SOUTHPORT, England – Bryson loved Arnold.
He has said it more than once. Wow, where are my manners, especially you young people? Arnold Palmer, who won the first of his two British Opens here at Royal Birkdale in 1961. Bryson, of course, is Bryson DeChambeau, who won the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational, about 15 months before he went to LIV. Bryson won Arnold’s event, red-stamped the late manager’s card and said that Arnold would have four people in his dream, along with Ben Hogan and his father. Good.
On Friday night, here at Royal Birkdale, DeChambeau found himself in a legal dispute with the R&A, the promoters of golf’s oldest tournament, the Open Championship, and, the USGA, its rules writers and the final arbiter of its rules disputes. Almost every player with a long career eventually has one or more rules against golf position. Arnold did so. How you handle it is how you handle it.
I had the good fortune to interview Palmer more than a few times during the last 30 years of his life. Since his death in 2016, I got to know one of his two daughters, Peg Palmer Wears, and one of his two grandsons, Will Wears, who played in several USGA events as an amateur. During the last years of his grandfather’s life, Will Wears got to know his mother’s father well. I go to him, now again, as the gossip Arnold. Wears does not say that he knows what his grandfather will say about this or that matter. But he is giving me his best and educated guesses.
For example, Wears told me a few years ago that Arnold was going to fight the PGA Tour’s ban on LIV players. He would have wanted Bryson on the field for his invitational event, because tournament golf is better when DeChambeau is on the field, when he tries to boomerang the 560-yard par-5 (if you take the country route on the 6th hole at Bay Hill) by taking a line directly over the lake.
On Saturday, I asked Wears what he thinks his grandfather would have advised DeChambeau, had he been in his inner circle, Friday night at Birkdale. Arnold returned to the regal course – duney and sand and storm – often years after his win here in 1961.
“I think he would have told Bryson to respect the R&A’s authority over the game and the event,” Wears said. “I think he would have suggested he said something like, ‘I wasn’t trying to improve my backhand as I went after the ball, but if the R&A said I did, I did.’
That does not threaten to withdraw from this competition. That is not to ignore journalists. That is not to oppose the organization that writes the rules, prepares the lesson, lights the cup, and distributes the checks. It is completely and utterly the opposite. It respects the required game sequence. The players are guests in this game. There were golfers before Arnold Palmer, of course. There will be golfers behind Bryson DeChambeau. If the facility holds, championship golf can flourish. If players put themselves above the game, golf can turn into WWE rassling.
