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After Max Homa’s incident at the BMW Championship, Jon Rahm weighed in on those kinds of occurrences ahead of the Tour Championship.
Ahead of the Tour Championship, Jon Rahm weighed in on fan incidents similar to the one that happened last week with Max Homa and Chris Kirk.
A three-dollar bet caused quite a disturbance on the 17th hole at Olympia Fields. Homa and his caddie handled the situation, but how a patron could cause that much havoc over that little bit of money was disturbing.
Despite the situation feeling new, that is far from the case.
“I feel like we hear it every single round,” Rahm said. “That happens way more often than you guys may hear. I mean, it’s very, very present. In golf, spectators are very close, and even if they’re not directly talking to you, they’re close enough to where if they say to their buddy, I bet you 10 bucks he’s going to miss it, you hear it.”
“So it happens more often than you think. Not only that but on the tee and down the fairway. I mean, luckily golf fans are pretty good for the most part, and you’re hearing the positive, I got 20 bucks you make birdie here, things like that. But no, it’s more often than you think.”
The PGA Tour is different from most professional sporting events. Fans are right there next to the athletes versus sitting in a stadium away from them. That element is what makes golf so unique.
Rahm acknowledged that people have their favorite golfers, but it’s different from other professional sports. People usually root for a whole team, not just an individual.
“It’s easy in golf if you want to affect somebody. You’re so close you can yell at the wrong time, and it’s very easy for that to happen,” Rahm said.
“So I think they could look into it, but it would be extremely difficult for the Tour to somehow control the 50,000 people scattered around the golf course. So it’s a complicated subject. You don’t want it to get out of control, but you also want to have the fans have the experience they want to have.”
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and President of the PGA Tour Tyler Dennis said the disruptive fans at the BMW Championship were removed. They also noted that they take fan conduct with the utmost seriousness, but are the players supposed to just deal with it?
How can the PGA Tour make it a better experience for players to avoid situations like Homa and Kirk dealt with? Rahm shed light on this topic, and it’ll be interesting to see how this situation will be handled in future instances.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. You can follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and on Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports for more golf coverage. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough too.
