When Golf Pros Push Back: Steven Bowditch Edition

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Sean Zak at Golf.com backed up his case that Steven Bowditch made an extraordinarily large amount of money (Nearly $500k) given some historically poor play on the PGA Tour.

Nothing about the item was personal, but given the sensitive nature of pro golfers, who are coddled by the tour to believe they are doing the Lord's work, Zak received social slaps from giants in the game who apparently hold tour cards, notes Michael Shamburger at The Big Lead.

Steve Wheatcroft, Andres Gonzales, Colt Knost and Hudson Swafford all expressed their dismay, while an all-out blackout threat came from Graham DeLaet, who, while suffering through the yips this summer, blew off all writers at the Rio Games.

And I can tell you, none of us have been the same since.

Anyway, maybe Zak should have moved the dollar amount and easy-WGC money up higher in his item to not bury the lede exposing Tim Finchem's grand vision for rewarding something worse than mediocrity. Zak, because he's a nice fellow, actually portrayed it as good news in trying to find some silver lining in Bowditch's season:

Bowditch was 3.209 strokes worse than the field average in the 55 rounds he recorded last year. Robert Allenby finished 184th in strokes gained, albeit in 14 fewer rounds, but lost just 1.95 strokes per round. So the second-worst golfer, strokes gained-wise, was still a stroke better per round than Bowditch was. Just one player in the ShotLink era (David Gossett in ’04—sorry, David!) finished a season with a worse average. Those 3.209 strokes lost per round looks like this.

Alas, there was some good news among all the gloominess. Bowditch still managed to earn $458,891 last season, good for 158th on the money list -- a far cry from his 185th-best form.

Bowditch’s Tour wins in 2014 and '15 earned him spots in the no-cut WGCs that ensure a paycheck. Those three starts alone helped him rake in a cumulative $158,500, slightly more than 34% of his season earnings.

Bowditch took to Twitter to push back:


DeLaet's threat mentions something about a sit down, something (A) players rarely do anyway (B) no one but maybe some Canadian press, are dying to do with DeLaet: