<\/p>\n
David Leibowitz<\/p>\n
(Submitted)<\/p>\n
There is virtually no arguing against the idea that hatred is the dominant emotion of this era in our country. It floods like acid into every crevice of our culture and civic life. Most of the time, it\u2019s less a low simmer than a seething rage.<\/p>\n
If you doubt this analysis, go to a local City Council meeting pretty much anywhere in the Valley. Come \u201ccall to the public,\u201d which is to community governance what open-mike night is to stand-up comedy, you\u2019ll witness citizens use their few minutes not to call attention to infrastructure issues and policy details but instead insult, berate and slander their elected leaders and city staffers.<\/p>\n
These harangues happen so often, and with such fervor, I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would run for office.<\/p>\n
The same vitriol floods almost every other aspect of life in America. Get a substandard cheeseburger? Go to Yelp and do your level best to harm the business with a scathing review. Taylor Swift finds happiness with Travis Kelce or drops \u201cThe Life of a Showgirl\u201d on Spotify? Jump on your Facebook page and hope she\u2019s divorced and\/or scandalized ever after.<\/p>\n
The president spews hate on Truth Social. Those who hate him spew back on X, MS Now and CNN. Fox News hates the libs; they hate Fox right back.<\/p>\n
We hate people for the vehicles they drive \u2014 whether it\u2019s a granola lover in a Prius or a MAGA dude in a Cybertruck \u2014 and we hate people for the pronouns they list in their email signatures.<\/p>\n
Everyone has a hot take or the need to express how they \u201cfeel some kind of way\u201d about this or that.<\/p>\n
Which is why I was so gratified to be watching golf last Sunday when Aaron Rai, a 31-year-old Brit, won one of the sport\u2019s major tournaments, the PGA Championship.<\/p>\n
Rai, ranked No. 44 in the world coming into the event, went off at more than 200-1 odds before the first round. He entered the final round in a five-way tie for second place, two shots off the lead.<\/p>\n
Rai bogeyed three of his first eight holes before making a 39-foot putt for eagle on the ninth. That\u2019s when he improbably caught fire. He made four more birdies on Aronimink\u2019s back nine, including an insane capper.<\/p>\n
Up two shots on the 17th hole, Rai made a 68-foot putt for birdie. If that doesn\u2019t sound like much, try rolling a quarter into a red Solo cup from across your driveway. With 8 million people watching on TV. And a $3.7 million first prize on the line.<\/p>\n
At home, I spent the time between shots trying to figure out who Rai was besides \u201cthe guy who plays wearing two black gloves.\u201d He\u2019d won only once on the PGA Tour before Sunday, the Wyndham Championship in 2024.<\/p>\n
Surfing the web, I learned that his mother came to the U.K. from Kenya, while his father\u2019s family immigrated from India.<\/p>\n
In the press conference after his victory, Rai talked about the importance of humility and thanked his family for the sacrifices they made so he could golf as a kid. He also talked about the big plans he had for the millions he\u2019d just won.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do love Chipotle on the road,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cProbably later tonight, if it\u2019s still open, we\u2019ll probably go to Chipotle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room broke up. No one screeched or attacked. Online rage bait was scarce, mostly because no one could dig up any reason to hate a seemingly decent human being who, across five magical hours, lived a dream he\u2019d been chasing since childhood.<\/p>\n
I hope Rai enjoyed his burrito. If not, well, at least he won\u2019t Yelp about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Leibowitz (Submitted) There is virtually no arguing against the idea that hatred is the dominant emotion of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[415,3140,144,3615,3616,3617,3614],"class_list":["post-6191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aaron-rai","tag-aaron-rai","tag-arizona","tag-pga-tour","tag-taylor-swift","tag-travis-kelce","tag-wyndham-championship","tag-yelp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}