DGS49
Diamond Member
While the Media is avoiding using that word, social media are burning up with reactions - mostly negative - to Rory's miss of a three foot put that opened the door for Bryson D to win the U.S. Open golf championship yesterday. Even people who claim to be golfers are repeating and enjoying these accusations - if that's what they are.
But they are bullshit.
There are many sports where certain shots are a near certainty and if you miss them in an important situation you can be said to have choked. A basketball foul shot, a 20 yard field goal attempt (or an Extra Point), a penalty kick in soccer (where you miss the goal). But a three-foot putt in golf is different, especially under the conditions on the greens yesterday at Pinehurst #2.
Anyone who has golfed for any period of times knows that short putts sometimes veer off their path for no visible reason. It is going directly toward the hole, then it curves around the hole. My own theory is that golfers standing next to the hole to pick their ball out of the hole make little indents in the soil that cannot be seen because they are too small, or disguised by the grass itself.
The common way of avoiding these misses is to putt the ball a little harder (so that it would go 2 feet past the hole if you miss), which is called, "putting through the break," but you couldn't do that on these greens because the ball would likely roll ten feet past the hole if you did that.
So the bottom line is, not only with Rory's last putt, but with four or five short misses in the last holes by those players at the top of the leaderboard, those misses were just bad luck. They didn't choke, or fail to hit the ball properly. These are professional golfers who practice putting every day of their professional lives. There is no way any of them is going to miss a 3-foot putt because they hit it off line, or failed to read the green correctly.
And while I'm glad that Bryson won yesterday, there is no way that Rory choked to miss that putt.
Parenthetically, the spectators who were yelling, "USA, USA!" need a quick kick in the pants. This ain't the Olympics or the Ryder Cup. May the best golfer win; I don't care if he's a Hamas terrorist. It shouldn't matter at that point.
But they are bullshit.
There are many sports where certain shots are a near certainty and if you miss them in an important situation you can be said to have choked. A basketball foul shot, a 20 yard field goal attempt (or an Extra Point), a penalty kick in soccer (where you miss the goal). But a three-foot putt in golf is different, especially under the conditions on the greens yesterday at Pinehurst #2.
Anyone who has golfed for any period of times knows that short putts sometimes veer off their path for no visible reason. It is going directly toward the hole, then it curves around the hole. My own theory is that golfers standing next to the hole to pick their ball out of the hole make little indents in the soil that cannot be seen because they are too small, or disguised by the grass itself.
The common way of avoiding these misses is to putt the ball a little harder (so that it would go 2 feet past the hole if you miss), which is called, "putting through the break," but you couldn't do that on these greens because the ball would likely roll ten feet past the hole if you did that.
So the bottom line is, not only with Rory's last putt, but with four or five short misses in the last holes by those players at the top of the leaderboard, those misses were just bad luck. They didn't choke, or fail to hit the ball properly. These are professional golfers who practice putting every day of their professional lives. There is no way any of them is going to miss a 3-foot putt because they hit it off line, or failed to read the green correctly.
And while I'm glad that Bryson won yesterday, there is no way that Rory choked to miss that putt.
Parenthetically, the spectators who were yelling, "USA, USA!" need a quick kick in the pants. This ain't the Olympics or the Ryder Cup. May the best golfer win; I don't care if he's a Hamas terrorist. It shouldn't matter at that point.
