Ryder Cup star shares worrying experience of being heckled by upset gambler at Wentworth
While playing at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship, Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre expressed some concern over a fan who’d been following him for the first two days of the tournament.
After the round, MacIntyre told on-site reporters about some of the interactions he’d had with the “fan” on the course.
“I said to Greg walking to the 18th tee, ‘Be switched on as this guy could throw anything at us here, so keep an eye on him and do your job.’”
According to MacIntyre, the spectator had told him that he bet against him the previous day in a 3-ball match.
“There’s obviously gambling going on in the game of golf nowadays and some people ride a lot of money on it and, unfortunately, he lost today, He told me he wanted me to get beat by my playing partners. Then he told me the amount he had riding on it.”
“I actually spoke about that to someone a few weeks ago; it might even have been Jon about the heckling on the PGA Tour. It’s all about gambling nowadays.”
Rahm had made comments about gambling prior to last month’s Tour Championship.
“I feel like we hear it every single round,” said Rahm. “That happens way more often than you guys may hear. It’s very, very present. In golf, spectators are very close, and even if they’re not directly talking to you, they’re close enough to where if they say to their buddy, I bet you 10 bucks he’s going to miss it, you hear it. Luckily golf fans are pretty good for the most part and you’re hearing the positive, ‘I got 20 bucks you make birdie here,’ things like that. But no, it’s more often than you think. I think the tour maybe should look into it because you don’t want it to get out of hand, right?”With gambling an ever-present part of professional sports these days, we will inevitably see more stories like this in the future.
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