If Brookline 1999 was bad, Ryder Cup at Bethpage will be worse

With US fans seemingly being encouraged to increase their moronic attacks on golfing etiquette, next year’s event provokes a sense of dread

Alistair Cooke, that wonderful authority on Anglo-American culture, was not prone to hyperbole. So when he informed his listeners in late September, 1999, that they had just witnessed “the arrival of the golf hooligan”, the powers that be should really have listened.
Instead, those in charge have doubled down on dumbing down, leaving the game marking one anniversary by fearing another.
On Thursday, it is exactly 25 years since those disgraceful scenes in Boston, where the US Ryder Cup team, their wives and particularly their fans abandoned the sport’s customs of respect and etiquette.
And on the same day it will be exactly a year until the next Ryder Cup in New York. If Brookline was bad, Bethpage will say, “hold my beer”.
Cooke purposefully used the word “arrival” in his monologue. He knew the morons had set up camp on the course and would not be leaving, or made to leave, in the foreseeable. Brookline and its “bearpit” was merely a sample of what was to come and 12 months out from a contest that has gained its own infamy even before the grandstands are up, the sense of foreboding suggests there are self-respecting grizzlies who would refuse to grace that Long Island trough.
Because what was shocking at the end of the millennium is now commonplace. European players were cursed and spat at in ‘99. Now their families come in for the same foul-mouthed abuse and phlegm.
At least one opponent, Jose Maria Olazabal, was afforded absolutely no respect at Brookline when Justin Leonard holed a putt and the hysterical entourage swarmed on to the green and across the line of the Spaniard, who was sizing up his own effort for a par. Now we have US caddies in the supposedly better-behaved Solheim Cup taking off their shirts and enacting belly bumps while Madelene Sagstrom waits to have her own shot.
In 1999, Colin Montgomerie’s father was so horrified at the vile heckles his son received he rushed back to the clubhouse. Since then, Justin Rose has been forced to listen to sick taunts concerning his dead father.
These are not whispering galleries, they are bellowing mobs of drunken idiots desperate to impress each other.
Cooke blamed the havoc on increased alcohol sales and suggested the taps be turned off. Alas, the tills kept ringing and the blazers concentrated ever more intently on the dividend rather than the depravity. And up yours with the good manners for which golf has laughably always stood.
The US fans – and, yes, it is 99 per cent their fault – turn up determined to be part of the show and as their cast of multi-millionaires continue to underperform so they become more pronounced in their patriotism.
The captains and their assistants rarely help and often pour fuel on the fire. Sam Torrance accused Tom Lehman of “behaving like a madman” in that Leonard furore and nine years later Paul Azinger labelled his counterpart Sir Nick Faldo “a p—-” and urged the Kentucky support to cheer Europe’s missed putts.
It has all been built towards this, where we have Keegan Bradley saying “Bethpage is America’s home course and the fans need to defend it”. He also promises that “New York fans are passionate and they’re going to be loud and they’re going to be crazy”.
Are these responsible statements for a captain? Bradley keeps repeating “I expect them to behave appropriately” with the caveat “I can’t control how they act”, but he could surely bear a sizeable influence in stopping, or at least slowing, an inexorable descent into the unseemly and ugly.
Although, perhaps Bradley is correct and maybe he is powerless to calm the mayhem. Maybe the cat is out of the bag.
In marketing’s eternal quest for that fresh audience, the PGA Tour and more recently LIV Golf have consistently delved lower to lure the louts. Pumping music on party holes, booze dens in fan villages which, not so long ago primarily featured stalls where kids could be shown how to grip a club and have a go. We have reached a point where tournaments are less sporting events and more social extravaganzas.
It is not just golf which has gone to hell on this particular cart path, but due to its history the marriage of the ancient game with the “modern experience” could be the most incongruous. In this drive for the bottom, genuine supporters are being left behind, as Richard Gillis, the award-winning writer, perceptively noted.
“Normal, unassuming people have been marginalised as sponsors pursue a sinister new agenda called ‘fan engagement’, the basic objective of which is to encourage young men to behave like complete bell-ends,” he said. “Sport is the medium, ‘act like a t— at the office Christmas do’ is the message. The modern fan is expected to bring something more to the party than quiet enthusiasm and deep subject knowledge; they must come ready to demonstrate their ‘Passion For Sport’.”
Certainly Cooke would find it unrecognisable. Fortunately there are time capsules. To walk around Wentworth on the weekend at the BMW PGA Championship, was almost to stroll back into yesteryear, when the crowds were there to witness great shots, not down cheap shots.
Billy Horschel ultimately broke the heart of gallery darling Rory McIlroy, but the only wisecracks the American heard was of his love of West Ham and their earlier loss to Chelsea. Brookline it was not, and neither was it Bethpage. It was pleasurable and positive. Not a hooligan in sight or sound.