DAYDREAMING IN THE TRADE PRADE, LONG ISLAND, N.Y. — Boo, Wyndham Clark. 

Booooo. 

Boooooooo. 

Clark is your now two-time U.S. Open winner, and the scene at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, on the eastern end of Long Island, N.Y., felt as if he traded in his golf polo for a Boston Red Sox jersey and ate the last cookie at Tate’s, a local favorite here. Some unpleasant actions — a locker smash, a club throw, a run-in with the rules, some comments — likely led to the unpleasantries, and he also wasn’t helped that his Sunday playing partner, Scottie Scheffler, was playing for the career grand slam … on his 30th birthday … on Father’s Day. 

“Man, they definitely didn’t want me to win,” Clark said afterward. 

“It’s pretty rare in an Open Championship or a major to have fans kind of boo against your shots or cheer for bad shots.”

He’s right, right?

Maybe a crowd un-favorite isn’t cheered. But vitriol? In individual golf tournaments, there aren’t away teams, nor are there really home teams, so I’m genuinely wondering then:

Why would you come to a golf event to hate?

How’d we get here?

This also seems like it’s only going to worsen, isn’t it? The golf balls are out of the sleeve, so to say. 

I’m not completely naive, of course, and I think I know the answers — among them being the lust to be loud and the desire to go viral — but, if you’re so inclined, you can reach out to me at nick.piastowski@golf.com to share your thoughts. Or better yet, offer a solution. I’ve said in this space before that banning phones would help — this is done at the Masters, and the patrons mostly behave.

You can also just boo me in a message, too. I’ve heard worse. 

As we look back at the U.S. Open week that was at Shinnecock, let’s make that observation No. 1 then. We’ll try for 49 more, and, to help the mood, we’ll mix in some Billy Joel, one of Long Island’s favorite sons. 

2. I’m also being fueled by a bagel and coffee from Goldberg’s. 

3. Notably, Clark said he understood why fans weren’t on his side. He also joked about the distaste with his caddie, Dave Pelekoudas. 

“If we heard someone cheer for me,” Clark said, “I’d go, ‘Oh, there’s one person that likes me. So we would kind of make jokes and make it maybe a little light-hearted.”

4. What does it say about Clark’s game that he still won?

5. Scheffler was impressed.

“The crowd was tough today,” he said. “I mean, New Yorkers, they are tough people. There was a good turnout from the fans. You like seeing the fans cheer for you. I think sometimes it can get a little too much when, you know, balls are kind of going off greens and you start hearing cheers. That felt a bit much to me.

“But at the end of the day, I can’t control fan behavior. Being in the arena is not for everybody. You know, there’s been crowds that have been for me in my career; there’s been crowds that have been significantly against me in my career. …

“Being in the arena is not for everybody, and I think it shows a lot about Wyndham, how he handled not only this golf course but I think the crowd today as well and is a well-deserving champion.”

6. I liked this story here from the Fried Egg’s Kevin Van Valkenburg. He writes that we expect a lot from athletes. 

7. What’s the over-under on total majors Clark will win? He’s 32. I’ll set the line at 2.5. 

8. How many pros are calling Julie Elion this week? She’s Clark’s sports psychologist. 

9. Before he started Saturday’s third round, she told Clark this on the range: 

“It’s not what happens to us. It’s how we respond to what happens to us.”

10. I won’t forget seeing Sam Burns playing with his son, Bear, as Clark was finishing his final round. 

11. Burns has now come thisclose in back-to-back U.S. Opens. What’s his total majors over-under? He’s 29. I’ll set the line at 1.5. 

12. Here’s a bit of a look at the sports writing process. Early Sunday, in anticipation of a Clark runaway, I’d started on a story saying that while he won, no one else really lost, but I paused it to follow Burns. 

Let’s continue that winners piece now. 

13. There were the rebounders, like Burns, who a year ago, led after 54 holes, only to shoot an eight-over 78 on Sunday. Also among this bounceback group was Keith Mitchell, who played his first nine holes of the tournament at six-over par, then played six-under golf after that.

