A recent club throw got us thinking: what are some of the other best on-course meltdowns?
Whether you’re a touring professional golfer, an avid amateur or weekend hacker, every player has hit a bad shot out on the golf course and felt the urge to wind up and throw his or her club.
Exhibit A: Matt Jones on Saturday after making par on the 11th hole at Bay Hill during the third round of the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando.
“Matt a little frustrated there,” announcer Steve Sands said on the broadcast. “Did you hear what he said? He said, ‘I’m done, I’ve had enough of it.’”
So that got us thinking: What are some of golf’s greatest club tosses? From Rory McIlroy to Judge Smails, here are a few of the best.
“I don’t live, eat, sleep and breathe it. And you have to, especially these days.”
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — He summed up the recent status of his golf game in a manner relatable to golfers of all levels.
“Sometimes, I’d know bad stuff was coming. Then I just go through the motions, waiting.”
And there you have the recap of Matt Every’s last few years on the PGA Tour.
His next few years might be largely non-existent, depending on whether, at age 38, he can find the desire that made him a two-time tournament winner who once climbed to No. 40 in the world golf rankings.
“I want to be hungry,” Every said last weekend when he came home to play the Riviera Open mini-tour event on the Ormond Beach course where he grew up.
“You know, I don’t live, eat, sleep and breathe it. And you have to, especially these days.”
The former Florida Gator lives about 90 minutes north in Atlantic Beach, where he’s in a bit of a holding pattern both professionally and personally. He keeps tabs on an upstart golf clothing line — Live Forever Golf — for which he inspired the logo and is casually related (“My two buddies run the show”), and also awaits word on whether he has a near-term future on the broadcasting side of golf.
Other than that …
“Just gonna stay healthy. Keep my body good,” he says. “I work out once or twice a day. Keeps me honest.”
Orlando, Florida, USA; Matt Every Putts on the 14th green during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
“It’s just not there”
Every epitomized the old adage of “certain horses for certain courses” in 2015 when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational for the second straight year. It capped a four-year run in which he earned between $1.1 and $2.5 million each season.
He was still missing cuts here and there, but he played good enough often enough to seemingly cement his status as a capable Tour golfer for years to come. But after 2015, there were just three more top-10s in 135 starts, culminating in this past season’s bottoming-out: 22 starts, 20 missed cuts, two withdrawals.
Bobby Jones famously said golf is played on a five-inch course — the one between your ears. The Matt Every saga is a prime example of that theory’s staying power.
“My physical game, there’s no issues,” he says. “My short game could be better, but as far as length and compression and the stuff that matter, no issues. My bad is not bad right now. It wasn’t bad. It’s not like foul-ball bad. I was just flat.
“It’s one of those things where I”m ready for it to be over as soon as it starts. I’m just not present.”
Where does he go, mentally, during those four hours?
“I don’t know. Just not there. It’s not like I’m blanking out. I just find ways to (mess) things up when the desire isn’t there. It just happens. Just a weird game. It was affecting me a little too much.”
And it’s been going on for a long time.
“Years,” he says. “Yeah, years. Been going through the motions for a long time. A long time.”
He doesn’t know if the desire will return. Following this past season, he no longer has full-time exempt status on the PGA Tour, but as a two-time tournament winner, he maintains enough status to likely get into 8-12 tournaments a year.
If desire pairs with quality play and good results, that part-time role offers enough of an opportunity to work his way back to the PGA Tour full-time, but right now he says that possibility seems distant.
His most recent start came six weeks ago in Bermuda, where he shot 76 on Thursday and pulled the plug Friday after just two holes.
“I’m really not an angry person,” he insists. “I took a month and a half off, didn’t think I was getting in Bermuda, but found out two days before I was getting in.
“I was playing good enough to have a look at the cut. Something went wrong, I got pissed, and I thought, ‘man, I haven’t been pissed in two months — about anything.’ Since then, I don’t get mad about anything.”
