At the first fairway, McIlroy stood over his approach shot as a wall of boos cascaded from the grandstands during his practice swings. American assistant captain Webb Simpson frantically gestured for silence, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. McIlroy's pitch had barely left the clubface before the verbal assault resumed with renewed venom. He walked toward the green to mark his ball, taunts erupted from spectators lining Round Swamp Road. "Choker!" they screamed in unison. "Remember Pinehurst!" The grandstands flanking the green transformed into a countdown timer, fans bellowing numbers as McIlroy deliberated over his birdie putt. "You're taking too damn long!" one roared, attempting to weaponize their own impatience. When McIlroy's attempt slid past the cup, the cheers exploded into slurs: "Leprechaun!" "Overrated!" “Take out the Irish trash!”
The fourth hole has been a break in the crowds all week, with fans typically gravitating toward the clubhouse and closing holes instead. But Saturday afternoon brought exploration, and with it, more hostility. McIlroy crushed his drive down the fairway only to receive a "F*** you, little man!" in return off the tee. The mathematics were something: By this reporter's count, 30-something f-bombs had been hurled at McIlroy in the first four holes alone. The tallies for "You suck" and "Pinehurst" references became impossible to track. (...)
These scenes shouldn't have surprised anyone. New York golf tournaments have long been breeding grounds for fan disturbances, and Bethpage carries its own notorious reputation. The European team had arrived prepared, boasting about VR headset training sessions designed to simulate crowd hostility. They claimed to be ready for the worst. But no simulation could replicate the toxic alchemy at work here: alcohol mixed with entitlement, rudeness fused with xenophobia.
by Joel Beall, Golf Digest | Read more:
Image: Vaughn Ridley
[ed. Pride and support are one thing, but crudeness and jingoism are everywhere these days, and not just in sports. Shows how classless a lot of this country has become. Update: USA loses 15 - 13: US fan ugliness at the Ryder Cup was merely a reflection of Trump’s all-caps America (Guardian):]
There’s a difference between atmosphere and interference, and Bethpage spent too much of the weekend blurring the two. Boos during practice swings and the sing-song “YEW-ESS-AY! YEW-ESS-AY!” after a European miss were tiresome, but survivable. What crept in on Saturday was different: insults aimed at players’ wives, homophobic slurs, cheap shots at McIlroy’s nationality dripping with tiresome stereotypes, gleeful reminders of Pinehurst the moment McIlroy crouched over anything inside five feet.
Europe answered with performance. So much for home advantage: for two years the Bethpage sales pitch was the snarling, uniquely American cauldron that would rattle Europe. Message received, but the idiots took it literally. Add the optics of Donald Trump’s fly-in on Friday – fist bumps, photo-ops, galleries dotted with Maga hats and a certain politics of humiliation playing to its base – and the swagger slid easily into license. That doesn’t make the Ryder Cup a referendum. It does explain how quickly the rope line starts to feel like a boundary you’re invited to test. (...)
But treating Bethpage as a one-off misses the larger point. What happened here didn’t invent the tone of American life so much as reflect what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior. The country now lives in all-caps, from school-board meetings that sound like street rallies and comment sections that have spilled into the street. The algorithm bankrolls outrage, the put-down is political vernacular and the culture applauds “saying the quiet part out loud”. In 2025 you can say almost anything in public and be cheered for it (unless you’re Jimmy Kimmel). Put a rope line and a microphone in front of that mix and you get exactly what you got at the Ryder Cup: people testing boundaries not because the moment needs them to, but because they’ve been told volume is virtue. Some might argue golf, in the US particularly, has always been a sport for white conservatives, but it’s hard to remember galleries calling opposing players “faggots” and openly deriding their wives until recently. What could have changed?
The fourth hole has been a break in the crowds all week, with fans typically gravitating toward the clubhouse and closing holes instead. But Saturday afternoon brought exploration, and with it, more hostility. McIlroy crushed his drive down the fairway only to receive a "F*** you, little man!" in return off the tee. The mathematics were something: By this reporter's count, 30-something f-bombs had been hurled at McIlroy in the first four holes alone. The tallies for "You suck" and "Pinehurst" references became impossible to track. (...)
