How to Watch Golf During a Basketball Game (Maybe)

If you’re a fan of golf, the Masters is probably circled on your calendar. Every April, the world’s best professional golfers gather in Augusta, Georgia for one of the biggest golf tournaments of the year, and fans around the world tune in to watch. The final round, except for in rare cases when bad weather gets in the way, always is on a Sunday afternoon, which is great for fans — chances are, you have the day off from work and are free to watch.

But not everyone is so lucky. Sometimes, you also have to work. And for one such fan, that was particularly annoying — so he tried to get himself in trouble.

On April 12, 2009, two of the best players in modern history — Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — faced off on the final day of golf at Augusta in what CNN called “an epic head-to-head duel [that] will live long in the memory [of golf aficionados].” Both of the players were significantly behind the leaders going into the day and neither were given much of a chance to win the tournament. But it didn’t matter. It was rare for the two to share a tee time, so when they both took to the course for their 1:35 PM start, the world of golf fans were at attention. Everyone wanted to see which of the two would win this head to head clash of the titans.

About two hours later, it looked like Mickelson would be leaving Woods behind in the dust. He tied a course record, needing only 30 strokes to complete the first nine holes, opening a three-stroke lead on Tiger. But Mickelson double-bogeyed the 12th hole (that’s golf speak for “needed two more strokes than par”), cutting his lead to one. At about 4:30 PM, all eyes were on the Tiger/Mickelson matchup — all eyes except those of Doc Rivers.

Rivers was the head coach of the Boston Celtics at the time, and while he was a big golf fan, he was also at work. The Celtics were in Cleveland playing LeBron James and the Cavaliers in a game that was almost entirely meaningless. With a win in any of their last three games, the Cavs would earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference in the NBA Playoffs, and the Celtics would have the #2 seed. (While a Celtics win would have delayed that outcome, almost all experts and fans realized it was inevitable.) The Cavaliers, who had only lost one home game to date that year, got out to a 31-9 lead after the first quarter; by halftime, the outcome of the game wasn’t in doubt. The same could not be said for the Woods/Mickelson showdown — while the Celtics were in the locker room between halves, the golf match in Georgia was just heating up.

Everything above is true — what comes next, well, is a bit speculative. But assuming that Doc Rivers is true to his word, he tried to pull off an incredible stunt.

In 2017 — five years after the game and golf match above — Doc Rivers was coaching the Los Angeles Clippers. And he told a story which mostly lines up with the events above, as shared by the Clippers Twitter account, here. Per Rivers, he believed there were “four games left in the season” and “everything had been wrapped up as far as playoffs [were concerned] and the Masters was on.” During halftime, the Celtics General Manager (and Rivers’ boss), Danny Ainge, told Rivers that Woods was making a comeback and suggested that Rivers “get thrown out” of the basketball game and “come back and watch [the Masters].” (For those of you who aren’t big sports fans, referees can eject players and coaches from a game if the latter misbehaves.) Rivers agrees: “It’s the first play of the 3rd quarter. I go for it, yelling [and then, in the video, he mimics himself yelling]” in hopes of getting the ref to toss him.

There are some issues with Rivers’ story, the biggest of which is that in retelling the story, Rivers had his Celtics playing the Miami Heat. But as SB Nation notes, that’s not likely. On April 10, 2011, the Celtics did, in fact, have a day game at Miami, and Tiger made an unsuccessful come-from-behind run in the Masters that day. But as SB Nation points out, that was “A HUUUUGE game. It was a head-to-head clash between two teams with identical 55-24 records, so the winner would essentially clinch the two-seed — a far cry from Rivers’ nonchalant dismissal of any importance to the game.” And, as SB Nation notes, the Celtics were only down five points at the half.

So while there’s a very good chance Rivers is embellishing a story to the point that it didn’t happen, it’s also likely that time robbed his memory of the details. It’s also perfectly reasonable for him to have confused the 2009 Cavs with a later Heat team — LeBron James was the star of both. Other than that, the story mostly lines up with what happened in Cleveland that day.

But whether Rivers is embellishing or misremembering, it doesn’t matter from a golf-watching perspective. As Rivers notes in the interview, his efforts to get thrown out of the game weren’t successful, but not for a lack of trying. “I’m not sure who [the referee] was,” Rivers continues, “but he just stares at me. Nothing. And then, during the free throw, he comes over to me and [nodding no] says, ‘I want to watch it, too.’“ Rivers failed at getting thrown out of the game.

That wasn’t great for him — and for those of trying to pinpoint the date of the game (and verify Rivers’ claim), it’s even more unfortunate. His ejection would have made the game easy to identify.

Oh, and as for Tiger Woods? His clash with Mickelson was as successful as Rivers’ attempt to get ejected: it ended in failure. Woods finished the day with 68 strokes to Phil’s 67. (But don’t weep for Tiger — that earned him sixth place in the tournament, and a $242,000 payday.)

Bonus fact: Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open in 2000 in fantastic fashion — his 12 under par score was the only one below par in the entire tournament, and 15 strokes better than runners up Ernie Els and Miguel Ángel Jiménez. And it’s a good thing he was so dominate, too, because if it were close, he could have lost on a technicality. As Golf Digest explains, Woods debuted a new type of golf ball, the Nike Tour Accuracy, for the Open, but — unbeknownst to Tiger — his caddy accidentally stocked his golf bag with only four balls before the final round of the tournament. (Golfers typically carry nine to 12.) Woods gave two balls away to kids during the day and lost another in a water hazard, but managed to complete the course before losing that final ball. Had he run out of balls, there were a few options to keep him from getting disqualified, but they would have resulted in a two-stroke penalty for delaying the tournament. (That’s not a huge issue when you have a 15 stroke lead, though.)

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