Latest Fan Behavior Debacle: James Hahn Tweets, Then Deletes "My fault for not expecting the worst from fans."
/As you know, there are complete losers in this world and increasingly they are coming to golf tournaments to get attention, get drunk and to disrupt the play of great golfers.
The 2018 PGA Tour season has seen an uptick in a wide range of hooliganism, from sounds as players are preparing to hit a shot to personal attacks on player family members.
Rory McIlroy suggested alcohol sales should be curbed.
The PGA Tour responded by touting policy of cutting off sales one hour before the end of competition, but neglected to highlight that alcohol sales start in the morning hours at outdoor venues.
The Commissioner, Jay Monahan, believes this is what happens when you add new fans and said golf is the same as other sports.
McIlroy disagreed.
At the WGC Dell Match Play Sergio Garcia had a fan immediate ejected and James Hahn tweeted about efforts to disrupt his match, only to delete the Tweet and backtrack.
Mercifully Kevin Cunningham at Golf.com shares Hahn's original message and it's just the kind of thing that can't keep continuing to happen, new fans or not.
Hahn took to Twitter to claim that on the second-to-last hole of his match against Dufner, a "guy yell[ed] purposely on my back swing." The tweet was later deleted, but the full text read, "Fought hard today after a bad start. 2 down, 4 to go, guy yells purposely on my back swing. Whether we like it or not, this is where the game is going. My fault for not expecting the worst from fans. Just sucks to lose a match that way."
He followed the first tweet with a correction that stated, "I respect and love all golf fans but I can expect bad behavior from them. And I'm not blaming the fan for losing the match. Just disappointed I lost the deciding hole in that fashion."
Fines department strikes again!
As Eamon Lynch writes in this week's Golfweek, the PGA Tour's stance on this matter is crumbling in the face of basic logic.
This isn’t a referendum on growing the game or about tweedy killjoys debating alcohol sales policies. It ought to be a simple solution for the Tour: Welcome all fans, let them enjoy a drink, but broom the jerks immediately. All it requires is extra security deployed around the high-profile players who attract the beer-goggle boors.
No genuine golf fans will be driven away by such an approach.
Here's a nice reminder of how people act in spite of an alcohol sales cut off at 4 pm and fear of ejection:
