The Europeans have been gloating over the success of their golfers in the Ryder Cup, the majors and the World Golf Rankings against their counterparts from the United States in recent years. Perhaps they simply have had enough of the Ugly American golfer, from Johnny McDermott and Bobby Jones in the early days of the 20th century to Tiger Woods and Bubba Watson in this one.
Watson is the latest — he came off as arrogant and ignorant when he missed the cut in the Alstom Open de France, blaming the fans and poor security for his lousy performance at Le Golf National in Versailles.
And that wasn't the worst of it. He also displayed an embarrassing lack of knowledge when it came to iconic structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles.
Makes you wonder about the education he received at the University of Georgia.
Bubba has been in full-scale damage control ever since, tweeting apologies when he returned home to Florida, and learned that even on this side of the Atlantic, people were writing and talking about how he had played the buffoon.
After saying he would never play in Europe again, in trying to make amends he will tee it up this week as originally planned in the Nordea Scandinavian Masters in Stockholm after tying for 30th last week in the Open Championship.
"All you can do is just say I didn't handle it the right way," Watson said last week at Royal St. George's. "Hopefully y'all can forgive me. And let's move on. Hopefully a year from now it will be water under the bridge and nobody remembers it.
"I wasn't saying I hate the fans. I wasn't saying I hate the golf course. I wasn't saying I hate the country. I was saying it's just different; I'm uncomfortable. Which I think is fair, to be uncomfortable with it."
Even with the US media, Watson has run hot-and-cold — he has been engaging and funny at times before turning sullen. After finishing with three consecutive bogeys to shoot a first-round 71 in the US Open at Congressional, he blew off reporters with a terse, "If you can't say anything good, don't say it."
Bubba said he would like a chance for a makeup game in France but doesn't know if it would be possible.
"With all this bad press, I don't know if I'm able to come back," he said last week. "I don't know if they'd even want me to come back. And that's sad. That's not how I wanted to leave it. That's not how I wanted to be portrayed in that country."
Of course, he isn't the first and unfortunately won't be the last. McDermott, the first American to win the US Open in 1911 and 1912, made headlines in the British tabloids when he boasted that English greats Harry Vardon and Ted Ray would not be taking the trophy home when they made the trip across the pond to play in the tournament in 1913.
Of course, it wasn't McDermott who kept the trophy Stateside, but unheralded caddie Francis Ouimet in one of the great moments of American golf, across the street from his house at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
And then there was the great Jones, during the third round of the 1921 Open Championship at St. Andrews — so frustrated when he couldn't get out of a bunker on the 11th hole with four whacks that he picked up his ball and tore up his scorecard as he walked off the course.
Jones was scalded by the media, but of course he returned and claimed the oldest championship in the world three times, including in 1927 at St. Andrews, to become as loved over there as he was over here.
"I could take out of my life everything but my experiences here in St. Andrews and I would still have had a rich and full life," Jones said in 1959, when he was named a freeman of the city of St. Andrews, an honor also bestowed on Benjamin Franklin in 1759.
Sam Snead did not endear himself to the Brits when he showed up for the 1946 Open, the first after a six-year hiatus during World War II. As his train pulled into the station at St. Andrews, he said, "The Home of Golf" looked like "an old, abandoned golf course," before he went on to charm the crowd while winning the title.
Probably the worst blasphemy from an American golfer came when Scott Hoch called St. Andrews "the worst piece of mess I've ever played." He also said that the game played on the links was not "real golf," forgetting that it was invented there.
Among other events the Euros haven't forgotten, there was an intoxicated John Daly being removed from a British Airways flight for harassing a stewardess and Tiger Woods being fined for spitting on the 12th green in the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic, a European Tour event, earlier this year.
So Bubba is only the newest member of this Hall of Shame.
