Love wasn't in the air for everyone at Valspar Championship. Tempers were flaring

The Valspar Championship likes to bill itself as the most colorful tournament in the world because its sponsor is a paint company. A few players added their own color to a wild week of tempers at Innisbrook.

First came Patton Kizzire, who had missed the cut in six straight tournaments and then missed a 5-foot putt on the 15th hole in the opening round. Frustrated, he punted his putter high in the air, and then tapped in with the blade of a sand wedge. He then withdrew with a back injury.

Kizzire took to Instagram on Monday to apologize.

“It wasn't my putter's fault,” he said. “I just lost my cool and it's unacceptable. I'm looking forward to being a better version of myself and I appreciate you guys understanding.”

Next it was Sahith Theegala, now on a streak of 10 straight PGA Tour starts without a top 10. He was so disgusted with his swing on the par-3 fourth hole in the second round that he dropped the club, then picked it up and violently heaved it toward the ground.

Adam Hadwin might have topped both of them. He was walking toward the 10th green when he slammed his club into the ground. It struck a sprinkler and set off a gusher.

Jordan Spieth also was caught on video screaming a four-letter expletive (it wasn't “Fore”) at the ground after a flop shot behind the green.

Golf can do that, and three moments caught on camera made it look to be a vexing week.

Hadwin was not the first to set off a sprinkler. Davis Love III caught a plugged lie in a bunker at Bay Hill in 1999, watched the shot roll through the green and smacked the sprinkler with his sand wedge. It shattered the valve and water gushed into the sand.

That was before social media and the response was different. Instead of it going viral, Love received a note in his locker the next day from tournament host Arnold Palmer. It was a mock bill — $3.50 for parts, $175,000 for labor.

They all bring to mind a famous observation by Bobby Jones, who once said, "Golf is usually played with the outward appearance of great dignity. It is, nevertheless, a game of considerable passion — either the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul.”

These were the explosive types.

Scottie Scheffler has won the Masters twice in the last three years, and he has embraced everything about Augusta National from the time he arrives.

“You pull in, and everything else just kind of melts away,” he said on a conference call.

He said his favorite spot on the property was outside the locker room upstairs, where he can sit alone on a patio that loops around the back and gives him a view of the first tee and 10th tee and as much of the golf course he can see.

“I sit up there and just watch what’s going on and nobody really knows that I’m up there,” Scheffler said. “Just kind of sitting there watching the crowds, enjoying the sights and sounds of Augusta, and nobody really knows that you’re there, so it’s pretty nice.”

And then he realized what he said.

“I kind of just gave myself away with that one,” Scheffler said. “That’s tough. Maybe everyone will know now.”

He was so caught up in the mechanics of his swing that he wasn’t playing freely. The Valspar Championship was another important step for Davis Riley.

Riley got off to an atrocious start this year, going the entire West Coast Swing without playing on Sunday. He shot 80 in Kapalua and 80 in the opening round of The American Express. His scoring average for those five tournaments was 73.6.

The culprit was a two-way miss.

“That creates a lot of anxiety on the golf course because you don’t know where to miss, you don’t know what side of the golf course you’re missing on, all of a sudden you start steering golf shots,” Riley said. “It was a very uncomfortable feeling.”

The Mississippi native found more comfort when the PGA Tour reached Florida. He had a pair of top 10s in the Puerto Rico Open and the Valspar Championship. Riley found a predictable shot pattern and is back relying on a tight draw.

“A lot more freedom and better scores,” he said.

The PGA Tour Americas kicks off a six-tournament swing through South America and Mexico this week in Argentina. The field for the 93 Abierto del Centro — a tournament that dates to 1927 — includes players who have combined for six PGA Tour wins and two majors.

The bulk of that comes from Angel Cabrera, whose three PGA Tour titles include the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont and the 2009 Masters. Cabrera was eighth on the alternate list for the PGA Tour Champions event this week.

Also playing is Andres Romero, who won the Zurich Classic in 2008, and two-time PGA Tour winner Fabian Gomez. Both are listed as having Korn Ferry Tour status (the circuit is off this week), while Cabrera is playing on a restricted sponsor exemption.

The tournament is in Cabrera’s hometown of Cordoba. He is in an eight-time winner of the event.

The total purse is $225,000.

The PGA Tour in 2022 decided two players from the Player Advisory Council would be elected co-chairmen and then move onto the board. Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati won and began a three-year term the following year.

Both are off the board after this year, and the PGA Tour is going back to one PAC chairman.

Maverick McNealy is on the ballot for PAC chairman for the second time. He is joined by Rickie Fowler and Keith Mitchell. Whoever gets the most votes (voting ends April 14) will serve a four-year term on the policy board. The co-chair with second-most votes serves a three-year term.

Previously, PAC chairmen served three-year terms on the board. Starting in 2026, they will serve four years.

“These governance changes will improve year-to-year continuity among the six Player Directors and allow the Policy Board to make informed decisions more quickly and effectively,” Commissioner Jay Monahan said.

Fowler is on the PAC subcommittee that oversees tournaments, fans and sponsors. McNealy and Mitchell are on the PAC subcommittee for business affairs.

Ian Poulter had cause for celebration. His son Luke, a sophomore at Florida, birdied the last hole to win his first college tournament at the Schenkel Invitational ... In Viktor Hovland's last two PGA Tour victories, he led the field in making putts longer than 10 feet — 12 of them at the Valspar Championship, 13 at the 2023 Tour Championship. ... The LPGA Tour resumes its domestic schedule in Arizona with a field that has 19 of the top 20 players in the women's world ranking.

