There should be deep concern that the Ryder Cup is way beyond a point where any hint of what makes golf the sport that it is, is irretrievable.
While many of us look to the vile behaviour of the fans at Bethpage, and we should, we also cannot ignore how the players react and what example it sets.
The chanting and wholly unnecessary comments from outside the ropes fuel the hysterics inside the ropes. There are countless things and people to blame for what the Ryder Cup has evolved into, and what we saw for three days last week.
Shane Lowry spent the weekend screaming, swearing, and celebrating like a footballer who’s just scored a last-minute winner. Tyrrell Hatton raged at every putt that didn’t drop, his language as colourful as it was embarrassing.
And when the Ryder Cup was already won, he couldn’t even muster the dignity to concede a meaningless putt to his opponent, Collin Morikawa, on the final hole.
If Rory McIlroy or Lowry had been playing for Manchester United on Saturday, running up and down the touchline telling Brentford fans to ‘F** off’, they’d have got sent off. That is bringing the game into disrepute. It’s not acceptable, it’s just not the way you do it.
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Ryder Cup behaviour from fans and players shouldn’t be tolerated anymore
Across the board, the behaviour was indefensible. Justin Thomas shushed the crowd after two days of actively whipping them into a frenzy. Lowry’s antics on the final green, celebrating wildly before shaking his opponent’s hand, summed it up. These instances show a deeper cultural problem in golf that is appearing.
As for the fans. Was it as bad as we feared? Honestly, it was worse. By 7 am on Saturday morning, a decent proportion of the crowd was chanting, “F*** you Rory.” That’s not banter or drunken behaviour. It is abuse.
And it didn’t stop there. The footage of Erica Stoll, McIlroy’s wife, being hit by a drink was just so far beyond the pale. Watching it unfold, we found ourselves thinking, if this is what the Ryder Cup has become, maybe we should just pack it in altogether.
We’ve all heard the stories about Brookline in 1999 or the so-called War on the Shore in 1991, but what we saw this time was another level. It was cringeworthy, it was toxic, and it was completely unacceptable.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth. None of this is an accident. This was asked for. It is what golf wants. This is what both the US and European teams want – a manufactured carnival atmosphere that pushes golf closer to football or cricket, all in the name of drawing in new and general sports fans.
But when that atmosphere curdles into hostility, when it becomes something far uglier, suddenly everyone wants to cry foul. You can’t have it both ways.
And it’s a problem we’ve been sleepwalking into. For more than a decade, everyone involved in the Ryder Cup has been getting this wrong.
In chasing relevance, golf has borrowed the worst elements of football terraces and stag-dos and tried to repackage them as ‘energy’ or ‘entertainment’. But what we saw wasn’t entertainment. It was ugly. It was embarrassing.
The Ryder Cup is supposed to showcase the very best of golf. Instead, it showed us what happens when the sport forgets its own values. Enough is enough. It’s time to stop celebrating this behaviour and start demanding better, from the players, from the organisers, and from the fans.
Because if this is what the Ryder Cup is going to be, then maybe it’s not worth having at all.
NOW READ: Ryder Cup 2025: Our report cards rate each individual player’s performances at Bethpage
What did you make of the Ryder Cup behaviour of fans and players at the 2025 Ryder Cup? Did the fan behaviour go too far at Bethpage? Should there be changes ahead of the contest at Adare Manor? Tell us on X!
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