Bethpage Black comes close to boiling over as frustrated American fans crank up the heckling of Team Europe at Ryder Cup
CNN
By Kyle Feldscher, CNN
Farmingdale, New York (CNN) — The fans that line the holes at Bethpage Black have a reputation in the golf world – they’re loud, boisterous, occasionally rude and oftentimes vulgar.
For most of Friday and Saturday, they were subdued. Team Europe sprinted out of the gates and racked up a shocking lead, quieting the American fans who were convinced that Ryder Cup glory was headed their way.
But by Saturday afternoon, with the drinks flowing and the Europeans appearing to sprint away with the tournament, the intensity went up quite a bit, raising questions about whether American fans had crossed the line with their heckling of European players.
Golf is generally a genteel and polite game. There are so many unwritten rules of etiquette upon which players are judged infinitely more than their skill. Tournaments are usually quiet, docile affairs in which silence is expected – there’s even something called the “golf clap,” after all.
So, while the atmosphere at Bethpage Black on Saturday wouldn’t have been all that out of place at a college football game, an NFL game or a big basketball game, it was unusual for the game of golf – and even for a louder tournament such as the Ryder Cup.
“It was loud. It was raucous. What I consider crossing the line is personal insults and making sounds when they are trying to hit on their backswings or very close to when they are trying to go into their routines,” said Luke Donald, the European captain at a news conference Saturday night. “That did happen a little bit. It’s happened at other Ryder Cups, too.”
“It’s something we prepared for, and I can see, I think, how well they have dealt with it.”
There were frequent moments of yelling as European players were lining up their shots and tossing curse words from the grandstands as they walked by. An overwhelmingly intense focus seems to be directed at Rory McIlroy, who has been booed intensely and had four-letter words hurled at him from the very moment he stepped onto the first tee on Friday.
The Northern Irishman is usually a crowd favorite in America, but on Saturday afternoon, the relationship between the galleries and McIlroy turned mutually sour.
There was the viral moment of McIlroy telling a fan to “shut the f**k up” on the 15th hole right before he hit a dagger approach shot onto the green, which helped seal another point for the Europeans. During the afternoon, McIlroy backed off his putt and actually refused to play on for a period until course officials could get the crowd to quiet down.
One Irish fan told CNN Sports, “They kept talking about his wife, and I thought that was disrespectful. That’s apparently what New York does.”
The noise while Lowry and McIlroy were trying to hit was so disruptive that American Justin Thomas, a veteran of this tournament, also served as a course marshal and raised his hands to try to encourage the crowd to let his opponents hit in the customary silence.
Lowry and McIlroy seemed at times to revel in the chaos, jawing back at the fans and gesturing to the crowd after they hit big shots. But there were also moments when it seemed like a line had been crossed. McIlroy said the fans themselves will have to decide whether they went too far.
“Look, when you play an away Ryder Cup, it’s really, really challenging,” McIlroy said after his day was over. “It’s not for me to say. People can be their own judge of whether they took it too far or not. I’m just proud of us for being able to win today with what we had to go through.”
Lowry, the fiery Irishman who revels in this tournament and wears his heart on his sleeve, took it all in good fun.
“It was intense. It was like something I’ve never experienced. But this is what I live for. This is it. This is, like, honestly, the reason I get up in the morning, for stuff like this,” Lowry said. “This is what I love doing. I love being a part of this team. I really want us to win this tournament.”
These are long days on Long Island. The gates at Bethpage opened at 5 a.m. ET on Friday and Saturday, two hours before the first tee times. Play then lasts deep into the evening with one very expensive ticket providing over 12 hours on the course up close with the best golfers in the world.
It also gets you access to all the highly priced alcohol you can drink, and – judging by the overflowing recycling bins and empty cans littering the galleries – people are taking advantage of that opportunity. Especially as the day goes on, the noise level ratchets up and so does the invective hurled at the European players – and it’s not just McIlroy.
After Jon Rahm teed off with Team Europe partner Sepp Straka during Saturday’s afternoon fourball session, the crowd on hand at the first couple of holes made comments on the 30-year-old Spaniard’s weight and appearance and his playing on the LIV Golf Tour.
Rahm did not bat an eye despite the verbal jab, which included questions on if he was used to playing in front of fans during LIV events. He would go on to lose his first match of the tournament to Team USA’s Xander Schauffele and JJ Spaun.
“You’re always going to have a few people that cross the line, and that’s unfortunate. I was happy to see our players trying to quiet down some people that were like that,” USA captain Keegan Bradley said Saturday night.
“Part of it is our fault. We are not playing up to the standards that they want to see, and they are angry, and they should be.”
The moments where passion boils over into confrontation aren’t limited to the grandstands.
Tensions bubbled during a tightly contested and incredibly well-played match between Tommy Fleetwood/Justin Rose and Scottie Scheffler/Bryson DeChambeau on the 15th green.
As Rose was lining up a birdie putt that would clinch at least a half-point for the Europeans, DeChambeau’s caddie walked into his line of sight. An agitated Rose waved the caddie away and proceeded to nail his putt to put the pressure on DeChambeau to match his birdie with one of his own.
After the intense American holed it, he confronted Rose about the Englishman’s gesture toward his caddie – apparently unaware that Rose had apologized just before the American’s putt. That confrontation between Rose and DeChambeau led Fleetwood to try and intervene to calm things down, but DeChambeau was having none of it and jawed back at Fleetwood as they walked to the next tee box.
There were more words exchanged between caddies and players and things were all a bit awkward and tense on the 16th tee. The Europeans wrapped up the match on that hole and everyone shook hands, apparently putting water under the bridge.
“It was a shame that the match got to that point because it was actually a really great match. I was waiting to putt, the boys were obviously working on their read, obviously going through a lot of their sort of whatever, calculations and bits and pieces, so I sort of waited a few seconds and then I felt like they came up again and I was sort of – I questioned whether – I was like, ‘it’s my putt, right,’ or however I said it,” Rose said after the match.
“Maybe I didn’t say it as politely as I could have said it in the moment, but by no means was there any disrespect or anything like that, but obviously it was taken the wrong way.”
There’s a good possibility that Sunday might be a day for the Europeans to be roundly cheered as they take what should be a victory lap around Bethpage Black. Their fans have made their presence known this weekend, singing songs and cheering loudly for the frequent big shots that this incredible European team seem to keep pulling out over and over.
But there’s the very real chance that American emotion could boil over as frustration over the massive deficit Team USA faces gets combined with proximity to Team Europe’s stars.
European captain Luke Donald believes his team is ready.
“Obviously, their job is not done yet but to have this stand in New York with most of the cheers coming from our side is incredible,” Donald said after the day’s play wrapped up.
“Just the resiliency and the confidence these guys have in themselves, in their partners, is really, truly incredible.”
CNN’s Jacob Lev contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
