Collin Morikawa called for New York golf fans to bring ‘absolute chaos’ to the Ryder Cup this weekend and as he walked the fairways with Rory McIlroy during their morning foursomes on Saturday, he was able to observe the putrid fruits of his urgings.
Loud and enthusiastic partisan support for one side or another has become one of the great selling points of this competition. Its corollary is that, both in Europe and in the USA, visiting players will be energetically barracked and taunted.
There is no problem with any of that. Sledging has its part in many sports. The great Australia cricket captain, Steve Waugh, described its desired effects on an opponent as ‘mental disintegration’. Withstanding it is part of what can make a player great.
But what happened to McIlroy at Bethpage Black on Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, in his fourballs match, crossed a line into the kind of dark, vicious, personal abuse that may well be a product of the current tone of political discourse but which should have no place in sport.
And who knows where that ends? Who knows where it ends when you stoke these kinds of passions in such a fetid, fervent atmosphere, where it feels that rivalry is being allowed to turn into hatred.
I’m not even talking here about the chants that echoed around the huge grandstand behind the first tee just before 7.30am on Saturday when McIlroy and his playing partner, Tommy Fleetwood, were introduced to the crowds before their foursomes match against Morikawa and Harris English.
Rory McIlroy was subjected to abuse at the Ryder Cup that simply has no place in sport
The morons in the US crowd in New York aimed vile taunts at his wife, Erica Stoll
‘F*** you, Rory,’ the crowd chanted, over and over again. Perhaps it’s not quite what the game of golf should be encouraging, perhaps it’s not the best look for the dignity of the sport but this is the game that encourages things to get as debauched as possible at the can-throwing, puke-producing 16th at the Phoenix Open, but let’s not be too prudish.
There’s a slapstick element to the group chants here at Bethpage Black just as there was on Friday afternoon when a small collection of European fans started singing ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’ at world number one Scottie Scheffler when he missed yet another putt.
That’s one thing. What happened out on the course, though, was beyond what sportsmen and sportswomen anywhere should have to endure. If that’s all this American team has got – and it appears that it is – they are truly to be pitied.
Let’s bear in mind here that McIlroy’s dad and his wife were following his match inside the ropes on Saturday morning. They heard pretty much all of what he heard. Perhaps they heard someone shout out on the 2nd fairway that McIlroy’s wife was a wh***.
The abuse of McIlroy was relentless and wearing. ‘You’re playing like a wet fart, McIlroy,’ some wag piped up from by the side of the 6th fairway. McIlroy was actually playing like a God by then but that did not seem to have registered with the moron fraternity.
On almost every hole, American voices shouted out the name of Amanda Balionis, the US television reporter who had been linked with McIlroy some time ago. Sometimes, it was just an individual catcall. Sometimes, groups of fans made it into a chant.
When McIlroy was on the 10th green and the crowd had quietened a little to allow the players to putt, someone made a loud, long and theatrical retching sound in a lame attempt to suggest that McIlroy was a choker.
Given that McIlroy and Fleetwood were 4up at that stage and that McIlroy completed his career Grand Slam when he won The Masters in April, it did not seem like a particularly intelligent sledge. But then intelligence doesn’t much come into this.
It went on and on. More retching sounds. More abuse. It was poisonous. There were times when McIlroy looked rattled by it and there were times when he let it slide by.
Just before he hit the approach to the 16th, which allowed Fleetwood to roll home the winning putt, McIlroy allowed his mask to slip. After yet another dark comment from the gallery, McIlroy turned to a tormentor. ‘Shut the f*** up,’ he said. If only.
