When Pat Riley was coaching the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s, he came up with a term to explain why all dynasties eventually fall. Typically, they aren’t toppled from the outside. Most implode from within. He called it the Disease of More.

Athletes, by nature, are addicted to achievement. It’s part of what separates them from mortals. If they win one championship, they’re briefly satisfied, but the feeling soon fades and they are desperate for more. If they earn a million dollars, they’re ecstatic, but before long, it seems insufficient. They are convinced they need more. More of everything, more commercials, more followers on social media, more houses, more influence, even more romantic partners. The same forces that inspire you to work hard to get everything you ever wanted eventually consume you. Your wants simply mushroom. Millionaires long to be billionaires. Billionaires long to be kings.

Golf is currently afflicted with the Disease of More.

It has infected everything — the players, the executives, and even some of the media that covers it. (We’re not innocent here.) And while you can admire the ambition of someone who sees millions in their bank account and stews over the fact that it’s not yet billions, this particular strain of the Disease of More seems so contagious, there is a real chance it ends up consuming the sport’s entire essence.


I was thinking this week, after the news broke that the PGA Tour was going to partner with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, about the reasons I fell in love with the game of golf.

They had a lot to do with Phil Mickelson if I’m being honest.

There was something magnetic about his rapscallion charm on a golf course. I had a begrudging respect for Tiger Woods, but I found it hard to root for perfection. It took me years to warm up to him. I was drawn, instead, to someone who seemed more human, more vulnerable. Mickelson could be a swashbuckling fool, sure, but he was my fool.

On the golf course where I learned the game, there was a hole that I loved, a sharp dogleg left that was framed by rugged pine trees. The green was driveable — if you were willing to court disaster. It was a blind shot. Short was dead but so was long. You had no idea if you’d pulled off the shot until you reached the green. To hit an iron to the corner of the dogleg was the sensible play, it was only a wedge from there, but I couldn't resist trying to cut the corner, teeing the ball high and launching a drive up over the trees. I did it because that’s what Phil would do, chase the adrenaline rush. No feeling on a golf course has ever matched the rush of rounding the corner, squinting to see if my ball had landed on the green or bounded into the woods.

I don’t think I’ve ever rooted harder for someone than I did for Mickelson during the final round of the 2004 Masters. I jumped off my couch after each back nine birdie, desperately trying to will him to victory through the pixels of my television screen. The neighbors of my Baltimore row house were livid, pounding our shared walls to implore me to quiet down, but for a few hours, I didn’t care how impolite I was. I was invested in Mickelson’s journey, having suffered through all the disappointments, and this was the payoff.

I never once gave a single shit how much money Mickelson won that day.

Or any day, for that matter. It was the thrill of the chase that mattered.

I understand why Mickelson cared about the money. The value he brought to the game — the loyalty of people like me — allowed the PGA Tour and the majors to reap billions of dollars over the course of his career. By his estimate (and I think he was correct) people like him and Tiger offered the PGA Tour more value than they were receiving in return. Endorsement money was nice, but why shouldn’t Mickelson get an extra piece of the pie when people were clearly tuning in to see him play, not Kirk Triplett or Briny Baird?

Phil Mickelson wanted more. And he probably deserved more. Those frustrations set in motion seismic changes within the sport, but now we have reached a moment where the PGA Tour is trying to become the first American sport that is no longer tethered to reality.

The Disease of More has essentially removed fans from that equation. We no longer matter. Someone else is eager to foot a massive bill, and they would prefer you do not ask questions as to why.

It makes for an interesting thought exercise.

In every other sport, compensation has to be tied to revenue. Revenue has to be driven by interest, whether it’s measured in eyeballs tuning in, or tickets purchased. The Baltimore Ravens, for example, could sign Lamar Jackson to a $260 million contract this spring, the largest in NFL history, because a huge pile of money is generated by the interest in his abilities. If the interest in Jackson — or in similarly-talented players like Patrick Mahomes — suddenly waned, NFL players would eventually need to reflect that. Jackson might want more money, but the basic economic principles of profits and losses being tethered to each other would make it impossible.

Golf, though, is not the NFL. It is a niche sport, and it always has been. There was a time when Tiger nearly dragged it into the mainstream, and you could argue he deserved $200 million in guaranteed money, but that time has come and gone. He is not limping through that door any time soon. A lot of people in golf want to be paid like Lamar Jackson, but their skills (based on profits and losses) did not warrant similar compensation, and this was a frustrating reality to accept, so they have simply chosen not to accept it. The Saudis were happy to step in and satiate that economic insecurity.

What the last few weeks have revealed about golf is that, at the highest level, virtually everyone is a bullshit artist who has been duplicitous enough to say whatever the moment called for in order to justify their position. None of this, it turns out, has ever had anything to do with the 9/11 families, human rights concerns, LGBTQ rights, growing the game, shotgun starts, golf in Australia or disrupting the PGA Tour’s monopoly.

