Sergio - what an idiot

So this past week, the European Tour played its first tournament ever in Saudi Arabia. Dustin Johnson won. For those not familiar with ins and outs of professional golf, the only way to get great US and some other international players to go to far away places like Dubai, China or Saudi Arabia is to pay "appearance fees". Tiger could routinely make a million or more (I have heard as high as three million) to just show up at one of these tournaments and other top guys...like DJ or Sergio...could command half a million or so...maybe more...not sure as these amounts are never publicized. The PGA tour has never allowed tournaments to pay appearance fees. So players go to these foreign tournaments as a cash grab basically. I don't blame them one bit...

Well Sergio acted like a COMPLETE IDIOT at the tournament. On Friday, he hit a ball in a bunker and was not happy with the rake job by a caddie for a player playing before him and threw a hissy fit after he hit the shot...he looked like a 3 year old would look if you took his ice cream away. What is MUCH WORSE than this is that the next day he intentionally damaged 5 greens by scuffing his feet across them and on one green actually putting a divot in the green. One person described the greens as looking like a deer had walked across them.

Keep in mind that this was going on DURING THE TOURNAMENT, not after, so all the players playing behind him had to putt on damaged greens. Also keep in mind that this took place over an hour+ period on 5 different greens so this was a deliberate and calculated act (this is much worse than if he got mad and slammed his putter down on one green making a mark...and that would be bad enough). I imagine the other players wanted to punch him in the face about this. These guys make their living by putting on these greens and having to putt through a messed up portion of a green intentionally caused by another player is just not acceptable.

What the heck is wrong with him? He is not a young kid on tour and absolutely should know better...he is 39 years old! The European Tour announced that it is not going to suspend him. That tour is in a tough spot because he is one player who still plays most of the time in Europe...and a lot of European guys (eg: Rose and McIlroy and many others) have decided to play much more in the US. So the European Tour needs the big name guys it has and does not want to suspend arguably the biggest name it has. He is lucky because he deserves to be suspended for 3-6 months IMO.

I imagine he has lost the respect of just about every other pro golfer over this...as a buddy of mine said today, the greens are "sacred". You just cannot do what he did...

The hissy fit in the bunker was funny to watch. I laughed out loud at that. I'll give him a pass on that. The greens, though, could affect other players. You absolutely can't do what he did there. I'd have been fine with a suspension for that.

I wonder how upset he would have been with the hot dog that laid in the sand trap on Sunday on #16 in Scottsdale for a small portion of Sunday haha!