WHAT MADNESS RULES IN BRAINSICK MEN

“Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick men, 

When for so slight and frivolous a cause, 

Such factious emulations shall arise!” 

~ William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1 

When he wrote this in 1591, Shakespeare was referring to the perfidious politics of an earlier era (England in the 1400s), when Henry VI was suffering tremendous territorial losses in France while fending off "personal squabbles and petty jealousy" from within his feudal ranks at home.  Shakespeare no doubt would have drawn from current events while writing, and Mary, Queen of Scots, who ran Scotland for 25 years, was executed for treason two years before he laid his pen.  Mary, it is believed, also commissioned the construction of St. Andrews, and was an avid golfer in her time, even appalling the Catholic Church by playing a round just days after her husband, Lord Danley, was murdered, which led to “conjecture” that she was involved in the assassination plot.  

And, circling back to the subject of brain-sickness, let’s turn our focus to the Waste Management Phoenix Open, otherwise known as The People’s Open, or The Wasted Open, which took place at TPC Scottsdale, and which not only featured an outstanding Sunday stretch, resulting in a two-hole playoff between a 35-year old Canadian and a 47-year old American, but also a five day drunken bender that looked more like a Hell Week at a college fraternity than a golf tournament.  Take a moment to view this work of art, featuring a less-than-fit post-adolescent sliding through the mud shirtless to get a feel for what we were dealing with.  And, witness this scene, posted by the PGA Tour of the crowd at 5:39AM waiting to get onto the grounds on Saturday, and this one from when the gates opened on Friday - it was like the Running of the Bulls with no bull in sight.  They were charging to get into the grandstands at the 16th hole, where Scottie Sheffler whipped them into a fury with this near-missed ace and birdie on Sunday.  

According to the Scottsdale Police Department, which was as busy over the weekend as Andy Cohen’s bartender on New Year’s Eve, there were 653 calls for service, resulting in 54 arrests, 211 ejections and 73 charges for trespassing.  Even so, as I commented to a few friends over the weekend, a person that would be critical of degenerative behavior at a sports event is the same type of person that might be spotted driving a Prius while wearing their Apple Vision Pros.  They also might be insufferable social elitists who relish in their own narcissistic tendencies while lacking complete and total self-awareness.  To wit, it is distinctly un-American to pooh-pooh the rite of passage that is known as being drunk in the desert while under the age of thirty.  (Would Hunter S. Thompson have approved?  Hard yes.) 

In the same way we don’t ban automobiles after people die in car accidents, we don’t make soccer balls illegal because some unfortunate fans got crushed in a riot.  The debauchery on the grounds of TPC Scottsdale this past weekend was hardly any worse than the infield at the Kentucky Derby or the parking lot in Orchard Park before a Bills game, and while no doubt the local authorities will put pressure on the event to dial it down next year, no one was hurt seriously that I have heard of, except for that of a few golfers’ feelings and a whole legion of LIV-bots who wish their event in Las Vegas looked anything like this one (it didn’t).  I’ll take Barstool Sports’s Jerry Thornton’s word for it, who said, “Playing the final round of the Waste Management tourney on Super Bowl Sunday is a reason to believe in American Exceptionalism.” 

First, let’s discuss for a moment golf’s version of the 1998 home run race in Major League Baseball, between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire, two guys that will be remembered for a hundred years, but won’t ever get into the Hall of Fame.  This is a race to see who can go the lowest, as we had another big weekend in scoring, including the tying round for the lowest ever in a professional golf tournament, when Chilean Cristobal del Solar carded a 13-under 57 at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Astara Golf Championship in Bogota, Colombia, on Thursday.  

“At the Korn Ferry Tour [a feeder tour for the PGA] this week there has been a 57, a 59, two 61s, ten 62s and eleven 63s through three rounds,” wrote Shane Bacon, author of the Fried Egg Golf newsletter and the PING Proving Grounds podcast. This, a week after Joaquin Niemann got his 59 at LIV Mayakoba (and subsequently won the tournament) and Wyndham Clark got his 12-under 60, the all-time record at Pebble Beach, “that welcomed its first shots when Woodrow Wilson was sitting U.S. President” (and subsequently won the tournament, due to horrendous weather that caused the PGA to suspend and then cancel the final round).  Side-note: the Clark 60 “was special - but not record special,” wrote Alex Miceli in Sports Illustrated, noting that even though he made over 189 feet of putts that Saturday, the PGA Tour let competitors play “ball in hand” due to the wet and muddy conditions (which means they could pick up their ball after shots, dry it and place it back in the area of where they picked it up from), meaning “they should forfeit certain benefits of playing the ball down, one being that a course record cannot be set that day”.  Sidebar to side-note: I’m dying to know what maybe-a-bit-jealous Miceli’s handicap is. 

