***.”
There was also drama on the U.S. side at the Ryder Cup. Phil Mickelson used Hal Sutton’s decision to pair Lefty and Tiger Woods together at the 2004 Ryder Cup as an example of a captain who set them up to fail. Sutton fired back: “If I still need to shoulder the blame for Phil, I’ll do that,” he said to Golfweek. Mickelson apologized the next day.
Ahmet Agaoglu, president of the Turkish Golf Federation, wasn’t happy that Rory McIlroy withdrew from the Turkish Airlines Open after an explosion near the tournament site and the method in which he announced his WD. “For those who worry about such things, there is no safe place in the world,” Agaoglu told Golf Digest. “I do not see pulling out of events as the right approach to take. I was a little bit surprised and disappointed to learn that Rory was pulling out in the media. He did not contact me.” Patrick Reed also withdrew, but the tournament went on as scheduled without any problems.
