Jordan Spieth rips autograph chasers at Pebble Beach: 'Go get a job'
After a practice round at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Wednesday, the PGA's no. 6-ranked Jordan Spieth recognized some men as professional autograph seekers and refused to sign their things.
The men did not take kindly to the 23-year-old's refusal and lobbed some insults and expletives at him, according to Spieth's account of the incident during a news conference later in the day (watch below).
Spieth said he usually lets his caddie Michael Greller handle these matters, but he was really irked this time, so he stepped into the fray. The 2015 Masters and U.S. Open champion also had a resounding message for other for-profit memorabilia collectors: Go get a job. Check out the full transcript below (via SB Nation, emphasis added):
"Yeah, and it's not necessarily worth me spending time arguing. But I just, I'm not appreciative of people who travel to benefit off other people's success. And just, we're out here to — I enjoy signing and sign for kids whenever we get the chance. And when these guys have these items that you've already seen online and people, we have — our team keeps track of that kind of stuff. And these guys that 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 to make money off of the stuff that we have been able to do. We like to sign stuff for charity stuff or for kids or — and if you ask anybody universally it's the same way, it's just, they frustrate us.
And so I turned around and they, one of them dropped an F-bomb in front of three kids, so I felt the need to turn around and tell them that that wasn't right. And couple of them were saying you're not Tiger Woods, don't act like you're Tiger, I mean it's just like, whatever, guys, so. You're still trying to benefit off me and I'm not even Tiger Woods. So, you know, what's that say about you?
So, anyway, yeah, here and there get into it a little bit. Normally I let Michael [Greller] get into it with them. But when you see guys that follow you around the entire round, they're saying afterwards, 'We're huge fans.' A lot of other people did follow the entire round and so I want to make sure I sign for them, if I didn't get them out there. So I was just a little frustrated at the end and I didn't appreciate the language that was used and just some scums that just, it just bothered me."
