PGA Championship 2023: Return of the LIV Villains!

Oh hell yeah! It’s major week, baby! As always, majors mean big moments, big money, and big drama. Thanks to constant LIV/PGA mudslinging, the drama will be been turned up to 11 for this year’s PGA Championship. 156 of the world’s best golfers will be swarming the Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York, and the villains of the LIV tour will be buzzing in among them.

Led by hero-turned-heel Phil Mickelson, the LIV golfers and their very vocal supporters, have taken to social media of late to reframe themselves as victims of a vast conspiracy. Mickelson, who sort of resembles a coke-sniffing undertaker doin’ a two-for-one coffin special as he mixes and mingles with his old PGA pals, seems to care more about his cohort gaining entry to the prestigious PGA, USGA, etc. events than he does about the quality of the LIV product itself. These guys dumped the PGA Tour and now they want to be friends with benefits? And on top of that, they keep trying to say it’s good for golf?

Well… they may have backed the PGA Tour into a corner. Grandstanding and politicking and gaslighting aside, the RETURN OF THE LIV VILLAINS may just be good for golf. Who doesn’t love a good bad guy, right?

In that spirit, I’ve selected some of my least favorite dudes to highlight in this week’s roundup. Here they are. The baddest of the bad.

LIV and let LIV

This is a revamped Oak Hill course, and we know it’s gonna play tough. We won’t see a -23 like we did at TPC Craig Ranch last week. We might be looking at a winner score of -10 or worse. In the lead up to this week, Oak Hill has drawn endless comparisons to Bethpage and Winged Foot. Do you see where I’m going with this? Yeah ya do. That’s right. I’m about to pick the biggest, weirdest, long-ball hittin’, science nerdin’, goofy hat wearin’ sonuvabitch currently sitting at 125 to 1. He dismantled the US Open at Winged Foot in 2020, earning his crown with a score of -6.

That’s right. I’m staking my ENTIRE REPUTATION on the one and only:

Bryson Dechambeau

I mean, come on, Bryson. At least get me a top twenty or something. I have faith.

Now, if you’re wondering what it means for an anonymous entity with embarrassingly low readership to stake their ENTIRE REPUTATION on Bryson Dechambeau, I’d be happy to let you set the terms.

In the meantime, here are some other LIV guys I’m high as a kite on this week: Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed. That’s it.

And here are some LIV guys I’m fading: The lovable Cam Smith (not a good course fit), Brooks Koepka (I’m sick of him), and all the other two-faced assholes (just kidding). But oh Lordy, I do hope their fearless leader packed them all a pair of aviators and enough booger sugar for the whole gang to put on a good show. Go LIV!

Alrighty then, let’s move on to the boring old normcore PGA Tour portion of our show.

PGA TOUR HEROES TO WATCH IN ROCHESTER

Rory’s a headcase, Rahm is a god, Scheffler’s got an achilles heel (his putter), Xander is Xcellent, Colin is cooked, Finau is phenomenal, and blah blah blah. You’ve heard all the narratives, right? But what about this guy?

Matt Fitzpatrick

The Englishman struggled earlier this year, but he fought off a neck injury and he hasn’t looked back since! Even though he totally could look back if he wanted because his neck is all better. But seriously, he hits it plenty long and has the kind of well-rounded game required for a difficult course like the revamped Oak Hill.

Okay, okay, I get it. He looks like the sort of guy who cries when he loses his mouthguard at a sleepover. But he’s pretty fucking good at golf. He’s sneaky. And that has value. Plus, he’s not quite as boring as picking Tony Finau (who happens to be in fine form coming off a Mexico Open win. I will also be picking Tony).

But hey, pulling back the curtain a little bit, betting on golf is pretty a pretty wild endeavor. And taking advice from a site called PIN HIGH LIES, is clinically insane. Just have fun watching these great golfers get their asses kicked by Oak Hill. Have fun. Enjoy the drama.

And if you really want to make some money off of golf, just practice hard and join the tour. But don’t join the LIV Tour… or start a competing blog, you sly fucks.

How to Make Money Playing Golf!

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