With McIlroy-Reed feud, golf is doing an experiment in old-fashioned grudge creation

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Of all the small humiliations that you will endure over an average life, being blanked is the worst.

You don’t get over that. Unlike those other degradations, this one is your own fault. You thought you were pals with someone and then – boom – they lay you out in public. It’d be easier if they’d slapped you.

Public cuttings have started more wars than trade policy, and made many more than that harder to end. Because while violence between two nation states is forgivable, rudeness between bros is forever.

Maybe there was a point at which Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed were actual friends. I doubt it. Aside from being very good at golf, they haven’t got much in common. McIlroy is an overachieving golden boy. Reed is the guy who sneaked into the clubhouse through an open window in the bathroom. McIlroy is a bannerman for the grand tradition. Reed is a rules-are-for-losers type. And now there’s the PGA-LIV split to separate them further.

Those are general tropes. Is there a good, specific example? Okay. Like, McIlroy does not think it’s cool to be served with a subpoena on Christmas Eve and Reed thinks that if you’re going to ruin someone’s holiday, that’s the best one to pick. It’s not like it’s Thanksgiving or anything.

It wasn’t even Reed who had the subpoena, though he’s suing a bunch of people. It was his lawyer. Too fine a distinction, probably.

Normal people understand that subpoenas are friendship enders. Because we are poor, we are forced to – sigh – talk out our differences. Rich people have other people who do that for them.

Too much money – this is what got Reed into trouble.

Instead of going the don’t complain-don’t explain route, he tried to pretend nothing had happened. When next he saw McIlroy – on the practice green before the start of the Dubai Desert Classic – he decided to play it super cool. Footage showed him ambling up to McIlroy and his group like nothing had happened.

McIlroy was looking off in another direction. Reed shook someone’s hand. McIlroy crouched down over his ball. Reed extended his hand. McIlroy did not flinch. Reed hung there in the air for a beat that felt a millennia. No reaction from McIlroy.

Reed then did that side-to-side body swing one does – ‘Hey, yeah, maybe I’ll just head off in … that direction’ – when one is trying to escape.

Reed was still okay at this point. Sure, he’d been humiliated. There’s no getting past that. You thought you were both cool guys, big-time golfers, friends. But you aren’t. He’s a big-time golfer. You’re the schmuck he just ignored.

But Reed couldn’t know anyone was filming. It might still have been his secret shame.

But as he swung round to leave, Reed reached into his pants pocket, removed a golf tee and tossed it in McIlroy’s direction. He had a weird, little smile on his face – the excruciated smile of true mortification.

Now you didn’t just get humiliated. You responded with a gesture so petty, so impotent, that you’ve given the other guy the moral high ground.

Afterward, McIlroy first denied knowing anything about the whole thing. But with very little prompting, he offered this: “If [the] roles were reversed and I’d have thrown a tee at him, I’d be expecting a lawsuit.” Heeeeey-oooooo.

This is total defeat. Plus, someone was filming.

As the smallest things tend to do in sports, it has become a big thing. And thank God. It’s about time we were given some real aggro to work with.

One of the great tragedies of modern professional sport is the rise of camaraderie.

Back when athletes were middle-class, they pledged allegiance to the team. It wasn’t just okay to treat everyone on every other club as ‘the other,’ it was expected.

But once big money got injected into the process, a new, unionized, mega-tribe was created. Now the athletes feel loyalty to one another. This is why they can’t stop hugging.

For the sake of marketing, they will pretend to hate those guys over there from City X or City Y, but then you see them all vacationing on the same yacht in the off-season and you must accept that it’s a lie.

You know who the pros actually can’t stand? Everybody who isn’t a pro.

It’s good for social health and incredibly boring. What’s sports without a little hate? It’s house league. It’s Battle of the Network Stars.

Golf, a sport that could use some more oomph, is currently doing an experiment in old-fashioned grudge creation.

The split between the PGA and LIV golf tours has created an abundance that cannot last. Eventually, one league will cave. Then the music stops and cheques start bouncing.

This future shortage acts as a present wedge in the happy pros club. Old tribes split and new ones form. Then someone serves someone else a subpoena just as they’re cheersing the holiday. Shorts are metaphorically bunched, handshakes are ignored, tees are tossed and you’ve got yourself a totally new sort of sports experience.

Right now, I’d rather watch an hour of Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed merely existing in the same room together than 12 rounds of heavyweight boxing. Because while one of those is violent, the other is brutal.

On Monday, McIlroy pipped Reed for that Dubai tournament by a stroke. Afterward, they both played it cool. That won’t last.

Reed can’t let this sort of humiliation rest. It’s too much. Any ego would demand redress. But a sports ego? It requires revenge.

McIlroy knows he’s winning. Like all great pros, he’ll want to press his advantage.

Either way, this is not getting solved over a beer. There is too much vanishing money at stake.

If I was LIV or the PGA, I know how I’d handle it. I’d send Patrick Reed a skid of golf tees and tell him to save his next outburst for prime time at the Masters.