OAKMONT, Pa. — In February of 2021, Tiger Woods rolled an SUV over a median, down an embankment and into a gully. He nearly killed himself, and, at 46, with a history of other major injuries, he effectively killed his career.

In February of 2022, Phil Mickelson telegraphed his defection to the emerging LIV Tour when controversial comments were excerpted from a Mickelson biography. Mickelson briefly retreated from circulation.

These were golf’s spokesmen. Fate rendered them obsolete. Affable Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, outrageously talented and globally invested in the game, eagerly filled that void.

Over a four-year period Rors talked about LIV, about Tiger, about rolling the ball back, about slow play, and about the vast increase in PGA Tour prize money and revenue sharing spurred by LIV’s boisterous intrusion — money that seems to have emboldened top players into biting the hands that feed them.

Because, lately, Rory doesn’t want to talk much at all.

“I feel like I’ve earned the right to do whatever I want to do,” McIlroy said. He said it with a hint of scorn and defiance, replying to a question from a reporter who’s covered golf for more than 30 years (me).

Sad.

In an era of plummeting TV ratings and rising indifference, the game’s best players aren’t doing their job. And yes, speaking to the press, and thereby to the fans, is part of the job.

“They should see the ratings,” bemoaned one pro golf official earlier this week, longing for the good old days.

The golf world used to be simple: You played, you signed your scorecard, you discussed where it all went wrong (or right), then you went to the locker room, or the practice range, or the putting green or, if you were especially desperate, you went to church.

In the past few years things have changed. Now, players usually meet an agent outside of the scoring trailer. That agent often has negotiated his player’s post-round availability with tournament officials, and, more and more often, the player simply stalks off, staring at his phone. It is a layer of separation that robs the fans and the sponsors and the broadcast partners and keeps the players from doing the rest of their job.

Is wearing sponsors’ logos in interviews (remember Mickelson and those Bearing Point visors?) while standing in front of broadcast partners’ backdrops while the title name of the sponsor rolls by on a ticker at the bottom of the screen — is that part of the job?

One hundred percent, it is part of the job.

McIlroy used to understand that. They all did.

No real explanation

He had been the voice of Golf for almost three years, but Saturday at the U.S. Open he broke a six-round media boycott at major championships to officially abdicate that role.

“It’s more a frustration with you guys,” he said, answering a golf writer from the New York Post who’s been covering golf even longer than me. “I’ve been totally available for the last few years, and I’m not saying — maybe not you guys, but maybe more just the whole thing.”

As recently as a year ago McIlroy was one of the most thoughtful, accessible, relatable stars on the planet. Now he sounds like pouty peer Collin Morikawa.

Morikawa refused interviews after he lost the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, then, the next week, notoriously told the press, “I don’t owe anyone anything.”

Not only has Morikawa, the No. 4-ranked player in the world, stood by those statements, McIlroy supported him in April, just before the Masters began.

“Every other athlete … is obligated to speak to you guys after a game,” McIlroy said. “We’re not.” As if to illustrate his belief, McIlroy promptly stiffed the press after his first round at Augusta National.

This came after he stiffed the press in the parking lot after he choked away the 2024 U.S. Open. This would be like the Eagles refusing to do postgame press conferences after they blew Super Bowl LII.

More recently, McIlroy didn’t speak after any of his four moribund rounds at the PGA Championship in May, then snubbed the media after Rounds 1 and 2 here. That made for six straight major-championship rounds without the voice of golf’s most important player.

It has little to do with frustrations, like his illegal driver at the PGA Championship. Nor does his truculence stem from difficult conditions like those at fearsome Oakmont Country Club, where he shot 4-over Saturday and stood at 10-over after his third round, 13 shots behind leaders Sam Burns and J.J. Spaun, who were still 30 minutes from teeing off.

He’d shot 4-over in Round 1 but rallied over the final 10 holes Friday to make the cut by one shot, after which he fled the scene like the Allegheny County Sheriff’s department held an outstanding warrant.