After playing nine at my local track on a Spring-like day on Sunday, I was at the supermarket buying Super Bowl snacks, when an extra-merry looking man with a ball marker attached to the bill of his cap pushed his cart past me, so I asked him if he’d also played a round.  No, he said, but he’d just flown in after spending the week in Arizona, golfing and attending the Waste Management.  As I wondered how much sleep he’d had in the last couple of days, I headed over to a Valentine’s Day cookie-decorating event, and then planted myself in my easy chair for a full ten-hour marination in front of the WMP Open and the Super Bowl.  And what a day it was, as we witnessed another big odds-defying win (100-1) in Scottsdale, ending in a playoff that ran well into the 2nd quarter of the Taylor Swift America’s Game, which also ended in overtime, as the Chiefs picked up their third title in five years. 

47-year old Charley Hoffman, who was wearing a heated waste band after his round in regulation, led a pack of notables at 21-under going into the clubhouse, including Scottie Sheffler (chasing his third WMPO title in as many years) Sahith Theegala, Nick Taylor and Sam Burns, but he would sadly fail to win his first tournament in 2,849 days.  That honor was reserved for Canadian Taylor, who bested Hoffman under the cover of near-darkness with an 11-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole, after they both buried high-pressure birdies on the hole before.  Over the “last 6 holes, Nick Taylor’s approach shot[s] were all within 15 feet - 15-81 yards to 3 feet, 16-166 yards to 6 feet, 17-46 yards to 13 feet, 18-141 yards to 9 feet, P1-140 yards to 15 feet, P2-141 yards to 11 feet,” as noted by Monday Q Info on X.  “He birdied 5 of them to win.  Goodness gracious.”  Yes, the Canuck wowed the unruly crowd by birdying 15, 16, 18, Playoff 1 and Playoff 2, to seal the deal over the grizzled veteran in a finish for the ages, less than a year after this epic 72-foot eagle putt at the RBC Canadian Open last June.  This would cap a crazy week, during which Taylor, by the way, tied the TPC Scottsdale course record with a 60 on Thursday.   

After the playoff, World Number 108 Hoffman said, “Unfortunately, I left the door open and - you know what - Nick came in and seized the moment” and “hat’s off to him”.  As for Taylor: “To have a putt there and make it… is [a] kind of pinch me dream moment.  It’s fun to be in this atmosphere and pull off shots like that.” 

In a humorous subplot, Hoffman, who has been sponsored by Waste Management for much of his career, was wearing their logo and getting them all kinds of extra airtime, which is rather preposterous.  But, the fact that his shirt was branded with the Greg Norman shark was even more so.  

Finally, while some players reveled in the revelry in Arizona, others just weren’t feeling it.  “They were awesome,” Jordan Spieth, who finished T6 on Saturday, said of the fans.  “It was really cool actually” and “they were fantastic.” “It’s a blast.  It’s a blast.  There’s definitely some people that aren’t the best drunks,” said Theegala.  “But for the most part it’s all positive, and it’s a fun atmosphere.”  Winner Taylor said, “It’s wild.  This place is hard to beat.”  To Michael Kim, who didn’t make the cut, the scene “is always a fun and interesting week as long as you embrace the chaos,” but Ben An remarked, “Shitshows.  Totally out of control on every hole.”  And, Max Homa xeeted, “Thursday on 16 Spieth made a bogey and a group of dudes chanted ‘overrated’.  Within 3 seconds the rest of the crowd started to boo them for the blasphemy… Even the savages have rules.” 

Unfortunately, for Master’s winner Zach Johnson, it’s safe to say he’s not a fan of the People’s Open.  Not since Shooter McGavin implored the plebes to “Go back to your shanties,” have we witnessed an OK Boomer moment such as this.   Perhaps ZJ should head over to the LIV Tour if he has this much disdain for the common man. 

P.S. This video of the final putt and victory at the WMPO followed by a wide angle of the celebration, and closing with a guy nearly passed out on the ground, underscored by Tuesday’s Gone by Lynyrd Skynyrd, sums up the weekend quite well.  Get this camera guy an Oscar.