These scenes shouldn't have surprised anyone. New York golf tournaments have long been breeding grounds for fan disturbances, and Bethpage carries its own notorious reputation. The European team had arrived prepared, boasting about VR headset training sessions designed to simulate crowd hostility. They claimed to be ready for the worst. But no simulation could replicate the toxic alchemy at work here: alcohol mixed with entitlement, rudeness fused with xenophobia.
by Joel Beall, Golf Digest | Read more:
Image: Vaughn Ridley
[ed. Pride and support are one thing, but crudeness and jingoism are everywhere these days, and not just in sports. Shows how classless a lot of this country has become. Update: USA loses 15 - 13: US fan ugliness at the Ryder Cup was merely a reflection of Trump’s all-caps America (Guardian):]
***
By the time Europe finished the job, finally, on Sunday, the golf had the last word. But, until the thrilling denouement, the lasting memory of this Ryder Cup threatened not to be a single swing of the club so much as the ugly backdrop: galleries that drifted from partisan into venomous and the organizers who let the line slide until it snapped. (...)There’s a difference between atmosphere and interference, and Bethpage spent too much of the weekend blurring the two. Boos during practice swings and the sing-song “YEW-ESS-AY! YEW-ESS-AY!” after a European miss were tiresome, but survivable. What crept in on Saturday was different: insults aimed at players’ wives, homophobic slurs, cheap shots at McIlroy’s nationality dripping with tiresome stereotypes, gleeful reminders of Pinehurst the moment McIlroy crouched over anything inside five feet.
Europe answered with performance. So much for home advantage: for two years the Bethpage sales pitch was the snarling, uniquely American cauldron that would rattle Europe. Message received, but the idiots took it literally. Add the optics of Donald Trump’s fly-in on Friday – fist bumps, photo-ops, galleries dotted with Maga hats and a certain politics of humiliation playing to its base – and the swagger slid easily into license. That doesn’t make the Ryder Cup a referendum. It does explain how quickly the rope line starts to feel like a boundary you’re invited to test. (...)
But treating Bethpage as a one-off misses the larger point. What happened here didn’t invent the tone of American life so much as reflect what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior. The country now lives in all-caps, from school-board meetings that sound like street rallies and comment sections that have spilled into the street. The algorithm bankrolls outrage, the put-down is political vernacular and the culture applauds “saying the quiet part out loud”. In 2025 you can say almost anything in public and be cheered for it (unless you’re Jimmy Kimmel). Put a rope line and a microphone in front of that mix and you get exactly what you got at the Ryder Cup: people testing boundaries not because the moment needs them to, but because they’ve been told volume is virtue. Some might argue golf, in the US particularly, has always been a sport for white conservatives, but it’s hard to remember galleries calling opposing players “faggots” and openly deriding their wives until recently. What could have changed?
***
No player in modern Ryder Cup history endured the relentless, systematic dehumanization McIlroy faced on Saturday. It was one of the most shameful spectacles this event has seen—a sustained campaign of cruelty that should embarrass every golf fan and American. For five hours, they questioned his manhood, recited the lowest moments of his career, screamed personal rumors as truth. Every five minutes brought fresh torrents of F-bombs hurled like grenades. They bellowed and booed as he lined up shots, sometimes even mid-swing, violating the gallery code. Every Ryder Cup spawns its share of knuckle-dragging behavior, but never has the abuse been this thunderous, this universal, this unrelenting.
And the fans weren't even acting alone. A first-tee emcee weaponized the crowd, imploring them to chant "**** YOU RORY!" like some deranged cult leader. Volunteers and rules officials stood by with indifference, deaf to McIlroy's pleas for decency, allowing the circus to spiral. For a guy who has always treated the Ryder Cup as sacred, he spent Saturday afternoon looking like a prisoner of war—bewildered by how the event he cherished had morphed into public execution, devastated that a country where he’s lived would savage him so completely.
