Europe may have defeated the United States in golf’s marquee event. But the verbal abuse hurled at the European players by a baying, boozed-up New York crowd left a sour taste Monday, with calls for tighter policing of American spectators.
The scenes at the Ryder Cup were unrecognizable from golf’s genteel archetype, where etiquette demands silence on the tee and applause greets opponents’ drives and putts. Instead the Bethpage Black Course, on Long Island, descended this weekend into a bearpit of personal insults, vulgar chanting and — in one instance — a beer thrown at the wife of star Rory McIlroy.
McIlroy, the world No.2, led the jubilant response, including a chant asking President Donald Trump if he had seen the result (he had — and congratulated the Europeans.)
The Northern Irishman received the brunt of the abuse, which veered into anti-Irish and homophobic jeers and references to his well-documented marital issues.
It wasn't just the crowd.
Heather McMahan, an American warm-up comedian, was forced to apologize and step down after leading a chant of "f--- you, Rory!" And there was a heated verbal altercation between Englishman Justin Rose, California native Bryson DeChambeau and their caddies.
All the while there was a torrent of trash talking, at one point so bad that McIlroy refused to take his stroke until it ceased. Other supporters tried to distract the Europeans with squeaky rubber ducks that came free with a cocktail being sold out on the course.
It got so bad that by the end McIlroy had to be flanked by state troopers. He was not shy of giving it back, at one point addressing a separate, pointed “f--- you!” to a number of offenders after smashing a drive.
It was a remarkable scene for a sport whose historic restraint means audiences are permitted within an arm's reach of the athletes.