It was about power and money. Everyone at the top wanted more.

I still think there is a good chance this deal doesn’t go through, that it was hastily scrambled together by people desperate to save face. The Department of Justice, by all indications, will want to closely scrutinize everything. And there are a number of players — ones who showed glimpses of principle over the last year only to be blindsided by their commissioner — who are furious.

Whatever it is that PGA Tour executives and the Saudis are attempting to build, it has nothing to do with the people who love and watch the sport. It’s a passthrough that helps money and influence get redistributed. The golf is now completely secondary.

They’re going to hope you’ll support it, the way you always have, but let this week serve as a reminder that you don’t have to. Here is the brutal truth about the PGA Tour: Its greatest value has always been providing context for the majors. I grew aware of Phil Mickelson because he was a character on a weekly television show called the PGA Tour, but I only 

 about him because of the majors. You can still watch and enjoy the majors without giving a second thought to the phony Sturm und Drang of the FedExCup. The majors may not be pure, but they still represent something more than a soulless cash grab.

The Saudis can buy up almost everything, and almost anyone, as long as the world runs on oil. But the reasons you love the game don’t have to go up for sale.

Find yourself a dogleg with a blind green, tee it high and swing boldly. Sip a cold beer and see how much of the afternoon sunshine you can possibly inhale.


The people squabbling over giant piles of money, because they can never be comfortable as long as someone else has more, will still be there if you ever want to return.


Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director at No Laying Up.

The Disease of More

Welcome back to the NLU Mailbag. In this space, we’ll address topics big and small, smart and dumb, irreverent and serious.

A quick reminder: You need to be a member of The Nest to submit a question to the mailbag, but the mailbag itself will be free to read (as long as you behave yourselves). Most of our questions are submitted via our message board, The Refuge, but if you’re not a message board person, please send me an email at kvv@nolayingup.com with your Nest handle and your question. If your question gets picked, we’ll send you a free NLU towel.

Manhattan: You get to play an 18 hole pro-am with one professional golfer of your choice. It’s a true alt-shot format. The field is filled with other notable pros and capable amateurs, and if you don’t finish top 5 you both have to give up golfing for 5 years.

Who is your current active player pick? Who is your historical choice?

—2000 Tiger, hope he doesn’t rip your throat out after you spray one in your 6 hours together?

—2004 Phil, hope his creativity, positivity, and overall game keeps you close enough to in contention that he doesn’t mail it in for the last 4 holes?

—2014 Rory, and assume at minimum some sort of back-door top 5 will happen? Some historical version of Jack, Arnie, Seve? Or someone else?

This question has haunted me since I read it, particularly with the current state of my short game. The burden of having a great player’s career in my hands is a heavy one. Do I choose based on skill set? What about a personality fit? And what course are we playing? I have been wrestling with it for days. I would love to play golf for the next five years so I can’t even go full troll and pick a player I loathe just to potentially keep him from the game. This is true nightmare fuel.

Before I choose, I want to address your historical examples. I think peak-Tiger is an interesting answer because I suspect he’s the player most likely to overcome whatever garbage shots I threw at him. And as great as he was, no one has ever been better in the history of golf at turning what should be 5s into 4s. HOWEVER! — shoutout to my old colleague Stephen A. Smith — he’d also have the most to lose, and he’d likely stop speaking to me after the third time I skulled a chip across the green. Can you imagine the historical pressure I’d be under? Tiger won 8 majors between 2000 and 2005. If he and I couldn’t get it done, he’d spend five years of his athletic prime with little to do besides play NAVY S.E.A.L. I don’t think I want that on my conscience.

Phil would be interesting because, you’re right, he’d be the most encouraging. One underrated element of his career — and I suspect one of the reasons he’d felt underpaid for 30 years — is that no one has ever been better at ramping up the charm and enthusiasm when it comes to interacting with those who need to whip out their checkbooks. Watching Phil ham it up during various versions of The Match, cracking jokes, playing to the camera, hat-tipping the sponsors, but also encouraging and instructing Tom Brady when he was potentially unraveling, was a great window into this. He could make a 13-handicap feel like the next shot was going to be flush, even after three or four hosel shanks. Plus, his 2004 season is really underrated. I’d totally forgotten that he just barely missed the playoff between Ernie Els and Todd Hamilton in the Open Championship. He was in serious contention in four majors that year!

I’d love to pick Rory – can you imagine what I’d shoot from where he hits his drives? (Don’t hate, Randy. I’m just trying to project confidence.) Rory and I would also talk prestige television between shots to keep things light, and he would likely be more forgiving than some players when I left him in a brutal spot. Plus, if he had to sit out of golf for five years, it would not emotionally cripple him the way it would some players. I wouldn't be ruining his life. Hell, he could go to college or write a novel.

