Michael Block’s win says loads in regards to the state of golf

Michael Block was a godsend for the PGA Tour over the weekend, because the league’s championship was hijacked by Brooks Koepka, and it desperately wanted a storyline to distract individuals from a LIV participant successful a significant for the time since any of the large names defected. It was solely a matter of majors earlier than one of many money-grubbing jerkoffs over on the Saudi tour did this, and the only real vibrant spot was how lengthy it took to occur.

Rory McIlroy has stopped speaking in regards to the feud, the lawsuit in opposition to the PGA is being held up as a result of LIV doesn’t wish to disclose its funds, and the CW is slicing off the end of LIV tournaments for Goldberg reruns. Mix that with informal followers’ confusion over what’s the fourth main (as a result of in 2019 they moved it to Might for no matter purpose), and the collective response to Koepka’s win was a shoulder shrug.

Followers didn’t wish to reward LIV or Brooks, who took house his third main, so that they obsessed over a pleasant story in Michael Block, which I’m not going to hate on. The man genuinely looks as if he’d be a blast on the nineteenth gap, and I’m grateful that his hole-in-one and top-15 end saved Christmas.

How did the PGA let this occur?

Regardless of the foremost being branded because the “PGA Championship,” the event remains to be its personal entity, and the organizers need one of the best gamers as a result of they need the very best occasion. Why do they need the very best occasion? That is America; don’t be naive.

So, 4 instances a 12 months — and perhaps extra if Ryder Cup captains are as callus as main organizers — we’re going to be subjected to LIV golfers exhibiting up and speaking about how exhausting that they had it on the PGA Tour. Phil Mickelson will prattle on about unfair labor practices whereas playing away half his earnings, and the gallery may as effectively be following him with a string part.

No person feels dangerous for Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Cam Smith, or any of the opposite names at the moment toiling away in obscurity on the CW. They select this existence, and difficult shit if Brooks obtained outshined by a sideshow the one day trip of the previous 11 months that he’s truly mattered in actual golf.

I don’t know what’s extra ironic (or, actually, what’s ironic): A LIV golfer successful the PGA-branded main, or a sideshow out-sideshowing the sideshow.

Block’s quarter-hour will get prolonged; Brooks returns to the salt mines

Block’s affability, extra so than his golf, earned him a sponsor’s exemption for this weekend’s Charles Schwab Problem, and whereas he’s teeing off Thursday afternoon, Brooks-y might be headed to the Trump Nationwide Golf Membership in Washington D.C. for this weekend’s LIV scramble. (Full disclosure: I don’t know if it’s a scramble as a result of I don’t care to be taught the format. It could possibly be Prime Golf for all I care.)

That is actually what golf deserves. It’s a rustic membership sport that’s inaccessible to a lot of the inhabitants, run by a bunch of stuffy white guys whose handicap is a stand-in for his or her inseam, and it took infinitely much less time to reopen its doorways to individuals of its ilk than to permit minorities and ladies in any respect.

So I apologize if I’m too jaded to toast a Michelob Extremely to Michael Block, and I stay steadfast in my evaluation that taking part in the game is much superior to following it.