The Ryder Cup

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was really easy to find the losers at the
little golf match between friends out on New York's Long
Island this weekend, and there was the US Ryder Cup team.
We lost to the Europeans despite a furious third day
rally at dawn yesterday. The Europeans needed win just two
matches to keep the Cup. They did so. The battles

(00:20):
of Lexington and Concord, Ticonderoga and bunker Hill would finally
be avenged by Shane Lowry, Rory McElroy and Victor Hovland,
even though they now live here. This three day European
pillage on no less than an American course would surely
be the theme of the twenty twenty five Ryder Cup.
But no, it was the utter contempt the event and

(00:43):
its fans had for the spirit of the game. You
needn't even open your eyes to find it. Just listen.
The profanity, homophobic slurs, pure obnoxiousness, and not a syllable
of it clever, just classless. It turned in to something
resembling a charged arena more than a gentleman's match. Fans

(01:04):
came to cheer, but parts of the crowd were downright unruly,
and the whole weekend took on a sour edge that
even casual golf fans must have found distasteful. This was
not the genteel, hushed tension that people expect from the
Ryder Cup. This was raw. By the ninth hole Saturday afternoon,
nearly twenty New York State Police troopers lined the ropes,

(01:27):
some filtered through the crowd. Two fans were ejected. The
PGA of America added security to several matches. It also
posted a message on the large video boards detailing spectator etiquette,
which drew enough laughter on the beaches of Long Island
to gin up a small sand storm. But the back

(01:48):
nine of their match against Justin Thomas and Cam Young
on Saturday, Rory McElroy and Shane Lowry literally needed a
police escort to get around the course. It was a
great match that few will remember thanks to the jack
assery of the fans. Whenever McElroy or Lowry stood over
a putt. For the last three holes, Thomas was facing

(02:09):
the crowd trying to get people to shut up. When
was the last time a golfer practiced crowd control. The
ugliness at beth Page was predictable. When brooks Kepka won
the twenty nineteen PGA. There the crowd was on him
relentlessly during the final round, and we thought and us
versus them set up for the Ryder Cup would bring

(02:30):
out the best in New York golf fans. At some
point you could have sworn we were playing the nine
to eleven hijackers. McElroy did start it. He closed the
twenty twenty three Ryder Cup by promising Europe would win
it this year. No doubt. Such words adorned country club
lockers from Woodstock to Queens. Everybody understands a Ryder Cup

(02:53):
crowd is different, louder, more partisan, more personal. Players want that,
but they also want to be treated with respect as
they stand over a tea shot or line up a pot.
Organizers should have emphasized decorum before the first tea shot.
So much for that. Comedian Heather McMahon, who I don't
think is very funny, somehow managed to snare the Master

(03:14):
of Ceremonies gig for the Ryder Cup. Somebody at the
PGA of America gave her that job. Big mistake. Heather,
who probably struggles with the distinction between a double bogie
and a double vodka, opened the event on Friday morning
by encouraging the gallery to welcome Rory with an adverb
that rhymes with duck. She was fired, but the fuse

(03:38):
was lit when it becomes socially acceptable to act like
a jerk mob's form on Saturday a fan through beer
at McElroy and his wife. There's a bigger question hanging
over this event now, that is what's next? How bad
will it be in twenty seven when Northern Ireland hosts
if this was the new norm for Ryder Cups, or

(04:00):
organizers will overcompensate and water down what makes the Ryder
Cup cool, which will kill the spirit of the event.
We all love the drama of the Ryder Cup, the noise,
the rivalry, the edge. These are supposed to be boisterous
and lively, but not ugly. But maybe we don't know
the difference anymore.