Michael Douglas – actor, golfer, producer, writer – has published a new memoir, called “One Helluva Ride”. In it he reveals that he and his wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, play golf every afternoon. Douglas is very into it. He played a lot Pebble Beach and in the AT&T pro-am, and he has certainly never been on 18, considering how much ocean to bite and utter the three-word phrase that made him famous: “Greed is good”. The immortal line is provided by the character of Douglas Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street”, with his straight hair, late Reagan braces and superior manner. Nice clothes, too – if you like that kind of clothing.
Greed is no good. That’s the position we take in this bureau and maybe you do in yours – hard to say. When it comes to golf course decisions, greed is a killer. In matters of personal and public finance, in matters of career and social aspirations, greed will it takes you out. Maybe I should add the Marriott all-you-can-eat buffet to this list. Too much is too much here, too. Greed will really take you out of the mix sooner or later. Greed is insatiable.
Jon Rahm, the big, bearded Spanish golfer living the great American life in suburban Phoenix, discover that now. My faith is in the PGA Tour, my faith is in the PGA Tour, my faith is in the PGA Tour. That was his beautiful phrase, until it wasn’t. For a meager sum offered by LIV Golf and its Saudi backers – $300 million or $400 million or whatever – he decided that his loyalty was no on the PGA Tour.
Among the people I randomly polled, there were two broad responses.
1. Should I go LIV, for that kind of money?
Then you will hear someone chattering about “generational wealth”, “dynastic wealth”, “real money”.
2. How disgusting.
Then you would have heard this shrill and sensible question: “When is enough?” Rahm has already earned $50 million in PGA Tour earnings alone over the course of seven seasons. As a US Open winner and Ryder Cup star, his earning power was vast. Or it is vast kind of judgement?
There is something slippery in greed, when you try to understand what people think. There are Wall Street gods who have taken Gekko’s greed phrase and turned it into a mantra, even while dissing it in his MSNBC appearances. It is difficult to reach the truth. Like a pollster who asks how you can vote, you can say one thing because it is convenient with your children who are there, and you can do something else behind a curtain of voting booths.
So now there is confusion about Jon Rahm’s golf future. He is probably on the phone every day with lawyers (plural) and agents (idem). I couldn’t care. I don’t see how LIV Golf has done anything to improve professional tournament golf, not at all. And I say that with admiration for Greg Norman. Norman had a dream to create a world tour that was in the incubator for 30 years. He chased his dream.
LIV failed as most big ambitions fail – its problems were in the details, the financing, the format, the inability to work in the golf ecosystem, the selection process of the players. (We want you, we don’t want you.) The reason so many of us are drawn to professional golf is because it is the ultimate meritocracy. Get the scores, get the awards, and no one cares what prep school your grandpa dropped out of on his way to Princeton. Scottie Scheffler had from the beginning: LIV exists because guys say yes, not because Greg Norman called. You don’t have to get to say yes. He didn’t.
Phil, of course, did. (Phil. Fame of a name.) Others follow. They went for the money, the petro dollars. Jay Monahanthe PGA Tour commissioner, took a leave of absence, in the name of mental health, the pressure was so great. Last week he and fellow pro Niklas Nørgaard finished one shot out of first in the pro-am side of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, played at Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and the Old Course (two rounds). It must be beautiful.
The roots of golf are Scottish, Calvinist, modest, flinty – selfless, really. The point of the rulebook is to ensure that all players are treated equally under the law. The first and second generation of American golfers had this in spades. I recently read this for the first time, a sequel to Jack Grout’s last testament. Jack Grout, if you don’t know the name, was Jack Nicklaus’ lifelong golf instructor and, along with Bobby Jones, a mentor of sorts. Grout performed several times with Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan. These are the final words of his will; the modesty and altruism of them could shake:
Having thus far disposed of all my worldly goods, I have but one final bequest which I wish to make. If there is a time at all in a man’s life that he should make an extra effort to be truthful, and at the same time sincere, I think it should be while preparing his Last Will and Testament. What I have to say in the next few words comes directly from my heart.
Over the course of the last 30 years or so, from time to time I read in various books and magazines about the contributions I made to the career of Jack Nicklaus. Since this may be my last opportunity to do so, I thought maybe it would be good to get it sorted.
In all honesty, I don’t think it ever hurt Jack’s golf game in any way. To put it another way, if he hadn’t come under my tutelage in the early 1950s, I don’t see how he could have become much better than he did. From the beginning of our relationship, I recognized that the thunder in his stroke and the courage in his heart were gifts that had clearly been attributed to him; and that there was very little I could do to get away from him.
I don’t mean to say that I didn’t make any contribution to his game. For one thing, I worked it hard (and seemed to enjoy every minute of it). I had him step away from the ball with his arms fully extended, and insisted that he swing hard. Within a few months you could hear the pop of his clubhead all over the practice range when he took one of his legendary cuts to the ball. I made sure his posture was correct; I got along well with the crew; from time to time I checked his grip, or maybe the rhythm of his swing. I always tried to encourage him; and in the early days of his development I made a special effort to explain to him and interpret for him how extraordinary I thought his talents were, and therefore still are.
If I have made other valuable contributions, which I cannot think of now, or if I have made any of them that I am not aware of, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to do so. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that Jack Nicklaus is the greatest golfer to ever swing a club in the entire history of the game. It was a distinct honor and a great pleasure for me to have played some part in his career. And this brings me to my final legacy.
To you, Jack Nicklaus, thank you.
If you really have the gene of gratitude, then you know: Greed is not good.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.