One great shot from the bunker on the 18th green (great though it was) is not a test of one’s moral character. Nor is Rory McIlroy’s three-putt. DeChambeau’s character is not determined by the dimpled chitchat he engages in with spectators between tees, or by fans crowding him to put mustard-colored fingerprints on the trophy. “I want you to touch this trophy, so you can experience how I feel,” he said after the match, without a trace of narcissism. All of this is luxury coming from a man who betrayed the American crowd, dumped his US-based PGA Tour colleagues and robbed the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia for a reported four-year contract worth $125 million.
DeChambeau’s desperate week of trying to build rapport with the crowd was clearly a public relations stunt to reconnect with golf fans who had completely abandoned LIV Golf. It’s impossible to see what he’s really doing with the brightness of his smile and the glow of his championship medals. It’s a real shame, because the 30-year-old, with the jaw, chest-thumping swing and soft hands of a comic book superhero, could have been golf’s biggest star ever to replace an aging and infirm Tiger Woods. As it stands, it’s impossible to forget he’s a fraud, an apologist for a regime with ties to the 9/11 attacks that killed some 3,000 Americans and was allegedly behind the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The most embarrassing of DeChambeau’s post-victory tributes came when he shamelessly brought up the late, brightly-dressed icon, Payne Stewart. After making a save from a bunker, DeChambeau yelled “That was Payne there, baby!” as he left the 18th green. It was as if Stewart had intervened from heaven, or given his blessing.
All evidence suggests that Stewart would have been disgusted by DeChambeau’s defection and would have denounced LIV Golf. Stewart was an impassioned, patriotic man who cried when “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played at the Ryder Cup. He made special reference to human rights abuses by foreign regimes when speaking about American privilege. Here are Stewart’s words in a 1999 interview with Golf Digest editor Guy Yoakum:
“I’m a patriot,” Stewart said. “To those who sully the American way, burn our flag, do these things, I say: Don’t live here and sully our country. Go to the Middle East and see what it’s like. If you steal something, they cut your hand off. That’s how it is. We live in a very protected environment in America. I’ve been fortunate to travel the world and I’ve seen things that you only read about or see in the news. Dire poverty. That’s why I’m so proud to be an American. I’m proud to pay taxes. I pay a lot of taxes, but it’s so much better than the alternative.”
Meanwhile, after agreeing to accept Saudi Arabia’s funding, DeChambeau took a noble stance toward the kingdom: “Nobody’s perfect.”
In his heyday, Stewart declared that he was “not in the business of making money” and turned down high exhibition fees to stay loyal. In that respect, Stewart’s true successor is McIlroy, not DeChambeau. Stewart would have given DeChambeau a passionate lecture. As early as 2019, McIlroy turned down an appearance fee from Saudi Arabia. “I have a sense of morality,” McIlroy said, but he has since been working with the PGA Tour leaders to revive golf, partly with Saudi Arabian funds.
As McIlroy tries to recover from his bruising ending, he should look to the legacy of Stewart, once the bitterest loser of his era. McIlroy arguably lost more games than DeChambeau won in this tournament. McIlroy bogeyed three of his final four holes, including a little downhill slider that grazed the lip of the 18th green. The mistake negated all the great golf McIlroy had played up to that point. During the tournament, McIlroy hit 82% of Pinehurst’s narrow-necked fairways and 67% of the greens. In the pressure-packed final round, McIlroy was two strokes better than DeChambeau, who was one over par and hit just five fairways, the fewest by a winner in 17 years.
But golf isn’t a fair-judging game. There are too many factors beyond our control: dirt, sun, wind and, in this case, the pure luck of Pinehurst’s thin, gimmicky rough. Pinehurst is sandy, full of “native plants carried by dune breezes and native birds” — what we call weeds — rather than the usual U.S. Open’s long, curled-up grass. Usually, missing a U.S. Open fairway by 10 to 20 yards is a 78. But DeChambeau found clean exits time and time again. “Is there such thing as ‘strokes gained, good break?’ [stat] “What’s going to happen this week?” asked NBC announcer Brandel Chamblee, correctly attributing the win to “luck” as well as skill.
McIlroy has finished second in four majors in the past seven years. If there’s anything to take home from Pinehurst, it’s the comforting lesson that for years Stewart was known as the guy who never finished. Stewart has finished second in more majors than he has won, and he was runner-up four times. He missed two short putts to lose the 1985 British Open and a 6-foot putt to lose the 1986 U.S. Open. But he persevered. He finally broke through in the 1989 PGA Championship at Kemper Lakes only to have another player, Mike Reed, cede a three-stroke lead with three holes to go. “I’ve messed up a few tournaments,” Stewart said humbly as he hoisted the trophy.
Stewart will probably tell McIlroy he should have spoken to reporters on Sunday — because if you want a rainbow, you have to endure the rain — and remind McIlroy that no great player is immune to bad or unfair conditions. In 1998, Stewart led by four strokes on Sunday at the U.S. Open but lost by one to Lee Janzen, in part due to bad luck when a great drive went into a hole in the sand and he made a bogey.
Stewart was no pure saint. Early in his career, he was moody, arrogant, a spendthrift and money-hungry. “Sales are up,” he joked about winning the PGA Championship in his trademark underwear. But he grew steadily, learned the almost indefinable fine line between winning and losing a major by a stroke and came to believe that golf is as much about a personal ethic as it is a game. Maybe DeChambeau will grow up to be worthy of a proper Payne Stewart tribute.