“I’ve done it before,” he said Saturday of his freshly-ended, six-round boycott. “I’m just doing it a little more often.”

It’s becoming an epidemic among most of golf’s most important players.

An industry issue

Beyond fulfilling responsibilities to TV rights-holders who spent millions to both broadcast and interview the players, one of golf’s core tenets is graciousness in defeat. At the U.S. Open last year, and at the API this year, McIlroy and Morikawa couldn’t be bothered to congratulate the winners. It’s supposed to be about sportsmanship. About dignity.

But no.

On Friday, both fidgety Bryson DeChambeau, the defending U.S. Open champion, and frustrated Mickelson, the most sympathetic character in the tournament’s history, ignored interview requests after they missed the cut. As if to taunt the press corps, DeChambeau went and practiced for two hours at the range next to the media tent.

Another sore runner-up, Shane Lowry, wouldn’t speak after he lost the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club in early May — but then, neither would Jordan Spieth, whose representative explained Spieth had to catch a flight. However, for the next 20 minutes, Spieth proceeded to sign autographs inside the interview area.

It is a disease that has crept into the women’s tour, too. At the recent ShopRite LPGA Classic, Nelly Korda didn’t attend her pretournament press conference, citing fatigue, even though the press conference was held in the tournament hotel where she was staying. She spoke briefly after Round 2, but, after a respectable tie for 15th, she ignored autograph seekers and an interview request.

“I’ve got to catch a plane in Philly,” she said, never breaking stride. Seriously? It was 2:45. She was north of Atlantic City.

She missed her flight. She blamed the airport.

At least she couldn’t blame me.

A big deal? Yes.

Why should the players care? Because they get paid to do more than just play. In fact, they have a better chance to connect with fans than any other sport. Millions of regular folks golf, and except champion golfers, fail, and fans love to commiserate.

Mickelson won six majors, but his most memorable moment for many involved his bad decision to hit driver on the 72nd hole of the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, when he turned a 1-shot lead into a 1-shot loss. He later said, “As a kid I dreamed of winning this tournament. This one hurts more than any other tournament because I had it won. I had it in my grasp and I let it go. … I am still in shock that I did that. I just can’t believe I did that. I am such an idiot.”

With that, he connected with every 18-hole handicap in every Thursday-night league in America.

On Friday, after two late double bogeys effectively ended Mickelson’s U.S. Open career — he’s 54, he’s out of exemptions, and he’s an enemy of the USGA — Mickelson had a chance to recreate Arnold Palmer’s 1994 farewell to the tournament on the same patio outside of Oakmont’s stately clubhouse.

“When you walk up the 18th and you get an ovation like that,” Palmer said, choking up, “I guess that says it all.”

Phil, 31 years later, on the same spot: “Sorry, guys.”

I guess that says it all.

Not the rule — yet

After he blew the 2011 Masters, McIlroy was just as endearing as Phil in 2006. McIlroy shot 80 that Sunday in his first chance at a major title, with a horrific second nine.

“I was leading this golf tournament with nine holes to go, and I just unraveled,” McIroy said, uncomfortably shifting his hat back and forth over his black, shaggy hair. “Lost my speed on the greens, lost my line, lost everything.”

Including the tournament — but he gained millions of fans.

McIlroy & Co. aren’t exactly typical offenders, just recurring. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler still talks. No. 3-ranked Xander Schauffele will chat. Justin Thomas, ranked No. 5, generally speaks when he’s relevant.

They all used to talk, as a routine exercise of tradition and professional responsibility. Now, with a new disdain for fans, sponsors and press, when they talk, they do so out of the kindness of their hearts.

As McIroy noted, PGA Tour players are not required to speak after their rounds. Clearly, that should change.

“Whether that’s something that the PGA Tour looks to in terms of putting that into their rules and regulations … ” McIlroy said before the Masters. “As long as that’s not the case, and we have that option to opt out whenever we want, expect guys to do that from time to time.”

The problem with that, of course, is that PGA Tour policies are set by an advisory board comprised — you guessed it — PGA Tour players.

Oh well.

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