Matt Every calls the action for NBC and the Golf Channel during the first round of The RSM Classic on the Seaside Course at Sea Island Resort on November 18, 2021 in St Simons Island, Georgia. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
“I feel like I settled in nicely and I think it’s something I can do well,” he says.
Every’s easy-going off-course nature came into play in the week or so leading up to the broadcast.
“I didn’t practice calling a shot even once, not even sitting on the couch. I think either you can do this or you can’t,” he says.
“The big thing I was worried about was saying ‘like’ and ‘uh’ too much. I watched it later and don’t think I said it once, ever. There are a lot of little things I know I can be better at.”
“ESPN is going through a big thing,” Every says. “They’re making decisions now for that stuff. It’s out of my hands. We’ll see.”
The toss
Every’s golfing frustrations in recent years had one positive bit of fallout.
Maybe you’ve seen the logo.
In the world of professional golfer logos, it definitely stands out. Jack Nicklaus has the bear, Greg Norman the shark, Phil Mickelson the “leap.”
Every, and Live Forever Golf, have the heave. Ironically, Every’s famous club throw came during his last quality start — the 2019 AT&T Byron Nelson, where he eventually tied for second. In the second round, after a tough lie in a fairway bunker handcuffed his recovery efforts on the 14th hole, he stepped out of the bunker and into a windup that sent his club flying away.
Matt Every’s 2019 club throw at the AT&T Byron Nelson would eventually spark an idea for a clothing line … and its logo. Michael Reaves, Getty Image
The scene was captured by a wire-service photographer.
Last year, he and a couple of Jacksonville-area friends were killing time during the pandemic, looking at images of his club throw, and laughing, when a thought came to mind.
“We were just sitting around, looking at that image,” Every says. “I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘that’s a really cool logo.’ This logo just dumps on everyone else’s logo.
“So we said let’s give it a go. Started with hats and T-shirts, but now it’s full-on everything. Pants, shirts, jackets. It’s doing really well. It’s a full clothing brand, and it’s awesome. It turned into a nice line. They run the show, I’m just part of it.”
A blast of temper from 2019 inspired the logo for Live Forever Golf.
The logo represents more than just a line of golf apparel. It also clearly symbolizes a golf career that, like all but a precious few, is defined by frustration as much as its glories.
“Golf makes me a different person,” Every says. “I need a break from golf. I needed either life or golf to stop, and life doesn’t stop.”
The 37-year-old former Florida Gator star is starting a two-event tryout.
SAINT SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Matt Every strolled down the practice range at Sea Island Resort, wearing a white hoodie, dark shades and the look of a man without a concern in the world. Instead of gripping a 4-iron this week at the RSM Classic, he’ll be gripping a microphone and making his TV debut for Golf Channel as a guest on-course reporter.
The 37-year-old former Florida Gator star is starting a two-event tryout here and next month at the PNC Championship in Orlando after enduring a season in which he failed to make a cut in 22 starts on the PGA Tour.
“I think it’s going to be good for me to do something different,” he said. “I was going through the motions for quite a while. Mentally I wasn’t there. I think I became jaded and you can’t fake the hunger of a 25 year old who’s never tasted success before vs I’m 37 and not getting any younger. I already didn’t practice a lot and it probably caught up to me.”
Every said he got the idea of becoming a TV golf analyst after seeing the success of Colt Knost, one of his contemporaries, who retired as a player in January 2020 and made a seamless transition to the media world as both a podcast host and Golf Channel/CBS roving reporter.
“We’re very similar in a room,” Every said of Knost. “I’ve had some people whose opinion I value tell me that I’d be good at it and I think I could be. I’m a little different, I do have some edge to me but I’m not out of control, though. I know what’s right and wrong. And I’m not afraid of anyone out here. So, I’ll say what I want to say. I think some people might be afraid I will slip up and say something stupid, but those are people that don’t really know me.”
Every twice won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and more than $10 million in career prize money, but hasn’t made a cut since the Wyndham Championship in August 2020. He missed 20 cuts and withdrew twice in 22 starts last season, and withdrew from the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, his only 2021-22 start, last month.
