Ever since it was announced that the 2025 Ryder Cup would be taking place at Bethpage Black, there was an incredible anticipation around how boisterous and rowdy the New York crowd would be.
Bethpage is, after all, where the gallery ruthlessly heckled Sergio Garcia as he waggled himself into a coma at the 2002 U.S. Open. It’s where the crowd turned on Brooks Koepka, rooting for a late collapse, as he stumbled home during his PGA Championship victory in 2019.
Can you imagine what the New York crowd will do when there is actually an opposition to root against?
And that opposition is Team Europe?
Even if tickets cost $750 at face value (they sold out in 48 hours) to push away some of the riffraff, you can’t stop New Yorkers from being obnoxious. I’ve dealt with enough entitled Yankees fans to understand that it’s an art form for them.
And the Ryder Cup naturally invites all sorts of heckling, which has been getting more personal and bitter as the years go on. Some of the worst abuse we’ve ever seen in golf took place four years ago in Wisconsin, and those are good-natured Midwesterners who love to eat cheese curds and drink Spotted Cow.
It’s not just belligerent Americans; the Euro crowd has been similarly ruthless in crossing the line of what golf deems as proper sportsmanship.
So it goes without saying that this Ryder Cup doesn’t need any further juice.
It’s the Americans facing all the pressure on home soil, desperate to hold serve in an event that has been won by the home side eight of the past nine editions.
It’s the upset-minded Europeans who have the experience advantage, a factor they will need given the hornet’s nest they could face on Long Island.
That alone is enough to get your blood pumping.
And then you add the Rory-Bryson dynamic
Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau clearly don’t see eye to eye.
A lot of this started when DeChambeau went to LIV Golf in 2022. McIlroy was defending the PGA Tour, letting it be known what he felt about the LIV defectors. DeChambeau was a part of a group that was suing the Tour.
And then the budding rivalry had two key on-course chapters with DeChambeau clipping McIlroy in the 2024 U.S. Open (with a postscript of McIlroy blowing off the press) and then McIlroy getting his revenge by beating DeChambeau when the two were paired together in the final round of this year’s Masters.
During the Masters, DeChambeau seemed to take offense that McIlroy didn’t engage in conversation with him during the final round.
McIlroy later responded by saying he wasn’t playing the tournament to be best mates with him (and nor should he have been).
And then came DeChambeau’s comments during the Happy Gilmore 2 premiere when he said he’ll be “chirping in (McIlroy’s) ear this time” at the Ryder Cup.
McIlroy, who has a history of thin skin, didn’t like that.
“I think the only way he gets attention is by mentioning other people. That is basically what I think of that,” McIlroy said in an interview with The Guardian. “To get attention he will mention me or Scottie [Scheffler] or others.”
The only way? Woof. I guess McIlroy doesn’t watch YouTube golf.
To his credit, DeChambeau responded diplomatically on Tuesday.
“I didn’t mean anything by it other than I’m excited,” DeChambeau said. “I hope we can have some good banter back and forth, and if not, if he wants to do what he’s doing, great, no problem. Crowd is going to be on our side. We’re going to have a fun time. But ultimately, my job is to get a kid out there who is looking at me hitting a golf ball smiling.
“There’s a rivalry between every one of us golfers. Is it heightened with Rory? Sure. You can make it that way. But look, anytime we go out in the arena, we’re trying to be the best we can possibly be, and if it helps the game of golf out, so be it.”
No matter how you split it, there is definitely some tension here with two guys who have a tendency to be petty. Let’s pray they get matched up this weekend.
Is the crowd (and McIlroy) a ticking timebomb?
In the same Guardian interview, McIlroy said it’s “inevitable” a fan incident will take place this week.
When emotions are high, it’s hard to keep cool. McIlroy has struggled with that in the past.
In the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine, McIlroy had a fan removed—which he later said he regretted doing—after verbal abuse.
And in the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome, McIlroy got heated during and after a match with Patrick Cantlay after Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, went a little too far in celebrating a big putt.
“I just think when you go into that environment and you are there for five or six days and the crowd are on you for eight hours, so many days in a row … it is inevitable it will get to someone or get to us as a group at some point,” McIlroy said. “We are just going to have to do a really good job of managing that, having each other’s backs and protecting each other.”
That quote certainly underscores how hard it is for golfers to block out the noise (it also feels like a McIlroy explosion of emotion is inevitable in some form or fashion).
Other athletes are used to being hated on but elite golfers only go through this once every two years.
Maybe that is part of why the home team has dominated this competition for so long.
Regardless, get your popcorn ready—there will be some theatrics in New York.
Top Photo Caption: Bryson and Rory shake hands after the Masters. (GETTY IMAGES/Richard Heathcote)
Wallaby Bob
9 months ago
Shame. shame, shame