Brooks Koepka’s Beef With Matthew Wolff Exhibits Why Golf Isn’t a Crew Sport

Described by the California Enterprise Journal as “athlete freelancers,” skilled golfers on the PGA Tour pay all their bills (journey, inns, caddies) out of their very own pocket and solely receives a commission out by the Tour after they play nicely and make event cuts or presumably win. (Many even have sponsorships that assist pay the payments when their abilities don’t.) In contrast to athletes in most different common American sports activities, who’ve contracts that stipulate they are going to be paid a set quantity to play for a set period of time, professional golfers are primarily impartial contractors.

For a sport like golf, which generally pits professionals in opposition to one another over a four-day event that whittles down the sphere midway by means of and units up one-on-one matchups on the occasion’s last day that may go an extended method to deciding the winner, that truly makes a number of sense. Golfers solely need to depend on themselves to win and have the possibility to fail or succeed on the course independently of what anybody else does. In case your opponent shoots a 69 and also you shoot a 70, you lose. In the event you shoot a 68, you win. Easy as that.

LIV Golf, which paid former PGA Tour execs like Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson large, assured cash to defect to the Saudi-backed circuit, has tried to set a brand new normal for golf by holding a collection of 14 three-day tournaments the place 12 groups of 4 gamers apiece compete to find out a champion.

LIV’s workforce format, which is totally different from the variability that’s used at established occasions just like the Ryder Cup, has not been a success with golf followers because the upstart tour has struggled to draw an viewers. It additionally hasn’t been a success with LIV defector Brooks Koepka, who believes he’s being held again by the play and energy of his teammate Matthew Wolff.

Koepka, who additionally performs along with his brother Chase and Jason Kokrak on Smash GC, has not been impressed by Wolff’s play of late, as he’s completed with a withdrawal, T-44, T-41, T-30 and forty fourth in LIV’s 48-man area over his final 5 occasions. These finishes haven’t precisely helped Smash GC climb up LIV’s season-long leaderboard.

“I imply, whenever you give up in your spherical, you quit and stuff like that, that’s not competing,” Koepka stated to Sports activities Illustrated. “I’m not a giant fan of that. You don’t work onerous. It’s very powerful. It’s very powerful to have even like a workforce dynamic whenever you’ve received one man that gained’t work, one man will not be going to offer any effort, he’s going to give up on the course, break golf equipment, will get down, dangerous physique language, it’s very powerful. I’ve mainly given up on him ― a number of expertise, however I imply the expertise’s wasted.”

The expertise, or lack thereof, additionally shouldn’t be part of a gaggle effort. Golf isn’t a workforce sport and if LIV Golf wasn’t making an attempt to show it into one, Koepka would haven’t any motive to have an issue with Wolff, who has known as his forced-upon teammate’s criticism “heartbreaking.”