With Brooks Koepka capturing the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill with a dominant tour de force, it's time for me to saddle my bragging horse and spout off. We handicappers like explaining how we were right and others were wrong, so I'll get right to it.
Back in 2022, many loud-mouthed golf pundits tried to blister Koepka, DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, and Mickelson with nonsensical bad-mouthing. American and international media were flooded with pro-PGA propagandists posing as moralists. The cacophony of LIV criticism (as Howard Cosell might have said) was outlandish, well beyond mean-spirited, and laden with declarative absurdities.
I laid out my defense of both the LIV tour in general, and Brooks Koepka in particular, in a series of July articles. I recommend readers check out the 2022 series: "The Saudi Golf Tour (Part One)" from July 3; July 4's "The Comedic Writings of Eamon Lynch," and my July 5 "The Saudi Golf Tour (Part Two)."
The bottom line is that hired hacks like Eamon Lynch were proven wrong, and wrong by a wide margin. When it came time for major championships, Koepka and Mickelson tied for second in the 2023 Masters, and three LIV golfers cracked the top nine at Oak Hill. There is no questioning the quality of LIV golf. And there should also be no questions regarding the decision-making of Koepka, DeChambeau, Cam Smith, Dustin Johnson, and Mickelson. Koepka and DeChambeau undoubtedly benefited from the LIV schedule and workload in coming back from their serious injuries. They were able to rehab at their own, optimal pace. They are back, and it would be difficult to find fault in the processes that brought them to this point.
Super Bowl III
Rory McIlroy seems to have put away his PGA pom poms and cheerleading outfit for the moment. As I said in 2022, who the hell is McIlroy to comment on who should be facing what kind of competition? Could you imagine rookie Joe Namath turning down a 400K AFL bonus because the NFL was presumed to have better players?
I won't lie. I rooted for Koepka down the stretch Sunday. He was pulling his own version of Super Bowl III, and he was magnificent. Frankly, during his second round, Koepka could easily have scored three or four strokes better than he did. He was right there on every hole. He dominated.
The question I have for the Eamon Lynch crowd is whether they actually believed the mendacious tripe they were writing? Or were they just defaming the LIVers to coddle favor with establishment golf institutions? Either way, Lynch and his ilk should publicly apologize. Not for being moral absolutists, but for being so goddamn wrong that they look silly. It's hard to be any more wrong than Lynch.
He'll learn, I suppose. There's nothing dumber than propagandists who make actual public predictions.
Bob Dietz
May 23, 2023