“I don’t have it in me mentally to go grind on the Korn Ferry (Tour) for a year. There’s no chance,” he said. “That’s me being honest with myself. I don’t want to miss what’s going on in my kids’ lives and it wouldn’t work.”
Every said he’s not quitting golf, calling himself “a recreational golfer,” but isn’t closing the door on the PGA Tour should his competitive juices return. His past champion status should get him into a number of second tier events, what he dubbed “the island tour” – Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, for instance – and if he can earn enough to finish in the top 200 in the FedEx Cup standings, he would earn a berth in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
Every always has been one of the more candid interviews, displaying a self-awareness absent in many players. He could be a breath of fresh air to the coverage if he can bring his no-nonsense assessment of his own game to the current players he’s competed against for years. Nearly a decade ago, Every was part of an awkward Golf Channel interview during the Sony Open at Hawaii when then-host Kelly Tilghman grilled him about being arrested for possession of marijuana.
“Yeah, that was awkward, but it was so long ago,” Every said.
Every said he will be shadowing either John Wood or Curt Byrum on Thursday and then the red light goes live on Friday. Golf Channel’s Steve Sands told him to be himself and fight the urge to over-talk.
“I’m hoping if it goes well,” Every said of the tryout, “someone will snag me up.”
Matt Every’s early exit from the Barbasol Championship, the PGA Tour event opposite the British Open, continues a tough stretch.
Matt Every has bowed out of the Barbasol Championship, the PGA Tour event opposite this week’s British Open, and initially, there was some confusion over what caused that WD. The PGA Tour initially tweeted from its @PGATOURComms account that Every, the Arnold Palmer Invitational winner in 2014 and 2015, was out with a back injury.
The Tour then came back nearly two hours later with the clarification that Every withdrew because of heart complications.
Every opened the event at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky, with a 3-under 69. On Friday, his day was decidedly less pedestrian. Starting on No. 10, he made three bogeys plus a birdie in his first four holes then doubled the par-3 14th. Two birdies and two bogeys followed.
Matt Every withdrew during round two of the @BarbasolChamp with a back injury.
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) July 16, 2021
Every’s card ends with a bogey on No. 1. In 10 holes played before withdrawing, Every did not make a par.
According to the Twitter account Monday Q Info, Every tossed his putter in a pond at No. 17 at Keene Trace and from there he began putting with a wedge.
Matt Every has chucked his putter in the pond on 17 at the Barbasol and is now putting with a wedge. Just normal Matt Every stuff.
Every’s early exit at Barbasol continues a tough year for the 37-year-old. He has teed it up 18 times on the PGA Tour this season but has yet to make a cut. Last season he made just six cuts in 19 starts.
Matt Every has hit both ends of the scoring spectrum in the past 24 hours at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
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ORLANDO, Fla. – Matt Every has hit both ends of the scoring spectrum in the past 24 hours at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Every brought in a late round of 7-under 65 for the first-round lead but followed it up with a second-round 83.
Every’s round went south on Friday almost as soon as it started. He made a double-bogey on No. 4 on his way to a front-nine 40. Two more of those followed at Nos. 10 and 11 after making the turn and made his fourth and final double at No. 18. He sprinkled in four other bogeys and made just one birdie, at No. 16.
“Today was rough,” he said. “It was just tough. I really didn’t feel like I played that bad. I just didn’t make anything and then missed the fairway here and it’s – I just played bad. That’s what it is.”
Every’s opening 65 is even more remarkable when you consider that it was a 20-shot improvement over a second-round 85 at last week’s second round at the Honda Classic. That round included three double-bogeys but also an 11 on the par-3 fifth.
After Friday’s round, Every struggled to put words to the difference that happened seemingly overnight.
“If I did, I wouldn’t do it,” he said.
Every, who referenced nagging back pain, planned to tee it up next week at TPC Sawgrass, which would make his third consecutive start. He was uncertain whether he’d take time off after that.
Every is a two-time champion at Bay Hill, having won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2014 and 2015. He lamented the state of his game for the past two weeks.
