After a weekend of bloodlust at Bethpage, the European team pulled off a stunning victory to take home the Ryder Cup. So why are they so sore about it?
Golf is known as a gentleman’s game, with countless unwritten rules of etiquette. The Ryder Cup is a rare exception, where the 12 best golfers from Europe and America duke it out not for money, but for glory, and rowdy fans bring their national pride to bear.
The American fury picked up as the Europeans sprinted ahead on Saturday, leading to an overall air of chaos. Forget the “golf clap” – heckling, shouting and four-letter cursing became the standard behavior as European players walked past the grandstands or lined up their shots.
Conduct became so bad that Irishman Rory McIlroy, typically a fan favorite in America, went viral for telling a fan to “shut the fuck up” on the 15th hole. He then refused to play until course officials could calm down the crowd. Then someone even lobbed a beer can at his wife as the gallery turned into a mosh pit.
Sure, it’s probably not the best look for the master of ceremonies, American comedian Heather McMahan, to start a “fuck you, Rory” chant into a live mic. And manners matter, no matter which side of the pond you’re on. But if this were any other sport, no one would bat an eye. And the European whining here seems to massively overstate a bit of rowdy banter.
Is McIlroy really such a baby that he can’t play through a little heckling? He’s from Northern Ireland, one would think he’s made of tougher stuff.
Does a comedian really deserve to lose her job for getting into the atmosphere and firing off a poor taste quip? Maybe, probably. But she apologized and stepped down from her MC role – we don’t need the whole media struggle session to boot.
Yet that’s exactly what the media ran with over the weekend, quoting endless Europeans tut-tuting American sportsmanship. The story wasn’t the Cup itself, despite a better-than-usual tournament – but how tacky and awful the Americans are.
“What I consider crossing the line is personal insults,” Luke Donald, the European captain, said at a news conference Saturday night.
“Nothing was going to happen, there wasn’t going to be a physical altercation, but there was a lot of language that was unacceptable and abusive,” McIlroy said.
“They kept talking about [McIlroy’s] wife, and I thought that was disrespectful. That’s apparently what New York does,” one self-righteous Irishman told CNN Sports.
What New York (and America) most certainly doesn’t do is jail sports fans for “unacceptable language” that hurts no one. These Euro cry-bullies should take note for their own, much rowdier, soccer hooligans rotting in jail.
Yet a certain kind of American liberal, particularly those in the media, still loves to scoff at the spectacle. “Look at our unsophisticated countrymen,” they sneer, seeking the European seal of approval that every would-be cosmopolitan craves.
But they should remember that brutality is the norm when Western powers clash, and goes far beyond a few naughty words. Sport – no longer war – is the civilized man’s version of barbarity, a place for him to take out his violent proclivities within some clearly delineated boundaries. You can’t blame him for stepping ever so slightly out of line once his blood is hot.
And a little excess rowdiness is a good thing. In America, we’ve all become a little too accustomed to therapy-speak. We lean on euphemisms and platitudes, not only in sport, but in politics and business and every place where candor is key. So we swallow outrages with approved terms like “feelings” and “harm” and “impact,” all too concerned with sensitives and perceptions, and then wonder why the temperature keeps rising.
If you want to make a difference – and let out a little steam – some unbridled hostility goes a long way. The American Founders, after all, were more than happy to throw a few punches in the midst of otherwise polite society.
What matters is that we can all shake hands at the end of the day, putting sportsmanship back to their rightful place without ever holding a grudge. And here, it’s the Europeans – not the Americans – who are failing to mind their manners.
