‘We hear it every single round’ – Jon Rahm says PGA Tour should look into hecklers
At Olympia Fields, a fan yelled out during Max Homa’s birdie putt on 17. Jon Rahm has had his say on the matter…
It happens “more often that you think”. That’s what Jon Rahm said about heckling after Max Homa was called out during the BMW Championship.
A fan yelled during Homa’s backswing on a birdie putt at Olympia Fields last week and, talking about the incident ahead of the season ending Tour Championship, the Masters champion said TV cameras may not pick up everything the players hear out on the course.
“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, yeah. But not only that, 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.
“It’s not caught on TV maybe, but it’s something that happens, yeah.”
The Spaniard, who has won four times this season, hopes the PGA Tour will look into the issue.
But he said that, because of the number of fans coming through the gates at tournaments each week, it’s going to be a tough ask.
“You know, in a game like this where you’re allowed to have your favourites, but it’s not a team aspect, right, it’s not a home team against a visiting team,” Rahm added.
“I think the Tour maybe should look into it because you don’t want it to get out of hand, right?
“It’s very easy. Very, very 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.
“So I think they could look into it, but at the same time, it would be extremely difficult for the TOUR to somehow control the 50,000 people scattered around the golf course, right?
“So it’s a complicated subject. You don’t want it to get out of control, but you also want to have the fans to have the experience they want to have.”
Do you agree with Jon Rahm on the issue of hecklers in golf? How can the PGA Tour combat the problem? Let us know with a Tweet!
Matt Coles
Mention a European country, and Matt will tell you which resorts make the National Club Golfer Top 100s: European Resorts list. He might even throw in who designed the golf course and how many rooms the hotel has got at each one…
Matt got into the game of golf from a young age, following his old man to the local golf club. He fell for the sport, and now can’t seem to go a day without thinking about how to improve his game (Thanks Dad!). Matt has been a member of Howley Hall GC in Leeds since 2020, and is just about managing to maintain a single-figure handicap. He likes to remind people that he once broke 75, but won’t tell people that it was on a shortened course during the winter.
He moved to Leeds after graduating from the University of Central Lancashire with a First Class Honours degree in Sports Journalism. Matt joined NCG after almost five years travelling the world with the Professional Squash Association, working on events in all four corners of the globe.
Matt currently plays a Cobra King LTDx driver and RadSpeed 3-wood. TaylorMade monopolise the rest of his bag, with a SIM UDI, M5 irons and both Milled Grind and HI-TOE wedges, along with a Monza Redline putter. He uses a Vice Pro Plus golf ball, because he’s a bit different…
Away from golf, Matt is a Manchester United fan, and a keen runner, having ran the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon (his first and possibly last), in May 2023.
