{"id":438136,"date":"2026-01-26T07:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/438136\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T07:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:44:17","slug":"wheres-the-beef-pro-golf-needs-more-salty-rivalries-to-cut-through-all-the-sugar-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/438136\/","title":{"rendered":"Where\u2019s the beef? Pro golf needs more salty rivalries to cut through all the sugar \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interview with Lawrence Donegan at the end of 2008 P\u00e1draig Harrington<\/a> was asked about his relationship with Sergio Garcia. Donegan would have known the lie of the land and where the bodies were buried, but it was the kind of question that many players would have deflected or smothered with diplomacy. Harrington dispensed with those guard rails.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have zero in common, bar the fact we both play golf,\u201d said Harrington. \u201cHe is the antithesis of me, and I am the antithesis of him … We\u2019re also competitors who for the last number of years have been vying over who is the number one golfer in Europe. I think in the hearts and minds of a lot of people Garcia would have been number one, while I have been ranked number one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donegan described the \u201cantipathy\u201d between them as \u201cobvious\u201d and \u201cthe worst kept secret in golf\u201d, even though, as Harrington pointed out, there had never been \u201ca row or a run-in\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of the three Majors that Harrington had won over the previous 18 months, Garcia had been the underbidder in two of them. In his victory press conference after the 2008 US PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, Harrington was asked 12 questions, four of which made reference to Garcia, one of his playing partners in the final round. Reading the transcripts now it is hard to tell whether the reporters had caught the whiff of sulphur between them.<\/p>\n

Golf is a game of manners, customs, self-regulation and outward decency. Even at the elite level, you will hear players compliment their playing partner\u2019s shots. During rounds that often take more than five hours, the pros will exchange pleasantries and small talk and drop their game faces.<\/p>\n

But unless it\u2019s the final group on Sunday, they might not see their playing partners as their greatest opponent: a lot of the time, they\u2019re fighting their swing, or their mentality, or the course, or the elements, or their place on the money list. Looking in from the outside, that endless battle is fascinating too.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not enough. Golf needs rivalries and needle and elements of bitterness. We need the sense that some players just hate each other\u2019s guts, even if that is unspoken. There is too much general chumminess. Marquee groups \u2013 the made for television confections for the opening rounds of a tournament \u2013 are too often populated by players who like playing together.<\/p>\n

\"Chummy:Chummy: Organisers appear hell-bent on buddy golf groupings, such as Ryder Cup team-mates Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton (pictured during this weekend’s Dubai Desert Classic). Photograph: Ross Kinnaird\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Away from tournaments, many of them live in little sun-kissed communities and practice together. TGL, the indoor golf league headlined by Tiger Woods<\/a> and McIlroy, is a laboratory example of giggling collegiality among many of the best players in the world.<\/p>\n

When Europe\u2019s top Ryder Cup<\/a> players turn up at a DP World Tour<\/a> event the organisers seem to be only interested in buddy golf. Ideally some permutation of Rory McIlroy<\/a>, Shane Lowry<\/a> and Tommy Fleetwood<\/a>, or maybe all three served in a timesheet sundae. It\u2019s nice and its sweet, but we need a little bit of whatever was going on between Harrington and Garcia.<\/p>\n

Outside of Ryder Cup week, there is no obvious needle between any of the top players. Who does Scottie Scheffler<\/a> have beef with? There must be somebody, but nobody we know of.<\/p>\n

McIlroy didn\u2019t spare some of the LIV<\/a> defectors as they were walking out the door, but he clearly has no problem with Jon Rahm, for example, or Tyrrell Hatton, who took the tainted Saudi shilling and still turned up in Bethpage, beating the crest on their European jumpers.<\/p>\n

Last week in Dubai McIlroy said that Rahm and Hatton should pay their fines to the DP World Tour essentially so they can still be members and therefore eligible for Ryder Cup selection. A legal process on this matter may finally come to a head in February.<\/p>\n

McIlroy made his remarks knowing that he would be playing with Hatton (and Fleetwood) for the opening two rounds. Would that be a problem? Waiting on the fourth tee on Friday there was nothing but bonhomie. \u201cOnly good vibes here among these good friends,\u201d said Nick Dougherty in the Sky Sports commentary. <\/p>\n

Through the decades, though, some tension between the best players in the world was par for the course. Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros didn\u2019t get along and only buried the hatchet on Ryder Cup weeks. Woods and Phil Mickelson were incompatible too, even on Ryder Cup weeks.<\/p>\n

\"NoNo love lost: Team Europe’s Seve Ballesteros (left) famously said the USA’s 1989 Ryder Cup team was made up of \u201c11 nice guys and Paul Azinger\u201d. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n

Ballesteros and Paul Azinger had a running spat towards the end of Ballesteros\u2019s career. Faldo insulted Azinger in one of his books. Tom Watson accused Gary Player of cheating once after a televised skins match. Many years later, Watson and Mickelson fell out publicly after Watson\u2019s ineffective captaincy of a US Ryder Cup team. Big-time golf was full of these undercurrents.<\/p>\n

Players like Faldo and Woods didn\u2019t court affection or necessarily care if it landed on them. They only cared about winning. They weren\u2019t interested in small talk on the course or being friends with any of their biggest rivals.<\/p>\n

Faldo fell out with Mark James, publicly and spectacularly, when James didn\u2019t give him a captain\u2019s pick for the 1999 Ryder Cup; James, for his part, was a polarising figure too. Faldo and Garcia didn\u2019t get along either, the tension in their relationship stemming from Faldo\u2019s disastrous Ryder Cup captaincy in Valhalla and Garcia\u2019s performance that week.<\/p>\n

When Garcia became Europe\u2019s all-time leading points scorer in Paris, 10 years later, the Spaniard was asked for his reaction. \u201cThis means a lot to me,\u201d Garcia said, disguising his punch. \u201cI have passed some of my heroes today \u2013 and Nick Faldo.\u201d That kind of stuff was a kick of chilli in the dish.<\/p>\n

In the old westerns, the cowboys who wore white hats were the heroes and the cowboys who wore black hats were the villains. When LIV Golf was established, too many of the black hats left.<\/p>\n

Brooks Koepka has negotiated his return, and even though he is not the player he used to be, his cold arrogance will bring something to the PGA Tour. <\/p>\n

Bryson DeChambeau is making too much money to do a U-turn, and that is also true of Rahm. But Dubai Desert Classic winner Patrick Reed, the most disliked man on the PGA Tour before he left, is angling to come back. I never thought I would say this, but they should let him.<\/p>\n

There is too much sugar. Not enough salt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an interview with Lawrence Donegan at the end of 2008 P\u00e1draig Harrington was asked about his relationship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,228289,196621,756,14605,1656,85,42347],"class_list":["post-438136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-liv-golf-invitational-series","tag-padraig-harrington","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-ryder-cup","tag-shane-lowry","tag-sports","tag-tommy-fleetwood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}