“I might have not won,” he said Sunday, “but I felt like I achieved a lot more than potentially I thought I was going to after about two hours into the round.

“You can always look at winning a tournament, but I think I won the week after the start.”

14. Another rebounder was Harry Higgs, who tied for 43rd after going six for six in missed cuts this season on the PGA Tour. His press conference after Friday’s second round was one of the best I’ve heard, and you can watch it here. 

15. Another rebounder was Tom Kim, who’d been as high as 11 in the world golf ranking but entered last week at 141st. At the Open, he was one of just three players to finish under par for the week. 

“You know, for the first time, I was able to really taste a major championship right in front of my fingertips,” Kim said. “I can go back this whole week and just see how close I actually am, and I think I finished three back, so a lot of little soft, small stuff that if I had done better, I definitely would have had a chance.

“But I’m not going to look at the week of what could have been. I’m going to look at the week where, you know, I haven’t had — this is my best finish in a major since the British Open in 2023, so a lot of positives.

“I think this is going to give me a big boost for the rest of the season.” 

16. Then there is Joaquin Niemann. 

Five-under 65 on Friday. Two-over 72 on Saturday. Four-under 66 on Sunday. That’s seven-under golf. 

After an eight-over 78 on Thursday, which included a two-stroke penalty for a club toss, turning a nine on the 6th hole into an 11. Sunday, he was reflective about the incident. After being asked if he thought he was being made an example of, Niemann said he thought he was. 

“I was not trying to offend anyone,” Niemann said. “I think it was something more — it was more something kind of like against me. I was frustrated. I had my expectations, which are always super high. I was playing good golf. I knew it was going to be a tough week, a long week, a challenging week.

“After seeing that and knowing that the best score I could do was an eight, it kind of frustrated me a lot. I’m not happy doing that. I’m not proud about throwing a golf club. I get I deserve it in a way; I don’t know. But there’s nothing I can do. I feel like I learned from it.

“To be honest, it was a good throw. [Here, he laughed.]

“I never try to offend anybody, not even the volunteers that were there. I know they do their job … and they do the best they can. They don’t pay them to be there; they do that because they like it. I was frustrated. … 

“It was just frustration, but it’s more because of the passion that I have to get better and better.”

17. Music break! Below is Billy Joel song No. 1:

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18. Also winning this week were a trio of players fighting ailments. Collin Morikawa has fought a back injury; after Friday’s second round, he said he still feels uncomfortable, and that he couldn’t comfortably hit cuts with irons into right-to-left wind and “the high bomb. But the two-time major winner tied for 17th.    

19. A year ago, Sahith Theegala fought an oblique and a neck injury, missed events and finished 147th in the PGA Tour’s regular-season standings. At the Open, Theegala tied for 11th. 

20. Following a brain procedure in 2023, Gary Woodland has been managing PTSD, and his revelation of it, to Golf Channel’s Rex Hogaard during the Players Championship, will remain as one of the moments of the year. The 2019 U.S. Open winner tied for seventh. 

21. There were also good stories. James Nicholas, a native New Yorker who hit the tournament’s first ball, shot a one-under 69 on Sundauy, and he tied for 65th.

22. We learned more about Miles Russell, the 17-year-old prodigy who touchingly brought his dad out from the crowd on Sunday — Father’s Day — to carry his bag up the 18th hole. 

23. We learned more about Jackson Koivun, the college megastar who will play as a pro going forward. On Saturday and Sunday, Russell and Koivun played together. 

24. We learned more about Arni Sveinsson, who, though he missed the weekend cut, became the first golfer from Iceland to play in a U.S. Open. I wrote about him here. 

25. There were also continuations. Aaron Rai, J.T. Poston and Alex Fitzpatrick showed stickiness. In the first major since his PGA Championship win, Rai tied for 11th. 

