The Travelers Championship took place last week in Cromwell, Connecticut, which is just a half hour from ESPN’s campus in Bristol. So it stood to reason that PGA Tour golfers and Worldwide Leader employees might find themselves in the same spaces.
What we didn’t expect was that it would cause some messy social media drama.
Our story begins on Saturday, when ESPN’s Gary Striewski, who anchors SportsCenter: AM and SC+, posted a TikTok video about a coffee shop encounter with an unnamed pro golfer and his “girlfriend/fiancée/wife.” Recognizing the WAG from her social media videos, Striewski found a table next to her and, while the golfer was retrieving their drinks, he leaned over and asked, “Has anyone spotted you yet?”
As he tells it, she looked at him derisively and said, “I guess now?” Striewski says he then went silent, turned around, and ate his meal, adding that he was later recognized and had a positive interaction with that person. The SportsCenter anchor also added commentary that, if you publicize yourself through social media or otherwise, there’s an expectation that you’ll be recognized in public, implying it’s something to be accepted positively.
@thekimchipapi Was this weird ass interaction my fault? Am I trippin? #travelerschampionship #connecticut ♬ original sound – Gary Striewski
It didn’t take long for people to put two and two together and realize Striewski was referring to PGA golfer Sahith Theegala and his fiancée, Juju Chan, who has almost 47,000 Instagram followers and over 68,000 TikTok followers. And it didn’t take long for the video to reach Chan, who offered a rebuttal to his POV.
@jujurchan now let’s get back to my regularly scheduled programming 🙂 #pgatour #golf #golftiktok #golflife #wag ♬ original sound – Juju
“The interaction that he’s explaining did not happen the way he’s saying it did,” Chan said in her video. “He’s continuing to let people believe a false narrative.
Theegala also added his thoughts in the comments of her post, saying, “That guy should have never put you in a position like this… I love you so much, and I’m incredibly proud of how you’ve handled it, my queen. I see how kind and caring you are to all that interact with you, and the people close to us know your real, incredible self.”
Striewski did post a second video about the interaction, in response to a question about why he approached Chan rather than Theegala. Based on the comments on the video, it doesn’t seem to have garnered much sympathy or understanding for the initial interaction or the video about it.
It appears that’s where the drama ends, and probably for the best.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.