Golf is known as the gentlemen’s game because it emphasizes reverence for your fellow players as well as the game itself. As a result, golf rivalries are rarely heated. They’re usually media inventions that pit the best players against one another in an attempt to create a friendly competition out of nothing more than familiarity at the top of leaderboards.
Given that they fly from course to course each week, the guys on the PGA Tour are all buddies, and the nature of golf makes it very uncomfortable to have to play a round with someone you truly dislike. As a result, we seldom see genuine rivalry between players, but we have it right now between two of the best in the world: Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
Koepka, a four-time major champion, frequently appears in the biggest tournaments, and the Florida State native is a tremendously talented and strong player who regularly dominates courses and opponents on his way to victories. Off the course, he’s a laid-back guy who puts in his time but isn’t interested in discussing the finer points of the golf swing. DeChambeau, on the other hand, is the polar opposite, a man fascinated with the science of everything from the golf swing to the human body, and his approach to the game drives Koepka insane. Bryson has become fascinated with distance, bulking up and using guys like Brooks to calculate himself and how much farther he can hit it. On top of how long he takes to play, accounting for every imaginable aspect and doing full on math measurements on the course before each shot, he’s also become obsessed with distance, bulking up and using guys like Brooks to measure himself and how much further he can hit it.
The two have yet to play together since their rivalry started, as tournaments tend to let the pairing happen naturally on a weekend rather than force it. When Brooks loses his train of thinking during an interview at the PGA Championship this weekend, Bryson walks behind him, proving they both hate each other.
Brooks’ expression as he attempts to avoid Bryson, who is clearly talking to his team about his swing, is eerily familiar to everyone who has had to deal with an obnoxious coworker. It’s made even better by the fact that he collapses and is unable to continue the interview.
My sincerest thanks to whoever leaked this from the Golf Channel compound, because it has made my, and the rest of the golf world’s, week so much better.