Keep the Party on 16

One hole, once a year is perfect.

I’ve always thought the 16th hole at the Waste Management is fun, different, and just the right kind of crazy for a sport that can be way too uptight. Fans booing. Joel Dahmen wearing a Seahawks helmet. Players throwing gifts — or even cash — into the crowd. It’s a welcome release in a game where shadows and coughs sometimes feel punishable by death.

Except it’s not one hole anymore.

As Hideki Matsuyama pulled back his putter on the 18th green, an overserved fan yelled, “Get in the hole!” Matsuyama backed off, reset, and then missed the 20-footer that would have won the tournament. The fan isn’t the reason he missed — but it sure didn’t help.

Then came the playoff. On the opening tee shot, another distraction forced Matsuyama to stop his swing again.

Although it was later reported that one of the noises was a security officer accidentally dropping a chair at the worst possible moment, that didn’t erase the optics. A fan’s slurred voice telling everyone to “calm down” was picked up clearly by the TV mics. It was another tough look for the so-called “People’s Open.”

The online reaction was swift. And none of it was positive.

Twenty-four-year-old me would have loved it. Drinking all morning. Standing in line in a T-shirt with a target drawn on it. The sprint up the famous hill toward the stands fueled by the buzz of the Jack and Coke I crushed in the parking lot. My friends right beside me, all of us convinced this was the greatest idea we’d ever had.

Forty-eight-year-old me would rather be waterboarded than stand in that line.

And that’s why I can’t sit here and pretend I’m above the 24-year-olds who were there this week. I’d be a hypocrite. Because even as I watched from the comfort of my recliner — thrilled to be 3,000 miles away, grateful for every single mile — I knew exactly why they were in that crowd.

I just want those 24-year-olds to stay on 16.

The issue isn’t that 16 is loud and different. That’s the whole point. The issue is that the energy from that hole has slowly bled across the course, and the final 20 minutes on Sunday felt less like a golf tournament and more like the moment the whole thing jumped the shark.

And this isn’t about “shrinking the game,” a phrase that’s become just as overused as “grow the game.” If being college-aged, wearing a stupid (and occasionally questionable) T-shirt, drinking too much, and booing golfers on a designated party hole are people we need to eliminate from the sport, then my friends and I never would’ve stuck around long enough to become the guys fixing extra ball marks on every green.

I don’t want the Waste Management to turn into just another tournament — we’ve got plenty of those on the schedule. The event created something unique on 16. Now it’s on the tournament and the Tour to figure out how to keep it there.

You can’t market one hole as a party and expect the rest of the course to feel like a library. That line used to exist. This week, it didn’t. And if the Tour doesn’t figure out how to build a better fence between “fun” and “free-for-all,” the most entertaining stop of the year might slowly turn into the most embarrassing.

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