Players from five European countries have won six of the 13 tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule this year.

"One thing I’d say to people trying to do it as a career, that moment is the most fulfilling thing in the world and it’s worth it. So stick in and hopefully you’ll get rewarded one day like I have today.” — Richard Mansell after winning his first European tour title in the Singapore Classic.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Davis Riley tees off on the third hole during the final round of the Valspar Championship golf tournament Sunday, March 23, 2025, at Innisbrook in Palm Harbor, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Scottie Scheffler waits for his turn on the second hole during the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament Sunday, March 16, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Sahith Theegala chips onto the 14th green during the second round of The Players Championship golf tournament Friday, March 14, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The attempts by President Donald Trump and top leaders of his administration to downplay a security breach that revealed military strike plans in a Signal group chat including a journalist stand in stark contrast to their reaction to Hillary Clinton's use of a home server as secretary of state.

This time, they've largely focused their ire not on sweeping potential security lapses, or punishments as a result, but on the journalist who was errantly added to the group text and reported on it: editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. Some of the text's participants who spoke out against Clinton haven't commented publicly at all about the Signal leak.

One of the chief concerns about Clinton’s email server was that it was insecure, and that sensitive information could fall into the wrong hands. But former FBI Director James Comey said in recommending that no charges be brought against Clinton that there was no evidence that her email account had been hacked by hostile actors.

Trump insisted Tuesday that no classified information was divulged in the group chat, though Goldberg wrote that messaging revealed “precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing” of strikes in Yemen. The White House’s National Security Council has said it is investigating.

For her part, Clinton's reaction to Goldberg's reporting was one of astonishment: “You have got to be kidding me,” Clinton said in an X post that spotlighted The Atlantic article and included an eyes emoji.

Here's a look at what some of the officials in the group chat, and some of those steadfastly standing by them, are saying now versus then.

Now: “The main thing was nothing happened. The attack was totally successful,” Trump said during a meeting with a group of his ambassadors at the White House on Tuesday.

He also called his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, “a very good man” and insisted “he will continue to do a very good job,” while adding, “I think it’s very unfair how they attacked Michael" and labeling Goldberg a “total sleazebag.”

Later, in an interview with Newsmax, Trump said a Waltz aide had Goldberg’s number and “this guy ended up on the call." He also added that he felt good about what occurred. "I can only go by what I’ve been told ... but I feel very comfortable, actually.”

Then: “Hillary is the one who sent and received classified information on an insecure server, putting the safety of the American people under threat,” Trump said in an October 2016 speech in Warren, Michigan.

“The rigged system refused to prosecute her for conduct that put all of us, everybody in this room, everybody in this country at risk. Hillary Clinton went to great lengths to create a private email server and to bypass government security in order to keep her emails from being read by the public and by federal officials,” he said in a November 2016 speech in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

And, during a Florida rally in July 2016, he even urged Russian hackers to help find a batch of emails said to have vanished from Clinton’s private server. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."

Now: “I think there’s a lot in the lessons for a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies about this president,” Waltz said during Tuesday’s White House meeting with Trump and the ambassadors.

He also said of Goldberg, “This journalist, Mr. President, wants the world talking about more hoaxes.”

In a subsequent interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Waltz said, “I take full responsibility. I built the group.” He also contradicted Trump by saying that no staffer was responsible.

Waltz further acknowledged, “embarrassing, yes” and said, “We made a mistake. We’re moving forward.”

Then: “How is it Hillary Clinton can delete 33,000 government emails on a private server, yet President Trump gets indicted for having documents he could declassify?” Waltz posted in June 2023, referencing charges against Trump for mishandling classified documents. The case was scrapped after Trump won a second term.

Now: “Nobody was texting war plans,” Hegseth told journalists traveling with him in Hawaii on Monday. He said of Goldberg, “You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes.”

Then: “Any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information," Hegseth, then a regular contributor for Fox News Channel, said of Clinton's emails on the network in 2016.

That same year, Hegseth asked on Fox News, “How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information?”

In another 2016 Fox News segment, Hegseth said, “If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now for what has been done. Because the assumption is, in the intelligence community, if you are using unclassified means, there is the potential for, and likelihood, that foreign governments are targeting those accounts and gathering intelligence from them."

Now: No public comment on the Signal group chat.

Then: “Nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton – even though she thinks she is," Rubio told Fox News in January 2016.

The previous year in a Fox News interview, Rubio referred to the same emails when he said, “What they did is reckless — it’s complete recklessness and incompetence.”

Now: No public comment on the Signal leak.

Then: Miller posted in 2022: “One point that doesn’t get made enough about Hillary’s unsecured server illegally used to conduct state business (obviously created to hide the Clintons’ corrupt pay-for-play): foreign adversaries could easily hack classified ops & intel in real time from other side of the globe.”

Now: “My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information," Ratcliffe said at a Tuesday congressional hearing.

Then: On Fox News in 2018, Ratcliffe suggested of officials who mishandle sensitive information: “It’s always a good thing that we see that there is investigation and prosecution of folks if they’re not handling that information appropriately.”

Now: “There’s a difference between inadvertent release versus careless and sloppy, malicious leaks of classified information,” Gabbard said at the same congressional hearing.

Then: Gabbard posted on X earlier this month, “Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.”

President Donald Trump attends a reception celebrating Greek Independence Day in the East Room of the White House, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)