Every Thanksgiving, one lucky bird gets a presidential pardon.
And golfers? Um … not so much.
No, instead of excusing the goofs and gaffes of the year in golf, we’re taking a moment to revisit them. Behold, our annual Turkey Awards!
Wyndham Clark‘s short fuse
Though Clark struggled for much of the season, he still hit his fair share of targets. Among them was a sign at the PGA Championship, which Clark dented when he tossed a club in anger. Next up was a bank of Oakmont lockers, destroyed by the fiery 31-year-old in a fit of rage after he missed the cut by one at the U.S. Open. As word of his outburst spread, Clark apologized. But repercussions from his property-wrecking lingered. In a letter to its members, Oakmont announced that the 2023 U.S. Open champ would be banned from its grounds until he met a slate of conditions, including paying for the damage, making a donation to a charity of the board’s choosing, and completing counseling or anger-management classes.
Influencer uproar
The inaugural Internet Invitational, conducted by Barstool and Bob Does Sports, and featuring a slew of YouTube stars, went viral in part thanks to a couple of regrettable moments. These included Luke Kwon sleeping through his tee time to let down his team, and cheating allegations against Paige Spiranac, who wound up in tears and, by her own account, was later subjected to death threats.
One-stroke penalty and a loss of cell phone
During Tuesday’s practice round at the Players Championship, Rory McIlroy hooked a drive into the water, and then administered a ruling against a fan who mocked him for the shot, snatching the young man’s phone and marching off down the fairway. The heckler, who wound up being escorted from the grounds, turned out to be a member of the University of Texas golf team.
The chunk heard ‘round the world
Rory, part II. Standing 86 yards out on Augusta’s 13th, poised to end a decade-long major drought and finally complete the career Grand Slam, McIlroy fatted a wedge into Rae’s Creek — a shocking low in a Sunday that veered between the sublime and the slapstick. The resulting double-bogey briefly threatened to derail everything — until McIlroy steadied himself, surged again, and won the Masters in sudden death. His historic feat will not be forgotten. Nor will that stunning swing.
She missed, she missed, she missed … she made!
Everyone loves a story of redemption. But redemption happens only in the wake of failure. Which brings to mind the whirlwind season of Jeeno Thitikul, who would go on to win the 2025 Rolex Player of the Year but not before four-putting the final hole of the Kroger Queen City Championship in September to give away the tournament to Charley Hull.
Nice guys don’t always finish last..
…but they seem to suffer more than their share of heartache on the way to breakthrough wins. Witness fan favorite Tommy Fleetwood, whose grim closing stretch at the Travelers Championship — where he coughed up the title to Keegan Bradley — was enough to make the steeliest stomach turn. That sour finish would soon be washed away by sweet victories in both the FedEx Cup and the Ryder Cup, the latter over Bradley’s team, no less. At the time, though, the gut-punch at the Travelers was a painful body blow for Fleetwood backers, in part because — as truly nice guys often do — he absorbed the agony with such grace.
Glowers from Lowry
Most golf problems are privileged problems, which doesn’t mean they don’t provoke high levels of pique. Shane Lowry proved as much at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, where the Irishman unleashed f-bombs and swing angrily at the turf after being denied relief from a fairway pitch mark and then chunking a wedge into a green side bunker. Lowry later provided context. He was irked, he said, not by the ruling but by what he deemed the gratuitous involvement of an ESPN reporter. Lowry was also captured on camera appearing to flash his middle finger at the hole.
Bile at Bethpage
Nothing wrong with noise at the Ryder Cup. A bit of verbal savagery is fair game, too, so long as the barbs are clever and not delivered well below the belt. And never when a guy is trying to play his shot. By those and many other minimal measures, the insults hurled at the opposition — and especially at McIlroy — failed miserably. Call them what you want. Ugly. Unimaginative. Embarrassing. But no words fully capture the depressing brainlessness of what went down.
Heckling host
In her role as Ryder Cup emcee, comedian and actress Heather McMahan wasn’t thinking clearly when she joined in with fans’ chants of “F— you, Rory.” When video of her “cheerleading” went viral, McMahan apologized and stepped down from her role. Many fans continued in her absence, anyway.
