The partisan crowd at this golf match just east of New York City was touted as America’s secret weapon. They were going to make lots of noise. But for two days, the every-other-year parade of costumed freaks was so quiet that one of the golfers said it was like playing in a library. That’s because the Euros manhandled the Americans for two straight days.
Team Europe gave team USA a record beating over the first two days. American fans who didn’t want to attend the Sunday funeral were reselling their tickets at cut rates and the Euros were buying. The Americans’ chances of winning were one in a thousand.
Bethpage Ryder Cup Sets New Low For Fan Behavior
I wasn’t the only one astounded at how resilient the American Ryder Cup team was in yesterday’s singles matches.
Like Rocky (too bad this wasn’t at Merion), our boys got up one more time, staggering, after being beaten within an inch of their lives. The last few hours were dramatic, nervous excitement for the chasers and the chased as it went from from impossible to improbable to Oh, my God, it’s unbelievable, they’re going to pull it off!
This morning, I read dozens of accounts of this year’s Ryder Cup.
Most themed on the drama of a beat-down followed by an oh-so-nearly rising from the dead. The Americans came up just short, so at least our boys didn’t lose shamefully, except for maybe USA Captain Keegan Bradley, who made the kind of bad decisions new captains often make. And just so you know, the USA has a history of choosing some real lunkheads to captain the team. Also, Europe has been thrashing USA since 1999, winning eight out of the last twelve Ryder Cups.
The decision that puzzled the entire golf world was Bradley choosing to put Collin Morikawa and Harris English together.
Collin and Harris are both good guys, so what’s the problem? Simple data analytics published in the news early that week ranked all 132 possible Team USA pairings. The Morikawa-English team was last. So what did Bradley do with that information? No one knows, because he chose the worst possible of all combinations. He put the 132nd best team out there on the first day.
Playing together, Morikawa and English were soundly thumped in their Friday match by Fleetwood Mac (Tommy and Rory).
And – get this – after that catastrophe, what did Captain Bradley do on Saturday? He sent them out together again, flabbergasting friend and foe.
Sports Illustrated said, “The data suggest Bradley made the worst possible decision to go up against Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood.”
According to one, “a clear case of golf malpractice.” Golf Digest summed it up this way: “When a captain steps on a rake despite seeing it clearly beneath his feet, the criticism becomes justified. Bradley’s choice to deploy this pairing on Friday was puzzling at best.”
The Euros were amazed by Bradley’s generous gift of two points.
As it turned out, they needed both of them to win.
In 1999, the United States team won the Ryder Cup after coming from far behind.
Many people remember it for the really awful shirts but most remember it because of what happened on the 17th hole. Justin Leonard’s ball was 45 feet from the hole. Jose Maria Olazabal’s ball was only 22 feet away, so he marked its position with a coin and stood to the side, off the green, out of Leonard’s line of sight, the gentlemanly thing to do, waiting his turn.
Leonard went first.
The chances of making a putt that long are fewer than three in a hundred. Leonard’s ball improbably rolled into the hole as if on rails. He leaped, screaming, into the air, and so did his teammates. It was a joyous mob scene, people crowding around Leonard, hugging, dancing, crying with joy.
Never before had a match been interrupted by a team charging onto a green without giving the opponent a chance to play.
How could this not have interfered unfairly with Olazabal’s chances of making his own putt? Anyway, Jose Maria missed, the USA won, and that’s how sporting etiquette was stomped on by U.S. fans in 1999. Alistair Cooke, host of Masterpiece Theater, called it “the arrival of the golf hooligan.”
Shortly after the Battle of Brookline, I was at the Wentworth Club near London.
I’d just won a five-pound note by parring the last two holes on the North Course, so tough in its day that it was called The Burma Road. When Russell Meredith introduced me to former Ryder Cup Captain Bernard Gallacher, I apologized on behalf of the U.S. for our boorish behavior. We retired into a bar and had a few single malts.
Heather McMahan is described as an actress and comedian whose comedy “resonates with a young, female audience.”
At least that’s what The Hollywood Reporter said. Glamour magazine said the 36-year-old comedian “finds humor in the travails of being a millennial woman.” Inexplicably, someone thought she would be a great choice for Master of Ceremonies at golf’s most exciting team event. The job was to use a microphone to introduce the players to the excited fans packed around the tee and lining the course.
Apparently McMahan was unable to restrain her comedic genius on Friday.
After formally introducing Rory McIlroy with the knob turned up to 11, she urged stands full of spectators to join her as she bellowed a rhythmic, “Fuck you, Rory” <sic>. The PGA said she would not return the next day. Most people thought the PGA should have called her actions disgraceful.
The Daily Mail called McMahan the ringleader of the vile chants aimed at Rory McIlroy.
Never has a golfer been so relentlessly abused. Hours after hours of open hostility from all sides throughout the entire day. It was the most armed escorts anyone can remember seeing at any sporting event. Fans were so crude and cruel that the PGA of America posted messages on the big electronic scoreboards to remind spectators to conduct themselves properly.
- Golf Digest said “This wasn’t a golf crowd – it was a social-media event with golf happening nearby.”
- The Palm Beach Post said, “This is a Ryder Cup that will be remembered for the few Ugly Americans who have bolstered the stereotype of the reputation of this country’s sports fans.”
- Fox Sports said “The atmosphere was so hostile that state troopers were deployed to line the edge of the fairways to create separation between the players and patrons and try to calm the situation.”
The harshest thing European Captain Luke Donald had to say was that “some fans crossed the line.”
The Associated Press quoted McIlroy, the victim of the vilest and most vicious, most relentless abuse of all as saying in his press conference after,
“Golf has the ability to unite people. Golf teaches you very good life lessons. It teaches you etiquette. It teaches you how to play by the rules. It teaches you how to respect people. Sometimes this week we didn’t see that. So no, this should not be what is acceptable in the Ryder Cup.”
Being a sports fan is rooting for your team, not rooting against your opponents.
Bernard, I owe you another apology.
Want to read more about the Ryder Cup? Try my September 27, 2021 article, Sam Ryder’s Cup.
Shane Lowery at the end of the day, seated underneath Bradley’s motivational strategy.
The following was removed from the media guide before this year’s matches: “the Ryder Cup also is among the last great professional sporting events where winning, and not prize money, is the reward.” The reason it was deleted is that this 2025 American team is the first in the entire 104-year history of the Ryder Cup that are paid to play three days of golf.
Each of the 12 USA golfers received $300,000 to donate to charity and $200,000 to spend on themselves, no matter how poorly they played.
Perversely, guaranteed no-cut money like this is why so many Americans bolted for the renegade golf tour that calls itself LIV and is hated by the PGA Tour until they figure out how to make money on a deal.
Luke said his team was fueled by something money can’t buy.
