Sunday, June 6, 2021

Tee boxing

 I love professional golfer feuds.

I love two guys in stylish pastels (In this corner ... wearing the Sea-Foam Green Walter Hagen polo and Desert Khaki Lululemon slacks ...) swaggering around like tough guys, talking out of the side of their mouths and trying to be all gangsta. Like any minute they're gonna start throwing hands like Ali and Frazier, or maybe just Mike and Sully after 16 beers at the neighborhood Grub 'N Pub.

Golfers don't do that. Throw a left hook, and you might break your hand and have to change your swing.

And so here are Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, engaging in your typical golfer feud. Which is to say, lots of jawing back and forth and the sort of hijinks you see between rival college fraternities.

Like, DeChambeau clattering behind Koepka in his golf spikes a few weeks back, right in the middle of a TV interview Koepka was doing. And Koepka rolling his eyes and swearing in response, thereby handing DeChambeau exactly the response he wanted.

"I'm living rent-free inside his head," DeChambeau cackled later.

Fast forward to the Memorial this weekend, where Koepka kinda-sorta got him back.

Mind you, he wasn't on the premises, but his minions in the gallery came through for him, serenading DeChambeau with a stream of "Brooks!" and "Brooksie!" catcalls. When some of them got a little too rude about it, they were ejected from the premises.

After which Koepka, looking on from afar, offered to buy them beer.

DeChambeau, for his part, didn't make the mistake Koepka made. Rather than rolling his eyes and swearing, he pronounced it all "great banter" and "fun." He even deemed it great publicity for himself.

And so DeChambeau 1, Koekpa 0 in this particular feud.

This should not surprise anyone, DeChambeau being DeChambeau and Koepka being Koepka. Which is to say, the latter is not a particularly pleasant individual. He's got more than a little OCD going for him, so it's not hard to get under his skin. Indeed, the genesis of his feud with DeChambeau involved Koepka griping about Bryson's slow play a couple of years back.

Which raises all sorts of delicious possibilities the next time the two are paired together.

"You wanna see slow? I'll show you slow," said DeChambeau, lining up his inside-the-leather putt for the 47th time ...

Shoot. We might actually get a left hook sighting if that happens.


 


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