Golf has long kept a gentleman’s agreement that whatever the players think of one another stays buried beneath decorum. Rivals trade nods on the first tee and handshakes on the 18th green, saving their honest verdicts for the locker room or a conversation that never makes it on camera. So whenever Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau drag their grudge back into the daylight, it’s hard not to lean in close enough to catch the spray.
The latest beef came during a range chat with Dan Rapaport on Dan on Golf. Rapaport, with the patience of a man laying a trap, steered Koepka toward the 2025 Masters, where DeChambeau, paired with Rory McIlroy on Sunday, groused afterward that McIlroy hadn’t spoken to him all day.
“I don’t think many people want to talk to him regardless,” Koepka responded, a shiv slipped between the ribs and delivered with the affect of a man reading a yardage book.
Their war burned hottest across 2020 and 2021. The eye roll seen ‘round the internet, the “Brooksie” chants trailing DeChambeau from tee to green, the Ryder Cup détente staged for the cameras. Then LIV conscripted both men to the same side of golf’s civil war, and the hostilities went quiet. And quiet is where golf likes to live. Its stars are schooled in a dialect of gratitude and process, of “just trying to hit good shots,” until every press conference reads as if drafted by the same compliance department.
Which is why Brooks and Bryson sniping like a Real Housewives reunion feels so refreshing. It is beneath them, all empty calories, occasionally revealing an underbelly dark enough to send you looking for a shower. Still, we can’t look away. Other sports treat trash talk as connective tissue. Golf treats it as a breach of etiquette, then wonders why casual fans keep wandering off.
Koepka has bigger concerns, grinding for Championship Series status back on the tour. DeChambeau has LIV’s uncertain future to untangle. Neither man needs this fight. That is precisely what makes it so welcome.
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New Zealand’s Zack Swanwick shot a four-under 67 Saturday at Te Arai Links’ South Course to take a two-stroke lead into the final round of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship. He is one round away from delivering the host nation its first victory in the championship’s history. The 20-year-old University of Florida junior made five birdies and one bogey, closing with a 10-footer on the par-5 18th to reach seven under overall. Swanwick opened with a 72 on Thursday, a round in which he was four over through his first 15 holes, and sat tied for 25th. A second-round 67 moved him up 21 spots to solo fourth, and Saturday’s matching round put him on top. There’s no denying the pressure on Swanwick heading into Sunday’s final round. Not only does he have a chance to become the first New Zealander to win the APAC but a victory would secure invitations to the 2027 Masters and the Open at St. Andrews. “Just gonna stick to the game plan, soaking it all in,” Swanwick said in his approach to the final round. “It’s all a pretty cool experience. It’s a spot I haven’t been in a while, so just trying to make the most of it.”
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While I genuinely appreciate my reader emails featuring very specific Stupid Golf Problems, and while I rarely have an issue running into ones of my own, sometimes the internet hands you ideas on a platter. The Internet Invitational is chock full of chicanery on this front. Look no further than last year’s installment, which featured SlopeGate and FescueGate in the same episode, allowing me to cash in on a 2-for-1 rules riff.
Episode 2 of the second installment in 2026, which I wrote about extensively already, brought the goods again. And while I may be risking repeating myself or rehashing a similar situation, there was a moment that stood out to me as a perfect problem to break down here – the idea of begging for a gimme putt.
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LIV Golf 1.0 is gone. The pomp, pageantry and hot-air-balloon contracts of LIV Golf’s first iteration went up in smoke when the league filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September. Now the future of LIV Golf hinges on financing efforts for its next chapter, colloquially referred to as LIV Golf 2.0. According to recent reports, the league must obtain key stakeholder and court approval to complete the transaction with its angel investor, BC Partners.
Key to the future of LIV Golf, however, is the status of its top pros, who will operate as equity owners of the league and its respective teams under the plan laid out by CEO Scott O’Neil. Without those players and their literal and figurative buy-in, LIV Golf may not survive to see its second chapter. So where does that leave the floundering tour as the clock continues to tick? Which players have indicated their intention of leaving (or have formally asked the court to be released from their 1.0 contract), which haven’t and which are still sitting on the fence? Let’s take a look.
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