“It stinks for me because I really wanted to play well and I really didn’t see this coming, to be honest,” he said. “But it all happens. It just happens to me – it kind of happens to me quite a lot.”
Not since the 2013 Honda Classic has a first-round leader missed the cut (that was Camilo Villegas) but Every left himself dangerously close to falling into that unenviable category. He was at 4 over and two outside the projected cutline as the afternoon wave got started.
Matt Every fires a bogey-free 65 to lead the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and shoot 20 strokes better than his last round at Honda Classic.
ORLANDO – Twenty.
That’s how many strokes Matt Every’s bogey-free 7-under 65 was better than his second round at the Honda Classic last week.
Thanks to a 32-foot birdie putt at No. 8, Every signed for the low round of the day at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and made his 85 at the Honda Classic last week a distant memory.
“My short-term memory isn’t very good, so that is a strength sometimes,” Every said.
Well, in this case, Every, 36, hasn’t completely forgotten the disaster at the par-3 fifth hole at PGA National in the second round last Friday when he made an 11.
“OK, I’ll tell you what happened. It was a back-left pin. I was already going to miss the cut. It was – the wind was off the right. I had been having problems all week holding the wind and I normally can hold the wind. And I’m not going to learn anything by skanking one out to the right and bailing out. I know I can do that,” he said of hitting four 5-irons into the drink. “So, I wasn’t leaving that tee until I hit the shot I wanted and I flushed every one of them, like, exactly in the same spot in the water. And then finally I hit one that held it.”
Matt Every reacts after his birdie on 8 during the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
It took a 4-iron to do so. Why did he finally break down and switch clubs?
“I think I had like two balls left and it was, I just didn’t want to have to deal with that,” he said. “I was ready to get out of there.”
His goal on Thursday was simple: “I just didn’t want to shoot myself out of the tournament with the weather the way it was, but I got off to a good start,” he said.
Did he ever.
Starting on 10, he wedged from 91 yards to 3 feet for birdie. His putter heated up with a 14-foot par putt at 14 and then a couple long ones after making the turn. He canned a 36-footer birdie putt at No. 1 and a 47-foot birdie at 2.
It added up to a 65 that topped the field on a warm, blustery day, one stroke better than World No. 1 Rory McIlroy shot in the morning.
“I always feel like my good stuff has been really, is really, really good. There’s just no, like, middle ground with me, though. That’s the problem. It’s, like, either ragged or really good,” Every said. “But, yeah, I feel good about my game right now.”
It’s been a difficult year for Every, who was suspended for 12 weeks for failing a Tour drug test in October. Every says he’s been prescribed marijuana to combat anxiety, but the Tour denied his request for a Therapeutic Use Exemption. While marijuana is legal in some states, it is on the banned substance list under the Tour’s anti-doping policy.
“It bothers me that it’s even an issue out here at all,” he said. “I think it doesn’t do anybody any favors that it’s even on the list for a prohibited substances. You could fail for heroin and marijuana and the penalty is the same. If anyone wants to make the argument that that is performance enhancing, they have never done it before. I promise it’s not.”
Every, who entered the week ranked No. 309 in the world, returned to action at the Sony Open in Hawaii, but withdrew due to a back injury. His best result is a T-18 at the Sanderson Farms Championship. He was in contention at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but shot a final-round 80 on a windy day and ballooned to T-32.
Matt Every reacts after his birdie on the eighth green during the first round of the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Bay Hill Golf & Lodge has always been one of Every’s favorite hunting grounds. The Daytona Beach, Florida, native grew up attending the API as a kid – he used to follow Mark Calcavecchia – and he’s won here twice (2014-15) for his only two titles on the PGA Tour.
Every’s 65 marked his lowest score in 33 rounds at Bay Hill. He’s opened in the 60s two other times at the API and both times he went on to win.
And for those scoring at home, Every can become the first player to post his first three Tour titles at the same event since Leonard Gallett, who won the 1929, 1933 and 1934 Wisconsin PGA.
