J.B. Holmes Fires 77, Introduces Golden Bear to His Shoulder

In an almost "made for bad TV" moment yesterday, CBS cut to a live shot of Jack Nicklaus standing near the 18th green at the Muirfield Village Golf Club, greeting golfers as they exited his tournament.

What they weren't expecting was the first golfer to pass by Nicklaus was J.B. Holmes, who strolled by the host with the compassion of Judge Judy.

From Jason Sobel's Weekly 18 on ESPN.com:

In case you missed it, the FBR Open champ walked off the 18th green on Sunday, looked in the direction of tournament host Jack Nicklaus ... and then looked away and walked right past him. We gave the incident a few rewinds on the DVR and if a picture tells a thousand words, it was apparent that Holmes (who had just completed a final-round 5-over 77 to finish T-20) wanted no part of the tournament host as he headed toward the scorer's trailer.

I watched the Memorial Tournament live yesterday and the only part of this I found shocking was the ill-advised timing of CBS and the Holmes-Nicklaus exchange.

In no way did it seem to me, unlike Sobel's observation, that Holmes was trying to do this out of disrespect or to make a point about the tough conditions of a golf course that earned much chatter from the peanut gallery all week. To be honest, the greens that everyone was ballyhooing about went in Holmes favor, as he finished t-19 in putts per round and t-14 in putts per green.The angst obviously can be attributed to his final round 77 that included seven bogeys and only two birdies. I've been lucky enough to play competitive golf all my life, and the first thing you want to do is throw your clubs in the trunk of your car (or lake or fire pit) and the last thing you want to do is chat about it. Holmes was tied for 8th heading to the final round, so you can obviously see why he'd be upset with himself with a round that included three bogeys on par-5s for the longest hitter of the week.

There are times athletes bring stuff on themselves and times people go digging for it, and I think this was a golfer trying to exit stage left as quick as possible, no harm intended.

Do you honestly think Tiger Woods would have been handing out hugs and kisses to everyone around if he closed with 77?