The Ryder Cup stands alone as a gladiatorial arena. While the four Majors have the ownership on tradition and individual legacies, this biennial match between Europe and the United States has grown into a combat zone where players look each other in the eye, capturing the very nature of mano-a-mano matchplay combat.
Which is great, because matchplay golf has a rawness that so often is missing from the strokeplay tournaments that are the essence of professional tournaments week in and week out.
So, yes, the Ryder Cup is different and that’s why, every two years, it’s a priority for players to make the team. It’s why tickets sell out in jig time. It’s why spectators for this latest edition at Bethpage Black were willing to fork out a minimum of $750 (€640) a ticket for general admission, not to mention the larger amount of greenbacks required for corporate hospitality.
The Ryder Cup has grown to be a monster, but one mostly of the big-friendly-giant variety, where spectators get to see the best players from America and Europe go toe-to-toe and get to share the vagaries of emotions, from joy to sorrow.
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Except, sometimes, it crosses a line. And the behaviour of some home spectators at Bethpage Black – a minority, admittedly, but sufficient to make an impact greater than the sum of their parts – went way beyond the line. Their slurs bordered on racist and homophobic abuse, much of it directed at Rory McIlroy, who was targeted from the off as the man who needed to be villainised.
I’ve witnessed unacceptable behaviour before. This was my 15th working Ryder Cup to attend. My first was at The Country Club in Brookline in 1999 – the so-called Battle of Brookline – where Colin Montgomerie was the subject of persistent abuse and where Europe’s captain, Mark James, described the final day’s atmosphere as a “bear pit” and revealed his wife had been spat at.
At Hazeltine in 2016, I recall one player during his match approaching his wife to see if she was okay, such was the level of vitriol spouted.
But nothing compared to Bethpage Black, where McIlroy’s wife Erica was at one point hit by a beer can – the hows and whys irrelevant to the fact it did happen – and much of the verbal abuse was far more than sledging.
The persistent reminders to McIlroy of his failure to win last year’s US Open were pale in comparison to others. “Remember Pinehurst!”, “Choker.”
But others – and the timing of their delivery, aimed at McIlroy particularly and also Shane Lowry in Saturday’s fourballs – were nastier.
Much of the remarks can’t morally be rehashed. But here’s a taste: “Throw out the Irish trash!”
On another occasion, one brave man behind the ropes piped up at Lowry as he prepared to play a shot from the rough. It went along the lines of boiling a potato, mixing it with bacon and cabbage and mincing it up. I was there as the state trooper reacted to the remark by racing up to the rope and roaring into the face of the perpetrator. He wasn’t removed.
“We knew New York was not going to be easy. It was rough. It was brutal at times out there. It was nasty sometimes,” said Europe’s captain Luke Donald.
It was all of those things and more, which made Europe’s feat – just the fifth time for a European team to win in the USA and first since Medinah in 2012 – all the more impressive.
[ Five things we learned from Europe’s Ryder Cup win at Bethpage BlackOpens in new window ]
McIlroy, the player who took the majority of the abuse, a backhanded tribute to his brilliance in some strange way, spoke very well afterwards about what should be the standard of behaviour expected at Ryder Cups.
“I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week. 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. But you know, we will be making sure to say to our fans in Ireland in 2027 that what happened here this week is not acceptable, to come and support your home team. Come and support your team.”
Which is not what happened at Bethpage, unfortunately. Nobody was in danger of physical abuse, but words can hurt too. A lot. There’s no place for what happened at Bethpage – where extra security and even police dogs were to be seen – to ever happen again. A line should be drawn and not crossed again, with zero tolerance not just part of any agreement, but actually implemented.