The correct answer here, however, is Jordan Spieth.

To paraphrase Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, I may think hitting nervy recovery shots from absurd places is my ally, but Spieth was born into that life. Molded by it. He didn’t see a green in regulation until he was already a man, and by then it was nothing to him!

I think Spieth has lived so much of his life in the golfing darkness, he would feel right at home with some of my misses. Plus, imagine our banter! We both talk a bit too much for our own good and could use a good editor.

It would be, at the very least, a spectacle.

Professorlefty: Which golf legends would definitely have gone to LIV?

It pains me a little to say this, but I think Seve would have 1000 percent gone to LIV. In a different lifetime, he probably would have played the Mickelson role. Remember, Seve spent the better part of his career extremely frustrated at the European Tour, 

 for the value he brought to events in Europe. (He was almost certainly correct.)

I think he would have also seen LIV as an opportunity for him to be a showman. The team concept likely also would have appealed to him. He wanted appearance fees, but the European Tour wouldn’t allow them (much like the PGA Tour) and that’s essentially what LIV’s financial model is. I suspect he also would have loved pushing back on reporters over the whole thing.

I haven’t heard it referenced much in this debate, but the issues surrounding LIV aren’t so different from the issues raised in the 1980s when South Africa was hosting lucrative golf tournaments despite the fact there was an international sporting boycott to protest Apartheid. In 1981, five of the world’s best golfers (Seve, Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino) competed in a golf competition at Sun City, South Africa. Miller won the top prize of $500,000, which was an enormous sum considering Tom Watson got $60,000 that year for winning the Masters.

Some people's primary motivation is money. The suffering of others doesn’t factor much into their calculus. Gary Player’s argument — at least after he went woke, by today’s standards — was that he was trying to bring about change through dialogue and participation.

“I really don't understand how you can say that you must penalize an athlete for the policies of his country's government,” Player told the New York Times in 1979. “I mean, what would Americans have said if somebody had suggested keeping Jack [Nicklaus] or Arnold [Palmer] out of the British Open because of the war in Vietnam? Besides, if you're going to talk human rights, why stop at South Africa? What about the Russians, the Cubans, some of the black countries in Africa?”

As you can see, the WhatAbout Caucus has existed for many years, and will likely be around indefinitely. Their arguments would resonate more if they wanted to actually discuss human rights everywhere, but mostly what they want is for people to stop talking about any of it so they can count their blood money without being annoyed by criticism. They don’t actually care about what’s going on in China; the misdirection is the point.

So while I can’t say for sure who would have gone to LIV or their reasons for doing so, those trips to South Africa at the height of Apartheid offer at least a clue.

Dmcpherron: How many strokes is a good caddy worth to a pro? What about an amateur? Do we undervalue or overvalue caddies?

Your film room playing lesson really got me thinking about the true value of having a true pro be there for every shot. I’ve played with caddies a couple of times and always felt like I this value is way higher then we truly believe.

I think we overvalue certain things about them, but undervalue others. I think caddies often become an easy punching bag when players don’t play well. It allows us to call for change, deflecting some of the blame from the player. Rory experienced a lot of this with J.P. Fitzgerald early in his career. Everyone wanted Fitzgerald gone and assumed as soon as he was, McIlroy would win more majors. Six years later, McIlroy and Harry Diamond have had a lot of success, but no majors. It doesn’t mean it was the wrong move, it just means the caddie is only part of the equation.

Most people in golf believe that Steve Williams is the greatest caddie ever and that he truly did know how to save a shot per round. But how many majors would Tiger have won with a different caddie? The same is true of Bones. I think Jim “Bones” McKay is a truly great caddie, easily one of the best ever, and yet he was on the bag for some of the most memorable major collapses in history. Would any caddie have been able to talk Mickelson out of hitting driver on 18 at Winged Foot? Or convince him to hit his second shot way right of the green instead of trying to carve it around the tree, at least getting him into a playoff? I think Mickelson was likely going to make those decisions no matter what. That’s his nature.

I used to think Dustin Johnson could benefit from having someone other than his brother on the bag, but here is the reality: He won two majors with Austin, and zero with Joe LaCava, one of the best caddies in the game, who was on his bag for four years. Sometimes comfort is better than logic.

In the end, the caddie can be a therapist, a strategist, or a motivator, but if the player is someone who doesn’t listen or is stubborn, they might as well be a donkey who can schlep a bag. The relationship needs to be collaborative.

I do think caddies can definitely help marginally-talented players like you and me because it takes our dumbest decisions off the table. As someone who makes a couple of dumb decisions per round — as you’ll see in an upcoming film room — that’s crippling when you do it.

