The book Rory by Alan Shipniuck was released in April to mark the first anniversary of You-Know-Who completing the career Grand Slam the previous spring. It being one of the perils of publishing, the timing of this biography was obviously oblivious to the fact the Irishman was about to successfully defend his Masters title. What it did enable the author to include, though, was an account of the 2025 Ryder Cup match at Bethpage Black where Europe won for the third time this century on American soil. (The United States has never once managed the equivalent achievement.)
Shipnuck’s reporting of the crowd’s performance during the afternoon fourballs on the second day is particularly excoriating. “The spectators at Bethpage had paid exorbitant ticket prices and then suffered soul-sucking logistical quagmires to journey to the course,” he wrote. “Now the home team was showing no heart on the way to yet another dispiriting defeat. On a hot day, with the alcohol flowing, all that angst fuelled the most deplorable crowd behaviour in golf history.” The author, remember, is an American, not some readily affronted European.
I won’t go into any of the details he cites, which include multiple expletives, assorted profanities and ugly sexual innuendo, mostly aimed at Rory McIlroy. Before the match there had been much expectation that fan behaviour would be bad. This plumbed new depths. Not that McIlroy couldn’t dish it out, too, or respond in kind. On the 16th hole of the morning foursomes, he had sworn at a spectator who had yelled while he was about to hit his ball. The moron duly mullered, McIlroy stiffed his approach shot to seal a 3&2 win. How did that feel, he was asked. “Very f—— satisfying,” he replied.
One thing that in retrospect I found quite interesting was a comment McIlroy made late last year on the Overlap podcast of Gary Neville. Remarking on the fact that New York fans were not only notoriously fierce, they were supposed to be enthusiastically patriotic, McIlroy pointed out that when he played Scottie Scheffler in the singles, all the ‘USA, USA’ crowd wanted to do was taunt him. They had no interest in cheering on Scheffler.
Why was McIlroy on the podcast of a former Manchester United footballer? Well it was the morning before the evening that he was in Manchester for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Award, which he would win, and McIlroy is a Man U fan. In fact the most amusing moment on the show was probably when Roy Keane, another former United star, displayed the disdain for which he is renowned by vehemently insisting that that Ryder Cup “was over after two hours on Friday”. Rory laughed a lot at that.
Anyhow, the McIlroy/Scheffler major rivalry will resume at Shinnecock Hills in a couple of weeks when Scottie will be trying to complete his own career Grand Slam at the US Open. Like Bethpage, that course is in New York state. Unlike Bethpage, I am confident that the first-tee announcer will not lustily greet McIlroy with the words “F— off, Rory!”