What is an acceptable gimme in matchplay golf?

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Tom Kim reacts to a putt

There are many ways to look like a clown while in the middle of a heated match but laying your putter down after knocking in a two-foot putt is pretty much top of the list.

You could chug a beer on the 1st tee, rip your top off, run naked around the green but the mock injustice of not being given a putt is fairly risible.

Bryson DeChambeau did it as early as the 1st hole in his fourball match with Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood at Whistling Straits in 2021.

Justin Thomas has been guilty of it in the past and Tom Kim was this year’s pantomime villain when he took umbrage at Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele’s lack of a ‘pick it up’ comment.

The Americans were two up playing the par-3 7th when Si Woo Kim, who would later spectacularly chip in at the penultimate hole, knocked it up to a couple of feet. Shorter putts were missed over the four days and Kim duly knocked it in.

Judging by the crowd’s reaction he obviously then did something as he moved away from the hole before then returning to the hole side to lie his putter down before walking off shaking his head.

Two days earlier Kim, and his then partner Sungjae Im, had walked 60 yards to the 9th tee after holing a birdie putt while Scottie Scheffler was lining up his birdie putt.

This, to be fair, is even more lame but rarely happens and wasn’t repeated, so we can put this down to just some poor judgment.

The lying down of the putter charade is often seen and never looks good. Gimmes are there to purely speed up play which, given nobody cares about this element at a Presidents Cup, makes them part of the pantomime.

Don’t give them and you might get a few boos, do give them and commentators will drone on about some form of incredible mind games where you give a couple early and then make them hole out late in the match.

There’s a good story of Sergio Garcia from his amateur days where he would concede a 12-foot putt to his opponent for a par and then knock in his birdie putt from just inside that length.

If you want to feel mentally crushed then this would be a good start but it’s never that interesting in a team matchplay event.

Cantlay and Schauffle would win the match at the 18th after Cantlay holed yet another putt in the dark. He kept his head down, this time with a cap on, got on with the match and closed things out in style.

Whether you believe in karma or not the team who just played golf the right way ran out the winners.

If you are in the team room and you’re watching a clip of one of your opponents bleating about not being given a putt how much more incentive do you want to take him down the following day?

We all get that part of Tom Kim’s charm is his energy but, for much of last week, it was working the wrong way.

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