I do love having a caddie at a course I’ve never played before, but sometimes I also feel added pressure in not wanting to let them down.

Because I don’t play golf competitively, I decided to tap in Soly for his thoughts here on what makes a good caddie, and why I wasn’t one. I actually caddied for him last year in our Nest Invitational Tournament, and we came up a little short and finished 2nd. I probably suffered from “Trying to do too much” syndrome, but it was a fun experience that we both took too seriously when we probably should have been pounding High Noons and enjoying ourselves more.

When I caddied for Hueber in a Monday qualifier, I got yardages, carried the clubs, raked the bunkers, and held the pin. I didn’t even help him with wind direction. Was there when he asked any question, but gave up nothing unprovoked because there was nothing I was going to pick up on that he was not.

The dynamic of having a caddie that is not the same level player as you is always difficult. Like, I’m sorry to say it KVV, but there’s just no shot in golf that I feel like I need your golf advice on. When Hueber tells me to add 10 to a shot into the wind, I know he’s compensating for whatever he feels like I need to compensate for, and also he has a massive amount of experience in judging what wind does to a well-struck golf shot. If I’m approaching a shot, and not asking for input on the club/yardage, a player does not want to hear “165 playing 175.” In my head, I already may be thinking it’s actually playing 180, but I need the loft of my 190 club to get through the wind, blah blah blah. But now it’s been put into my head that the wind isn’t as strong as I think, and it didn’t come from someone that knows it better than me. When caddying, it’s hard not to give advice to feel like you’re doing something. And as a player, you never wanna tell a caddie to do less, because then you’re just an asshole.

Rapport is the most crucial thing with a caddie, and it’s more important than the actual “skill” of the caddie. I can have a relatively quiet caddie that I find super helpful because I know when to ask for help, and he knows when to just let me do my thing. I hate getting a read that’s unasked for. I’m always gonna see what I see, and if I’m told something different than what I see, I’m gonna marry the two thoughts together and hit an uncommitted putt. Yet if it’s with a caddie I trust, it can obviously be super helpful to be saved by the local knowledge. At times even at the Gasparilla, I was calling Hueber off putts because I was putting so poorly and we just weren’t speaking the same language. Absolutely zero fault of his (I’ve had my hottest putting round ever with him on the bag), but I needed to just see my own read, trust it, and hit it. (It did not help).

My advice for the situation in the future is to be as in touch as possible with what your player needs from you, and maybe even ask your player on the first hole what it is they want. Do they want to be pumped up when things are going bad? Do they want you to ask them questions? Do they want you to give you what the wind is doing and where you see the putts are breaking even without asking? Do they want you to step in only if you see something jumping out at them that’s going wrong (slow your tempo down!)? All things that a player should be responsible for but rarely takes responsibility for. (Hand up here.)

 now in the books, what are your favorite and least favorite series finales from your favorite all-time shows and why?

 is probably my top spot. Just beautiful and weird and ambiguous. If more people had watched, we’d still be arguing over it, which is essential for great art. 

 has maybe my favorite walk-off line of any series. And Coach Taylor coming down the escalator to find his wife and ask matter-of-factly 

“Will you take me with you to Philadelphia, please?”

 in the Friday Nights Lights finale absolutely gutted me. It’s such an earned moment in five seasons of observing their marriage. A great series finale gives you callbacks to earlier seasons or characters, but it also surprises you and leaves you feeling like the writers had a plan and they honored the journey and the audience.

 ending but have grown weary of debating it over the years. To me, it doesn’t matter if Tony lives or dies at that moment, only that the rest of his life is going to be full of dread and anxiety.

 are obvious ones, but just thinking about them gets me worked up all over again. I could write (and have written, on our message board) thousands of words about these shows and why they dropped the ball with the game on the line like Lee Evans in the AFC Championship. But essentially my frustration with LOST comes down to this: Every story in history could end with “...and then they died and went to heaven.” It’s truly weak shit. The writers kept upping the ante on the story and when it got too big, they bailed rather than find a satisfying exit. Designing an intricately-plotted show and then saying “Psyche! It’s actually about your feelings and the friends we made along the way” was absurd.

As for HIMYM, I don’t hate Ted and Robin ending up together as much as some people do, but the pacing of it was so poor, I still can’t believe it was actually greenlit by rooms full of people. Ted may have had a decade to grieve the death of his wife, but the audience gets all of 30 seconds to do it before his kids give him permission to chase their Aunt Robin. It’s among the most insane things ever put on television, erasing the investment the show asked you to make for 10 seasons in under a minute.

 was extremely dumb by the end, but by that point, my expectations were very low. I expected LOST and HIMYM to redeem themselves.

Duckhunter07: In your opinion, what is the best month for golf in Maryland?

