Sorry not sorry: Kooch explains motives
'That guy' had his reasons for waiting; What Alex learned of G-Mac, Big Brother fans; Stray Shots on Chi Chi, Lefty and FEC
Matt Kuchar (right) thought he was doing Max Greyserman a favor late Sunday (David Jensen/Getty Images)
Matt Kuchar made the most of his solo Monday morning restart at Sedgefield Country Club. After opting to quit in the near darkness on Sunday night because he couldn’t see any more, seems fitting that the first thing he did when he returned to complete his 18th hole at 8 a.m. was request line-of-sight relief from the Temporary Immovable Object (scoreboard), a dubious ask that was granted by the rules official who probably just really wanted to get out of Greensboro and go home already.
So instead of punching out from the trees, Kooch got to drop freely in the adjacent 10th fairway and had a clear path from 211 yards to hit up just short of the green. He nearly holed his chip from 34 yards, lipping out, and left with a par and $145,000 for T12 — roughly $70,000 more than he would have taken home if he made bogey.
He had no chance and did not qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time since they started in 2007. Unless you consider his solo performance on Monday of FedEx St. Jude Championship week …
So what did Kooch have to say for himself after all that nonsense and 12-hour overnight delay? A lot, actually, a much of it made total sense.
“Sorry that you guys had to come out this morning,” was his opening line.
“Listen, nobody wants to be that guy, which I feel I turned into, the one guy that didn’t finish. I can’t tell you how many times I have been finished with a round thinking, bummed out that somebody didn’t finish, that we didn’t get to make the cut because somebody didn’t finish. Here it’s me now as the guy that didn’t get to finish the tournament. …
“But last night, last night was dark. I mean, we had texts that Round 1 was suspended at 8:15, Round 2 was suspended at 8:25. That was to make the cut, so they pushed it even longer. Last night Round 4 was suspended at 8:40, like it was dark.
“I think had I been in the fairway with a normal shot, I probably would have attempted to finish, but I had just seen Max (Greyserman) four-putt the 16th hole. If there was daylight on that green, does he four-putt? I don't know, I don’t know. But I just watched something happen. I had a putt three holes prior, 13th hole, decent daylight, no daylight on the green, totally covered in shade, missed a 5-footer. Like I’m thinking it’s hard to putt.
“The general rule of thumb, I don’t know if you guys know, the general rule of thumb when you’re playing, you try to hit a tee shot if you can hit a tee shot. If you’ve got a reasonable approach, you hit it, you putt in the morning. You mark it, you wait if you have any sort of important putt.
“I did not realize Aaron Rai made birdie on the last, so I'm over on 10 trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I’m figuring no way Max is going to finish out with a chance to win a tournament. I thought Max for sure had a shot to win and I thought no way in this situation do you hit this shot, you come back in the morning 100 percent of the time. So I said, well, Max will stop, I’ll stop, kind of make it easy on him.
“And for me, coming back in the morning, like I never would have taken that drop last night, I never would have thought to ask. I knew I was in a terrible situation, I was praying to make bogey from where I was. To walk away with par, nearly birdie, is a huge bonus.
“Again, it stinks to nobody wants to be that guy that’s showing up today, one person, one hole. Not even one hole, half a hole to putt. So apologies to the tournament, to everybody that had to come out. I know it stinks, I know the ramifications, I know it stinks. Certainly I apologize to force everybody to come out here.”
Would he do anything differently given the chance?
“From that situation, no,” he said. “Listen, I would have been so pleased with a bogey last night. All I was thinking was let’s try to avoid double this morning. To come out and have, you know, the ability to take a drop, to get relief is a bonus. I just hope it doesn’t cause too many problems. I was excited that at least … Aaron Rai got to finish, got to do the awards ceremony. I think that would have really stunk had Aaron not cemented the win and been able to do the trophy ceremony and all that goes with it.”
Kuchar said he’s aware of but blissfully hasn’t seen the roasting he’s been taking on social media — which only amplified after he took the deeply loathed TOI relief.
“Thankfully, I avoid that stuff,” he said. “I did get a call from my agent, said ‘Hey, you’re causing quite a stir.’ So that was the little I heard. I’m grateful to not be a part of the social media thing.”
Graeme McDowell’s congestion in Nashville will cost him more than $300,000 (Jason Butler/Getty Images)
What I learned: 2 doses of reality
By Alex Miceli
Well, a couple of things caught my attention this week that I found interesting and comical — not necessarily at the same time, but whatever floats your boat.
The first was Graeme McDowell testing positive for doping from last month’s LIV Golf Nashville event.
It was just a simple mistake to buy an over-the-counter nasal decongestant that had a restricted ingredient.
Result: $125,000 fine, plus loss of T42 winnings out of Nashville (another $127,500), and then, of course, the suspension from this week’s LIV event at the Greenbrier (minimum $50,000 lost wages for last place). That’s basically at least $300,000 down the drain for taking Vicks for a runny nose.
So, what did I learn? That LIV is actually drug testing. Crazy, right? Wasn’t LIV supposed to be a “exhibition” tour free to make it’s own rules? Yet they are paying good money to drug test like the big boys.
They moved fast, and the fine and penalty seem reasonable for the offense.
One thing that bothers me about all of it is that if McDowell had called, checked, and gotten a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) he would have been free and clear. So, except for a paperwork issue and not calling for a TUE, McDowell gets dinged a quarter million dollars and a week’s unpaid suspension.
This makes me wonder how important this whole drug testing thing is if you can get punished for buying an over-the-counter medicine or call to ask for a TUE, and likely you get it.
Oddly, when Shaun Micheel and Doug Barron needed a TUE on the PGA Tour for valid medical issues — low testosterone — they couldn’t get it and eventually were suspended.
The tours are spending millions on testing. Clearly, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf both bought into the same crazy idea about testing.
The second oddity comes from the Wyndham Championship — and it was not Matt Kuchar’s saga, which was odd and covered above.
It’s CBS staying with the coverage past sunset on the east coast to end the PGA Tour season.
After getting its lunch handed to them by NBC’s Olympics coverage for two weeks, CBS decided to hang in with the only live national sport they could, golf.
While the ratings aren’t available yet, they could not be that high. But the network clearly felt it needed to stay and make the fans of “Big Brother” really, really upset — especially because CBS prioritized a rerun of 60 Minutes after the golf finished.
The Big Brother CBS Instagram site posted this as a tease:
“It’s only week three, and so much has happened in the #BB26 house. Who will shake things up this week!? See you tonight.”
That when the trouble started at 9 p.m. when the 60 Minutes rerun and Tulsa was supposed to be over and Big Brother was scheduled to start. The comments lit up.
pancake_g0ddess I vote to evict golf
ingal.em Big brother is so much more important than golf; how can golf run so late?
careblairz WHY IS 60 MINUTES STILL ON?? It’s big brother time 😞😞
justcallmej3n Delayed due to golf. I think golf pushed everything back. I’m pissed.
litty.liddy_2 Right, I’m a woman with a schedule just for [Big Brother] these golfers need to finish up!!
hannah8175 Every time 60 minutes is on during big brother hours I feel a different type of rage. Who even watches 60 minutes?! 😤🤣
At 10:32 p.m. EDT, BB was back and the comments stopped scorching golf and went back to the reality show.
One last thing: sorry, Matt.
While Kuchar was well within his rights to stop playing the final hole because it was too dark, you must wonder why the CBS team of Jim Nantz and Trevor Immelman didn’t know the rule.