Was Wyndham Clark influenced by betting? Jordan Spieth opens

Jordan Spieth knows now, of course, he’s playing this week in Silvis, Illinois.

But if he needs reassurance, he believes that what he sees and sounds can also tell him where he’s been.

“When you’re in the Midwest, you know you’re in the Midwest,” Spieth said.

“It always feels like that here.”

The thought came up Tuesday, just days before the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic, but no, Spieth wasn’t speaking for a local trade group. Crowd behavior, after a series of recent incidents, has become a renewed topic in pro golf. Last September, fans turned on the European team at the Ryder Cup in Long Island, N.Y. In March, fans booed England’s Matt Fitzpatrick when he fought American Cameron Young at the Players Championship – and again a month later as Fitzpatrick played against American Scottie Scheffler at the RBC Heritage in South Carolina.

The issue then continued two weeks ago at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island, although this time, the upset was directed at the American, Wyndham Clark. Over time, theories have been floated as to why, and on Tuesday, Spieth said he thought it was possible that one job was at fault — and that it might have to be “addressed here soon.”

Gambling.

Then he found something. Going into the final round, Clark had a six-shot lead before winning.

“I don’t know how much of, say, the Wyndham situation,” Spieth said, “was the fact that it was tempting to bet the Wyndham field verse on Sunday in a legal betting situation, and you’d have people out there actually, you know, with $100 to $10,000, depending on who the other person is.”

“In golf it’s weird because you can affect the outcome if you want to. It might not last long, but you can affect a shot if you want to. I don’t know of any other sport where you can have as much of an impact as a fan as you are playing golf. So I don’t know how much that has to do with it, if it’s different than in the past.”

Notably, Spieth is a spokesperson for FanDuel, a sports book, and the PGA Tour promotes betting on its website and broadcasts. Spieth also said he has played against players who have been treated unfairly since “10, 15 years ago” – and it was just over eight years ago that the state’s ban on sports gambling was overturned by the Supreme Court, making it easier to bet. The PGA Tour also has fan betting rules in place. In March, Sean Zak of GOLF.com reported that the PGA Tour recently issued new guidelines to its players on how to report gambling-related harassment, and that the tour has begun training its volunteers to stand in the crowd to better spot potential problems.

“You have to understand that we’re not immune to it,” Andy Levinson, SVP of Tournament Administration at the Tour, told GOLF.com. “We are not immune from acts of corruption, we are not immune from bad actors, all that. That is and that fear will always be there. So the first and most important thing, everything we do in this space is integrity first.”

As to why Clark was pierced, other thoughts have been suggested. After winning the Open, Clark said “the rest is worth it; I brought it on myself” – which appeared to be a reference to a number of incidents, including Clark smashing a locker at Oakmont Country Club following last year’s US Open miss. This year, Clark was again playing in the final round against Scheffler, who was going for a career grand slam on his birthday and Father’s Day. In his press conference afterward, Scheffler also said that New Yorkers are “tough people.”

“I think sometimes it can be too much when, you know, the balls just go green and you start hearing the cheers,” Scheffler said. “That affected me a lot. But in the end, I can’t control the behavior of the fans. Being on the field is not for everyone. You know, there have been crowds that have fought for me in my career; there have been crowds that have been very against me in my career. …

“Being on the course is not for everyone, and I think it shows a lot about Wyndham, the way he handled not only the golf course but I think the crowd as well today and he’s a well-deserved champion.”

On Tuesday, Spieth also said that Fitzpatrick’s distaste for The Players and RBC may have stemmed from last year’s Ryder Cup. “It’s probably a continuing effect of that with the American and the European,” he said. “You know, Cam Young, Fitzpatrick, The Players. I’m trying to pick for them, but I wasn’t a part of either of them.”

But in most cases over the past five years, he said, bad fan behavior comes from betting.

“We’ll see what happens with that,” Spieth said.

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