They Said What? Ranking the Best Quotes From Another Wild Week in Golf

The PGA Tour's best will get richer, the PGA of America has a new home and Greg Norman still has chutzpah. Gary Van Sickle tracked what everyone said.

Talk is cheap and so am I.

A lot happened in golf during the week that was. The PGA Tour staged its season-ending Tour Championship right after commissioner Jay Monahan announced sweeping changes to increase purses dramatically and guarantee every exempt player half a million dollars (or golden pazoozas in Disney-speak). The changes were a strong reaction to the rival LIV Golf group that has lured several top players away with offers of millions upon millions of guaranteed money.

Golf talk was trending last week. The Ranking found the comments that were the most interesting and relevant based on complex metrics that included actually listening for once, and came up with this …

10. England’s Matthew Fitzpatrick, who will return to the DP World Tour next month to play its flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, talks about the 18 suspended LIV Golf players who are eligible to tee it up in that event: “It’s going to be odd seeing certain people at Wentworth. That is going to be a bit weird and it’s a little bit disappointing.” (No, what’s going to be weird is that we might go two weeks without a new lawsuit being filed, unless the rumor about a class-action suit against Norman for damaging the reputations of actual great white sharks is true.)

9. Columnist Rob Oller writes in the Columbus Dispatch beneath a “LIV Golf is fake because the results don’t matter” headline: “Not many of LIV’s players are particularly likable. (Sergio) Garcia, (Patrick) Reed and (Bryson) DeChambeau belong on an injury lawyer billboard. The majority of LIV fields consist of has-beens and never-were’s. But my distaste for LIV goes beyond that … Results matter. LIV is exhibition golf, plain and simple. So is the virtual golf league being put together by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy… Anything that smells like TopGolf meets Putt-Putt can’t hold my interest.” (But if it smells like bacon, count me in.)

8. LIV Golf commissar Greg Norman retweets a viral meme in which PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan fictitiously says to Norman, “Hey, can I copy your homework?” Norman’s character replies, “Sure, just make it look different so it doesn’t look to (sic) obvious.” (More fictitious talk: “Just so you know, Jay, I got a C-minus on that homework.”)

7. PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh opens the group’s grandiose new $550 million headquarters in Frisco, Texas, that features two 18-hole golf courses, a 10-hole short course, TopGolf, an Omni Resort, eating places, bars and shops: “Welcome to our field of dreams … Everything of golf and for golf is going to be here. We talk about it as being the Silicon Valley of golf.” (Only without the insane taxes, laws banning gas-powered cars and that Zuckerberg geek who is probably actually a robot.)

6. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan responds to a yet another question about whether LIV golfers will be able to rejoin the tour someday: “No. I’ll remind you that we’re in a lawsuit. They’ve sued us. Talking about any hypotheticals at this point doesn’t make a lot of sense.” (But what if the Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Patrick Swayze’s ghost help some LIV Golf star find a loophole in his contract, spring him out of East Berlin over The Wall and bring him safely back to PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida? What about then, Commissioner? Well?)

5. Former tour player Richard Zokol reacts on Twitter to online comments about how early LIV Golf defector Phil Mickelson should get credit for the PGA Tour’s big changes announced last week: “Recognizing Phil for causing the PGA Tour’s rapid growth is like recognizing the Japanese Navy’s attack on Pearl Harbor for causing the U.S. military’s rapid growth as it entered WWII.” (Tora! Tora! Lefty!)

4. Rory McIlroy gets to the heart of a long-time PGA Tour problem: “When I tune into a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, I expect to see Tom Brady throw a football. When I tune into a Formula 1 race, I expect to see Lewis Hamilton in a car. What’s happened on the PGA Tour is we all act independently and have our own schedules and that means we never really get together that often.” (Agreed, Rory and Brady should get together more often to race against Hamilton in Formula 1. We’d call that must-see TV. Keep an eye on Brady. He might try to underinflate his tires.)

3. Mike McCarley of TMRW Sports on the purse for the proposed Monday night golf venture known as TGL—a televised virtual golf league—founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and proposed to start in 2024: “Rough terms, I see the terms ‘boatload’ and ‘truckload’ being thrown around a lot. Maybe it’ll be in between those two but we’ll announce the purse as we get a little bit closer to the start date.” (In between “boatload” and “truckload?” According to my in-depth research analysis and data-points, the proper technical term would be “buttload.”…)

2. Actor George Clooney, spectating at the DP World Tour event Switzerland, is asked by a broadcaster if he would describe himself as a golfer: “Well, no one else I know would describe me as a golfer.” (Don’t be so hard on yourself, George, you’re a tremendous slouch. And LIV Golf may still be interested.)

1. A LIV Golf statement in response to the PGA Tour’s dramatic changes is only one sentence long: “LIV Golf is clearly the best thing that’s ever happened to help the careers of professional golfers.” (You cannot be serious! Are you unfamiliar with the story of a young man named Tiger Woods?)