Dustin Johnson Incident
Johnson, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, was nearly disqualified because he arrived late for his first-round tee time. As a result, Johnson was assessed a two-stroke penalty. Gray spoke to Johnson about it later in the round, something that Brown and others in the group took issue with.
According to Bobby Brown, Gray had no business discussing a rules incident with the golfer during play. The veteran reporter lost his temper and launched into a verbal assault against Brown, bringing up the former singer’s struggles with drugs and his highly publicized marital problems with ex-wife Whitney Houston.
Bobby Brown’s Odd Career History
R&B sensation Bobby Brown left a successful stint with New Edition in 1987 to pursue a solo career, which garnered him a string of Top 10 Billboard hits and a Grammy Award. But Brown’s increasingly bizarre behavior throughout the 1990s and early 2000s began to overshadow his past glory.
In 2003, Brown was arrested for misdemeanor battery after allegedly striking Whitney Houston, his wife at the time. In February 2004, Brown was arrested and jailed in Georgia on a parole violation related to a previous drunk driving conviction. Despite these travails, Whitney Houston stood by her man, citing his ability to procure the crack cocaine they both needed to survive.
But Brown’s heroic intake of illegal substances culminated in a mild heart attack in 2007, at which point he and Houston finally divorced. Brown is now married to Alicia Etheridge.
While many fans saw 2007 as a turning point for Brown, the singer’s problems only continued to escalate. On August 14, 2009, an arrest warrant was issued for Brown after he failed to appear in a Massachusetts court on a contempt complaint. It was also reported that he had accumulated over $45,000 in arrears for failing to make child support payments for the two teenage children he had fathered with former girlfriend Kim Ward.
Today, most people know Brown for his superhuman ability to consume crack cocaine and marijuana rather than for whatever musical talent longtime fans claim he once had. What people may not know, however, is that Brown has reinvented himself as one golf’s leading caddies.
“I didn’t even know he could swing a club at something other than reporters and girlfriends,” said former band mate Ricky Bell. “I mean, he can barely walk. Blew my mind, that’s for sure.”
Brown’s sports manager, Barry Moshgrove, worried that being surrounded by tons of “green” would create a dangerous distraction for the former singer. Brown’s performance, however, has spoken for itself.
“He’s got an eagle eye and a real sense for the mechanics of the game, which has earned him respect and an award for caddying,” Moshgrove beamed. “Now he has a gold record, a gold tooth, and a gold medal.”
When asked about next steps in his evolving career, Brown punched a reporter, knocked over a camera, and bit another caddy on the arm.
As security personnel escorted Brown away, he told the press, “I could really care less about what they think about me, but at the same time, I do have something to prove. The reason why I tried to kill that man is because he spat on me. That’s the dirtiest thing you can do to a man.”
Officials at the event, taking Brown’s allusion to attempted homicide as a reference to Jim Gray, testified that they never saw Gray spit.
But one reporter at the Tour admitted that he’s “seen Jim unleash bodily fluids in anger that were much worse than saliva. It’s possible that he spit at Brown. But that doesn’t justify the fight, just as the goings-on of golf or Bobby Brown don’t justify front page headlines. Can we talk about Bahrain now?”