26. J.T. Poston, the Memorial winner, tied for fourth. 

27. Alex Fitzpatrick, who earned PGA Tour membership in April after a win with his brother, Matt, at the Zurich Classic, tied for 23rd. 

28. And we found out more about Sam Stevens, who tied for seventh — and on Saturday had this exchange with a reporter (the reporter’s questions are in italics):

Sam, you’ve been around for a while, obviously, but I think a lot of people are going to turn on their televisions tomorrow and say …

“Who the heck is Sam Stevens?” Stevens said. 

Yeah, so who the heck is Sam Stevens?

“I don’t know. I’m an average PGA Tour player, I guess,” Stevens said. “Yeah, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I’m just a golfer.

“Yeah, I’m excited for tomorrow, and hopefully I can play well enough to help a few more people get acquainted with who I am.”

29. Adam Scott is another winner. He’s now played in 100 straight majors, a streak that started with the 2001 Open Championship. At that time, Clark was 7.  

30. Music break! Below is Joel song No. 2.  

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31. A Scheffler thought. He wasn’t at his best — and tied for fourth. That is maybe the best sign of who he is — a less than fully charged Scheffler was bested by only three players. Tiger did that type of thing.  

32. Scheffler completes the grand slam next year.  

33. What’s his total majors over-under? He turned 30 on Sunday. I’ll set the line at 7.5. 

34. Does Bryson DeChambeau make the weekend at the Open Championship — and avoid missing the cut at every major this year? 

35. I thought Jon Rahm would contend. He’s had success on poa annua greens. But he also missed the cut, playing his last 13 holes at eight-over par.  

36. I’m about a 14-handicap. Had I played from the tips at Shinnecock and the wind was at its worst, I think I would have shot — hell, I’d still be out there.  

37. I didn’t hear one complaint about the course or the setup, which was impressive considering seemingly everyone complained in 2018, the last time Shinny hosted a U.S. Open.  

38. The lack of fans on Saturday was odd. I think there were about a dozen spectators following the penultimate group. 

39. I did learn all about the “Trade Parade” traffic of the area. Our lodging for the week was 12 miles from Shinnecock — and on Thursday, it took an hour and a half to get to the course. Saturday and Sunday? Twenty minutes. 

40. Matt Fitzpatrick wins the Open Championship next month. 

41. Lydia Ko wins this week’s Women’s PGA, which would give her four of the five women’s majors.  

42. Music break! Below is Joel song No. 3:

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43. Here are a few of my favorite reads this week from the on-site GOLF.com staff. From my batch, I hope you’ll like my story here on Sveinsson, the first Icelander to play in a U.S. Open. 

44. From Michael Bamberger, his story here that looked at Clark was great. 

45. From Alan Bastable, his story here on John Shippen was great. 

46. From Josh Berhow, his story here that wrapped up the tournament was great. 

47. From James Colgan, his story here on the Turnesa family was great. 

48. From Sean Zak his story here on Niemann[‘s penalty was great. 

49. From videographers Darren Riehl and Emma Devine, the video below wrapping up Sunday play was great. 

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50. Wednesday, I’m off to another U.S. Open course — Pinehurst. The trip is a boys trip for my nephew and I after he just graduated high school. Let me know at nick.piastowski@golf.com if you have must-dos when you’re out there. 

Bonus! Time for a Long Island story. It’ll tell you a little about me, and it’ll tell you a little about the folks out here. 

After college, I interned for a summer at Newsday newspaper. The experience was great. Played Bethpage. Ate at Friendly’s 

Went to a certain type of club. 

Training for the internship was in Philly, and, after driving out, another out-of-town intern and I looked for a spot for a drink. We’d done zero research, and this was a few years before everyone had a cellphone, but we found what looked like a heavily trafficked road and saw a sign for “a restaurant and bar.” Hey, Applebee’s is a restaurant and bar. We pulled up. It had a valent. Hmm, maybe it was something more upscale. We walked in. There was a $50 dollar cover charge. Odd, but New York is expensive. 