I’ll go with October. The heat of the summer has broken and the leaves have changed but mostly haven’t started to fall. The gloom of November is looming, but my favorite kind of golf is when the weather is a little crisp in the morning and cool in the evening. If I lived somewhere else, I’d pick August because there is nothing I like more than golf at twilight, especially when it’s 9 p.m. But August can be like swimming in mushroom soup in Maryland.

Dmmcgaha: You can become a member at any US Open course, but that’s the only course you can play for the rest of your life. What course is it and why’s it the Myopia Hunt Club?

I’ve never been invited to play Myopia Hunt Club, but judging from the photos, my goodness, that would be an incredible pick. If we stick with places I’ve actually been, I’d probably land on Pinehurst No. 2. It’s a delightful walk in an area of the country you can (mostly) play year-round. It has a great porch to have a beer afterward. Pebble would be cool, but I don’t see how you play six-hour rounds for the rest of your life. I’d go insane. The contrarian in me wants to choose Chambers Bay because I think it’s a really cool course in a great city and it was unfairly maligned, but the walk up No. 8 and then to the No. 9 tee is a bear. I’m not sure I’d be able to make it when I’m 70. I’d probably stick with Pinehurst in keeping with my belief that all U.S. Opens should be held at public courses. (That’s a topic for another mailbag.)

Killoc: How do you (singular or plural) balance friendship with players (ie. Rory, Max et al) with your work as a sportswriter / content creator? I think there is 100% room for fan-dom in covering sports but I wonder how you approach it?

This is an interesting question and one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. When I worked at ESPN, the calculus was simple. I was a journalist. My job was to have detached objectivity about my subjects. I think true objectivity is kind of a myth, because every decision in reporting and writing is made by a person, and people are subjective, but oftentimes I was trying to let the reader decide what he or she wanted to think about a subject. The piece I did about Aaron Rodgers is probably the best example of that kind of journalism.

Moving into a different role at NLU (not only writing stories but appearing regularly on podcasts, offering my opinion on players, rule changes, courses) has admittedly been a bit of a change. Relationships with people like Rory and Max is probably part of that. I like them as people, they seem to like and respect me, and enjoy having occasional conversations that are not about golf. One thing I’ve always admired about Rory is he does not bristle at commentary about his golf game. He expects it, in fact. He wants people like me and my colleagues to hold him to a high standard, even if he’s willing to do stuff like join us on the Trap Draw to talk about Succession. I’ve written critical things about him in the past (observant readers will remember he was an equal part of my infamous Justin Thomas column at Southern Hills) and wouldn’t shy away from doing so in the future, because my loyalty has to be to the audience, not him. And he understands that. (I suspect Max is similar, although I haven’t had as much opportunity to write about him because his rise came at a time when ESPN didn’t have me writing about golf.) I’m also not ashamed to admit that I like him personally and would enjoy seeing him win more majors.

KVV Mailbag: Early U.S. Open Talk, Caddies and TV Finales

Strapped: Spring Training

No Laying Up’s Big Randy and Neil search for budget golf, interesting people & the mega bonus all over the USA. 

Strapped

TRAILER | Strapped: Spring Training (Coming Soon)

This year's U.S. Open heads to the impeccable Los Angeles Country Club, a place we almost never get to see in professional golf. Get to know the course a bit better in this episode of Film Room, presented by 

NLU Film Room

NLU Film Room: Tron vs. Soly at Los Angeles CC

Three down to USC’s Brianna Navarrosa in the semifinals of NCAA match play, Zhang was in an unusual spot when she arrived at the 14th green. Her approach had settled 20 feet away from the hole. Navarrosa had her against the ropes. Zhang looked exhausted, and Stanford — the defending champions — was on the verge of giving up back-to-back points.

Not so fast. She buried the putt for a birdie, a sign of life Stanford desperately needed. A rare reaction followed. Zhang smiled as she walked over to scoop up her ball.

The college career of the greatest amateur in history still had a heartbeat.


As Zhang continued onto the closing stretch, USC would go up in two matches and needed one last point to advance to the NCAA final. The defending champs had only one point on the board, leaving Zhang as the anchor match. When she and Navarrosa tied No. 15, suddenly, No. 16 at Grayhawk Golf Club became do or die.

All day, Navarrosa’s steely determination and ball-striking had put Zhang on the ropes

 But on the Par 3 16th, Zhang channeled something magical, hitting a gorgeous tee shot that landed softly and settled to three feet.


Navarrosa’s sat 10 feet away. Zhang looked like she was once again on the verge of something spectacular, something only she could conjure up. She had done this countless times throughout her career. But on this day, no putt seemed too big for Navarrosa, who never trailed in the match. The USC junior drained it with ease, and wouldn’t let up on 17th. The 157th-best player in the world closed out the No. 1-amateur in the world, 2&1.


