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!
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