Rory McIlroy faced abusive taunts during the Ryder Cup, with his wife also targeted by fans.
Europe ended a sequence of five home wins, despite a strong US fightback and hostile crowd.
The event highlighted aggressive behaviour from American fans, damaging the Ryder Cup’s image.
The toxic cloud over this Ryder Cup, with noxious taunts raining down on Rory McIlroy and even his blameless wife, did not emerge from a clear blue New York sky. The tone was set 12 months ago, at the Presidents Cup in Montreal, where Keegan Bradley held upa gridiron football and declared: “We are going to Bethpage to kick their f***ing ass”.
It has fallen to Europe to exact karmic retribution, ending the sequence of five home wins in this contest, puncturing the American captain’s delusions of grandeur. To do so, they had to withstand a monumental US fightback, with the eventual outcome closer than anyone had anticipated. But they also had to weather a grotesque torrent of abuse, crueller and more personal than anything that should be tolerated in the name of golf. Any hope that the lopsided scoreline might dilute the vitriol for Monday’s singles was snuffed out on the first tee, with Justin Rose greeted by imbecilic cries of “1776” and “you’re lucky you don’t speak German”.
At moments like these you are reminded of the fact that more than half of Americans do not possess a passport. The bone-headedness filters down from the top, with Bradley making no effort here to call off the mob. On the contrary, he deployed the old “bothsidesism” trick, saying of the European victory in 2023: “Rome was pretty violent as well”. The claim was both factually inaccurate and based on zero personal experience, given Bradley had not even travelled to Italy to judge for himself.
The captain’s immaturity has been replicated by Long Island rabble-rousers interested in nothing but subjecting the Europeans to relentless venom. McIlroy has suffered by far the worst of it, requiring the patience of Job not to say more than a solitary “shut the f*** up” towards idiots trying to disturb him as he prepared to hit. As he headed out for his singles duel with Scottie Scheffler, he was assailed on the first green by taunts of “Amanda, Amanda”: a reference to US TV reporter Amanda Balionis, to whom McIlroy had, without foundation, been romantically linked after his marriage to Erica.
His wife also had a torrid time as the crowd’s belligerence tipped over into mayhem. On the 17th tee in the Sunday fourballs, one fan slapped a beer from another’s hand, propelling the can towards McIlroy but with the liquid ending up mostly over Erica. She turned around horrified before walking away with her arms folded, as McIlroy tried to comfort her. Is this truly what a Ryder Cup in the United States has come to? Have we really reached the stage where crassness in the crowd is so rampant that the Masters champion’s spouse ends up soaked in some moron’s Michelob Ultra? After this ordeal, the couple must be grateful they have relocated to Wentworth.
Be in no doubt, the entire circus has been orchestrated. On the first tee, resident MC Heather McMahan, an alleged comedian, spent her Saturday morning whipping the star-spangled boors into a mass refrain of “f*** you, Rory”. She has since resigned from the role, but in a powerful sense, the damage has been done, both to the Ryder Cup’s image and to the reputation of American audiences for decency in international sport. In an echo of what happened at Brookline in 1999 to Colin Montgomerie, mocked as “Mrs Doubtfire”, McIlroy’s misfortune has been to find himself derided purely for being Europe’s best player.
US President Donald Trump shows his support for the USA team on their way to defeat in the Ryder Cup. Photo / Getty Images
It was no surprise that President Donald Trump turned up for this duel, under the misapprehension that his mere presence could help engineer a turnaround. These are his people, from the captain who dances for him to the players who lionise him to the fans who tout his “Make America Great Again” paraphernalia all across the course, right down to the “45-47” caps. Trump’s gospel of American exceptionalism could hardly find a more receptive audience than this one. That is why a golfer as pleasant as Rose is peppered with stupid remarks about the American Revolutionary War, and why Jon Rahm and Bob MacIntyre are constantly mocked for their weight in a country with an obesity rate of over 40%.
The spectacle has been so classless. Nobody minds the odd Ryder Cup barb, with a personal favourite at this instalment being the European supporters’ wind-up of Bryson DeChambeau: “You’re French, and you know you are”. The American invective, by contrast, has been neither creative nor imaginative, displaying only xenophobic frat-boy viciousness. It has held up a mirror to some of the ugliness of Trump’s America, under a President who specialises in saying the unsayable. The behaviour has been aggressive, condescending and entitled, all hallmarks of the example set by the golf-obsessed commander-in-chief.
It is worth recalling the sentiments of Samuel Ryder, the competition’s founder. “I look upon the Royal and Ancient game as being a powerful game, as being a powerful force that influences the best things in humanity,” he said, in a radio broadcast before the 1931 matches in Scioto, Ohio. “I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilised world.”
Today, 94 years on, Ryder would look at some of these scenes and weep. Often, the 45th Ryder Cup has been the antithesis of civility. It has not helped, either, that for the first time the American players have been paid, free to spend 40% of their US$500,000 ($865,000) stipends as they please. Asinine fans and money-grabbing players: it is not an attractive combination. The only relief is that Europe finally, if belatedly, put them in their place.