Tear-stricken and emotionally exasperated, Zhang explained where she went wrong. “Everything caught up to me, the fatigue…when I was dialing in my yardages, trying to figure out my swing, nothing was going well. Felt like everything was a little bit of blur.”

The match was over – and so was Rose Zhang’s amateur career.

Even before the result of the National Championship, I’d been dreading the day I had to write this story.


Not because I don’t want Rose Zhang to turn professional. I think it’s the natural next step. But because we’d have to speak about Rose Zhang’s amateur career in the past tense, and I know how lucky I’ve been to witness a GOAT in real-time.

When I found out Rose was turning professional, I wasn’t surprised. We were on a video shoot in Palo Alto, and she was talking about her plans. She wanted to relocate to Las Vegas and finish up her degree at Stanford. At 25, I envied this 19-year-old for myriad reasons, but mostly at how settled she was in these plans. There was zero fear of the future in the way she spoke. Instead, there was a deep sense of security in what she had, even if it wasn’t everything she wanted.

Her contentment would be tested a few months later when she almost unraveled in the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, a tournament she’d quietly coveted since its inception. But when she emerged victorious, it seemed like yet another obstacle overcome by the greatest amateur in history. Now, all that was left was to defend her NCAA title and try to lead an injury-riddled Stanford squad to a team championship.

First, she recaptured her own glory, becoming the only woman in NCAA history to do so. Then she ran out of gas, knocked off by the brilliant putting of Navarrosa, which felt like an abrupt end to the perfect story.

When she walked off the 17th green at Grayhawk Golf Club, still in a blur, she was met by Anne Walker, her coach and confidant for the last two years. The two shared a tearful embrace. A nearly 36-hole day after a week spent in desert golf will do that to a player. But so will a sudden end to a career that, in Zhang’s world, would have resulted in another team championship to the program that gave her so much.

“There’s somewhat of a soul-filtering process in the pool of people that qualify for Stanford athletics,” says Walker. “They already have some built-in soft skills. They’re hardwired to show up every day, be determined, be ambitious and give their all at whatever they’re doing.”

A 4.6 high school GPA and the No. 1-ranked amateur will make you a shoo-in at any golf program.  But there’s no guarantee that such a player will be successful. Unless you are Zhang and win immediately – and three in a row, at that. In two years, she won 12 times in 20 starts, eclipsing names like Tiger Woods, Maverick McNealy and Patrick Rodgers to become the winningest player in school history, and matching Lorena Ochoa’s feat. Out of all 20 events, a total of only 31 players would beat Zhang.

That would be an incredible career if it ended there. But the Rose Zhang experience did not exist in a collegiate vacuum. It started even before she even signed her letter of intent to Palo Alto when she downed defending U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Gabriela Ruffels with an injured left wrist. In the last year she was eligible, she won the U.S. Girls’ Junior in the summer preceding college – becoming the first person to win both in reverse order.


Then came the Tiger comparisons. The NIL deals. The media attention. A near-dizzying warp-speed ascent, she’d remain the de facto No. 1 for the rest of her college career. And on that trail she’d encounter multiple obstacles – burnout, injury (an unlucky weight landed on her left foot, leading to a wonky start to her freshman spring) and a long sought-out journey to independence.

“In college, you have to live on your own and make your own decisions,” she said weeks after winning her first NCAA individual title. “That was when I realized what was the most important thing for me, rather than having other people tell me what’s best for me.”

Much of Rose Zhang’s epic career has been illuminated by her time with the Cardinal, but as significant are the moments she has walked alone. Her renewed faith in Christianity led to her Baptism after her freshman year. The major starts, when she became that one amateur who hung around all week. Connecting deeper with her cultural background by taking Chinese classes. And in the final ride with the sisters she never had, she would hoist a championship trophy alone.


It’s deeply symbolic of Zhang’s transition into her new life. Had she decided to turn pro as the No. 1-ranked junior in her class, perhaps her trajectory would have looked much different. The trial run at “adulting,” if you will, was backed by two years full of fun, friends and hard lessons learned. It all feels so fast, but in the context of Zhang’s timeline, she took her sweet time dominating everything.

In what’s now the biggest decision of her entire life, Rose Zhang has some semblance of direction. She will make her first professional start at the Mizuho Americas Open, and spend her summer playing four majors and three professional events. By her side will be Jason Gilroyed, whose caddying resume spans Minjee Lee, Alison Lee and Cristie Kerr.

Where is the ceiling for the greatest amateur golfer of all time? That’s tough to say. But compared to the deep historical significance of Rose Zhang’s amateur career, this next chapter is equally as massive. And thanks to her, women’s golf and women’s amateur golf are in a better place than she found it.