I made a bee line to the bar and ordered a Long Island iced tea. Felt like I needed to. Whatever. To my right, a woman was dancing. Hmm. 

To my left, my intern friend was frozen. She motioned to look behind us. 

More dancers. 

But no clothes. 

On the way out, another no-clothed worker must have made sense of what happened, and she told us about another bar right down the street. 

Friendly folks here.  

My parents tell me there used to be a time when it was hard to be a jackass.

The problem wasn’t necessarily a lack of willing participants (in the long history of the world, the human race has never wanted for ignorance). Rather, the constraining factor was a social environment that disincentivized displays of stupidity. Through sheer force of collective human spirit, my parents tell me, we were able to push problematic ideologies, flagrantly immoral beliefs, and generally gross displays of sensitive masculinity straight into the societal gutter where they belonged.

The reason wasn’t high-mindedness, it wasn’t sanctimony, and it certainly wasn’t hegemony. It was something much simpler: shame.

On Sunday afternoon at Shinnecock, the crowds at the U.S. Open showed us that if shame ever really did exist, it has long since left us. For the second time at a major golf event on Long Island in the last 10 months, the fans in attendance spent most of the afternoon proudly bearing their ignorance, loudly rooting against the wire-to-wire winner (and several other players, including Rory McIlroy) in a way that forced the USGA to deliver a mid-tournament apology via NBC.

The 24 hours since have featured no shortage of hand-wringing over the whole affair, including several suggestions that Long Island be banned from the major championship rota altogether. As a Long Islander who is proud of his golfing heritage and the people who protect it, I’m galled by those suggestions. As a journalist who has witnessed both major Long Island golf events of the last 12 months up close, I can’t say I disagree with them.

The crowds at Shinnecock were not the worst I’ve seen at a golf tournament. They were not especially vile or “over the line.” Nobody yelled in a backswing or cursed out a parent. In fact, for a few seconds on Sunday, I realized that I wasn’t really hearing the jeers because I have grown so accustomed to them. And then I thought for a few seconds more, and I realized that I felt shame. Is the only time we can agree the house is on fire after it has already been scorched to the ground?

I came of age in the time of social media. I was in high school when I made my first accounts on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. We didn’t know anything about algorithms then, we were just posting into the abyss. Tech leaders made the idea of the “virtual town hall” sound exciting and civic-minded, and for a little while we proved them right. Then, after we were addicted, we realized we were condemned to spend the rest of time remembering why nobody likes attending town halls in the first place: The most obnoxious people tend to do the most speaking.

On Sunday at the U.S. Open, we saw what happens when our lives revolve around those “virtual town halls” — and when those town halls have altered their rules to intentionally inflame every one of our sensibilities. The audience was not cheering but dunking. The yellers were not fans but commenters. The players inside the ropes were not people at all.

To be alive is a beautiful thing, and to be alive outside the ropes on Sunday at U.S. Open is particularly vibrant. There is a beautiful, historic golf course on display, an incredible achievement in the offing, and a whole bunch of regular guys competing to see the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. To flatten that experience into our internet cubbyholes of virtue and anger — and then to act on those feelings in broad daylight without an ounce of empathy for the shared humanity of the people around you? It is not just wrong, it’s sad.

My parents tell me there has never been a time when empathy was a strength. It has always been something to work toward, slowly and often painfully. It was worth it because it brought us closer to one another, and whether you believe in a god or not, there was something holy about the experience of being known.

Still, if we could not bring ourselves to empathy — because of a feeling we could not buck or a contender in a golf tournament we did not particularly like — there was a time when we could still force ourselves to find our better angels.

Not because we were better, smarter, or knew more. But because we felt an emotion that appears to be fading only in the people who need it most — a feeling that will be familiar to too many golf fans on U.S. Open Monday morning on Long Island and all over the world.

Shame.

The author welcomes your comments at james.colgan@golf.com.