Jordan Spieth got into a verbal altercation with a group of men after finishing his practice round at Pebble Beach Golf Links on Wednesday, taking issue with those he deems to be professional autograph seekers.
After finishing his round, the group of adults started to heckle Spieth after the 23-year-old walked past them without signing for them. The two-time major winner then accused the men of trying to profit off his name by selling the items online and that he’d investigated evidence of it.
“It’s not really worth me spending time arguing, but I’m just not really appreciative of people who travel to benefit off of other people’s success,” Spieth told reporters after the incident. “I enjoy signing and I sign for kids whenever we get the chance. But these guys have these items that you’ve already seen online.
“Our team keeps track of that kind of stuff, and these guys just have bags of stuff to benefit from other people’s success when they didn’t do anything themselves. Go get a job instead of trying make money off of things we’ve been able to do.”
When Spieth stopped to sign an autograph for a young boy, things got worse. Spieth said one of the men used an “F-bomb in front of three kids,” and that caused him to get angry and confront the men by starting with, “C’mon, guys, there are children here.”
Spieth said the men continued to use obscenities.
“I felt the need to turn around and tell them that wasn’t right,” Spieth said. “A couple of them were saying, ‘You’re not Tiger Woods, don’t act like you’re Tiger.’ But here he’s still trying to benefit off me and I’m not even Tiger Woods. What does that say about you? So yeah, I get into it here and there. I was just a little frustrated at the end, and I didn’t appreciate the language that was used. It was just some scums that bothered me.
“If you ask anybody universally, it’s frustrating and they frustrate us,” he said of those types of autograph seekers.
Spieth has started the year solidly, though he has dropped one spot in the world ranking to No. 6. He was third at the two Hawaii events and tied for ninth in Phoenix.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