Godspeed, Rose Zhang

ROCHESTER — Viktor Hovland was wiggling his feet in the sand. He was trying to stay poised, to stay in the moment, but the task in front of him was enormous. He was standing in a fairway bunker on the right side of the 16th hole at Oak Hill, trailing Brooks Koepka by a shot. All day, Hovland had hung so tough. He’d refused to flinch, even when Koepka briefly stretched his lead to four. But now he had to hit the shot of his 25-year-old life, a 9-iron with the ball below his feet. He needed to stay level, maintain his spine angle, but also get the ball up quickly, over a mound that was roughly the size of a small whale.

He took a deep breath, gripped then re-gripped his club, and swung.


The PGA Championship essentially hung in the balance.


The ball never got six inches off the ground.

Hovland blasted it directly into the face of the mound, and you could hear, in succession, a muffled thump as it disappeared into the grass and dirt, then a groan from the gallery. Hovland said nothing, but looked toward the sky in agony, then put his gloved left fist to his mouth and lightly bit down on his knuckles.


Five minutes later — after Hovland’s lengthy discussion with a rules official, a drop for an embedded ball and a despondent chip out — Koepka addressed his ball up ahead in the rough. It took him roughly 10 seconds to pull the club back. But when he did, he delivered one of the most ruthless shots I’ve seen on a golf course. His wedge slashed through the thick rough like he was using a filet knife. The ball climbed into the blue-gray sky, but only a little. It seemed to float under the wind, and for a few seconds, everything was deathly quiet. It landed on the front of the green, skidded a bit and released. It came to rest four feet from the hole.

Hovland, marching morosely toward his ball, also knew.

Everyone watching, in fact, knew. The tournament was essentially over.

That is what I’ll remember most about the return of Brooks Koepka, and the day he became just the 20th man in history to win a fifth major – that he saw a moment of weakness in his closest pursuer and he pounced. He snatched the soul right out of Hovland’s body. He hit 67 shots Sunday on his way to a 2-stroke victory over Hovland and Scottie Scheffler. But that one hovers above all of them.

“Brooks is a player that, when he gets in contention, he’s like a shark in the water,” said Masters winner Jon Rahm.

There have been plenty of times, in recent years, when Koepka had a chance to deliver a dagger on a Sunday at a major. Plenty of times, he let those moments slip away. He even referred to them, early in the week of the PGA Championship, as choking. (His words.) It seemed partly done in jest, to get the phrase out there before anyone else could bring it up. But it was also a reflection of his own high standards. Winning majors is hard, and plenty of golfers let opportunities slip away. Koepka once prided himself on not being one of them, and he hated that injuries and mental mistakes eroded that aura of invincibility. But he learned from those miserable moments, and perhaps Hovland will too, one day.

“I've always learned more from the four times I finished second than, I guess, the five times I've won now,” Koepka said, standing next to the Wanamaker Trophy for the third time. “I think failure is how you learn. You get better from it. You realize what mistakes you've made. Each time I've kind of made an adjustment. It's more mentality than it is anything. It's not really golf swing or anything like that. I think the big key is just being open and honest with yourself, and if you can do that, you'll be miles ahead of everybody else.”

Losing to Rahm at the Masters in April, as devastating as it was, taught him something about himself. He won’t say what it was, only that he plans to draw on it frequently from now on.

“I learned from it,” Koepka said. “I'm very pleased with what I took from it, and I'm pleased with the honesty I was able to dive into. My best friend, actually, my brother's caddie, my best friend, I think we stayed up probably most of the night just chatting about it, and he kind of ripped into me pretty good about it. He was texting me all last night about it and making sure that I wouldn't fall into the same trap.”

No matter how you feel about LIV Golf and the PGA Tour and the ongoing battle between the two leagues, Koepka’s reemergence is worth celebrating. He is now, unquestionably, the most successful golfer in major championships who is younger than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. You can view this win as a boon to LIV, as a symbolic middle finger to everyone who said LIV golfers were washed and couldn’t compete against the best in the game. You can also view it as something bigger than golf’s civil war, as a reminder that the game was more interesting when Koepka was healthy and hoovering up major championships at an alarming rate. Koepka was happy to plant a foot in each camp on Sunday.

“I definitely think it helps LIV, but I'm more interested in my own self right now, to be honest with you,” Koepka said. “Yeah, it's a huge thing for LIV, but at the same time I'm out here competing as an individual at the PGA Championship.”


The fairest assessment would probably be to say that LIV Golf and Koepka have been mutually beneficial to each other. Guaranteed money and fewer tournaments — that also featured fewer rounds — certainly helped Koepka focus on getting healthy again. And now between Koepka and Cam Smith, LIV Golfers have won two of the last three major championships held.

“It just validates everything we’ve said from the beginning,” said Bryson DeChambeau. “The truth always comes out eventually.”


It’s also fair to say that the emergence of LIV Golf has only heightened the importance of the majors, because it is now the only time when all the best players in the world are facing each other. Regardless of what happens with the Official World Golf Rankings discussion, whether LIV ever gets ranking points for its tournaments, Koepka just earned exemptions into all the majors for the next five years.

“The problem with LIV is it’s not a competitive tour, it’s another tour,” said Pete Cowen, one of Koepka’s swing coaches. “But it’s been good for him because at the time we thought his injuries were not going to be corrected. So 14 tournaments a year plus four majors would be fine. And now he’s got another five years of exemptions.”

Koepka has been a little coy over the extent of his injuries, but he’s also made a conscious effort to be more open and more human over the last year, and that includes participating in the first season of Netflix’s “Full Swing” where he expressed doubt that he’d ever play great golf again.

“It was a lot worse than I let on to you guys,” Koepka said. “It's been a long road. But look, that's who I am. I'm open and honest. I know I seem like this big, bad, tough guy on the golf course that doesn't smile, doesn't do anything, but if you catch me off the golf course, I'll let you know what's going on. Like, I'm happy they got that side; right? That's truly me, and some people might hate it, some people might dog it, but at the end of the day, it's just me.”

As he walked off the 18th green and toward the scoring tent, you could see the emotion washing over him. The stoicism he’d displayed all tournament was melting away.


What was going through his mind at that moment?

"Pardon my language but it was all the fucking shit I had to go through,” he said. “No one knows. No one knows, I think, all the pain. There were a lot of times when I couldn’t even bend my knee. So yeah, it felt good."

Koepka’s return to the summit of golf will be the biggest historical takeaway from the 105th PGA Championship, but it won’t be the only storyline that lives on. Michael Block, a teaching professional from California, finished tied for 15th in the tournament and was the belle of the ball for much of the week — high-fiving fans, getting choked up in interviews, bouncing back from shanks, throwing darts at pins. The story crested emotionally on Sunday when he made a hole-in-one on the 15th hole. The ensuing roar was as loud as anything you will ever hear on a golf course, and it earned him a hug from playing partner Rory McIlroy.


“He had to tell me five times that I made it,” Block said. “So it was a pretty cool experience to have Rory be telling me that I made a hole-in-one in front of God knows how many people that were supporting me.”

Block, who had been teetering on the edge of tears for much of the week, finally broke down after the round, the gravity of having lived out a dream finally getting to him.

“If it makes any sense, the one thing in the world that makes me cry is golf,” Block said. “If that puts into context as far as how much I love the game, you know now. It's everything to me.”


There was a time when it wasn’t everything to Koepka, when he seemed eager to downplay its importance in his life. He was an athlete, not a golfer, he was often quick to remind people. If he could go back and do it again, he might pick a different sport, one with different rules of decorum. He liked being booed, and he liked waging a psychological war against his opponents instead of the course. He was good at golf, but he didn’t want it to define him. There are still traces of that in his bloodstream. On Sunday, when a fan in the crowd begged for his ball to find the water off the 13th tee, his caddie Rickie Elliott gave the fan a 10-second death stare, but Koepka masochistically enjoyed it.

“I hear it all. I just don't care,” Koepka said. “I mean, that's sports, right. You've got to be mentally tough. I guess some lady was chanting some stuff and another guy was shouting out some stuff. But you've got to be mentally tough not to deal with it. It happens in every sport. I'm pretty sure when Tom Brady was playing the Jets or the Dolphins, he wasn't exactly cheered upon when he ran in the stadium.”

A part of Koepka, however, has warmed to the idea of letting golf define part of who he is. He wants to play in the Ryder Cup again. He wants to one day play golf with his soon-to-be-born son. (His wife, Jena, is due this summer.) And he knows, even if he never wins another tournament, he’ll go down in history as one of the greats. A man who once scoffed at questions about legacy is now imagining a day when he’ll embrace them.


“I do care about it,” he said. “It's just tough to really grasp the situation kind of while you're still in it, I think. Probably when I'm retired and I can look back with Jena and my son and kind of reflect on all that stuff, that will be truly special, but right now I'm trying to collect as many of these things as I can.”

When Koepka holed on out Sunday, a one-inch tap in for par on the 18th green, he pumped his fist and grinned, then embraced Elliott, his long-time caddie. He shook hands with Hovland, then realized he’d forgotten to pluck the ball out of the hole. He sauntered over, the crowd still drenching him with applause, and scooped up the ball and tossed it 10 rows deep into the stands. Most men would’ve pocketed the winning putt, but not Koepka.

No sense in getting nostalgic just yet. He plans on winning a lot more of these.

Brooks Koepka: Resuming the Pursuit of History

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