When once asked by a local newspaper reporter why spectators remain reserved at professional golf events while most other athletes have to endure mind-numbing cacophony, former United States Golf Association historian Robert Williams opened with one word that has been synonymous with the game since its inception.
“Etiquette,” he quickly quipped.
“Golf has been a gentleman’s game from the very beginning and players treated each other with respect. During the early tournaments such as the British Open and U.S. Open, the spectators were almost 100 percent golfers themselves, so they all practiced etiquette, and the tradition has carried on ever since.”
Through the decades, understated adoration has always been the name of the game. At Augusta National, if patrons get too rowdy, they’re kindly asked to leave, and it’s possible they’ll get their badges removed for good. At weekly PGA Tour stops in typically boisterous communities like Fort Worth, Texas, or New Orleans, Louisiana, pro players have long been greeted by polite applause after sinking a long putt — and near silence while lining it up.
But at the Ryder Cup, the biennial competition that pits the dozen best players from the United States against those from Europe, well, let’s just say those rules are relaxed.
At this year’s event, held at iconic and municipal Bethpage Black, many expect the chants and cheering to be enough to intimidate players from both sides. The New York City-area galleries will be certain to quickly rally behind every good shot the American side makes, but the rowdy bunch might also make the home squad a bit nervous about having to properly perform.
Emotions will certainly be running at a fever pitch.
Darren Clarke’s emotional 2006 Ryder Cup
Nobody understands the relationship between emotions and the Ryder Cup better than Darren Clarke. It was nearly two decades ago when the affable Northern Irishman had one of the most memorable runs in the history of the tournament.
Just six weeks prior to the 2006 event at the K Club in Straffan, County Kildare, just west of Dublin, Clarke lost his first wife, Heather, to cancer. Emotions were already running high as this marked the first time the Ryder Cup had been staged in Ireland.
Clarke, who was a captain’s choice, opened an emotional week with glassy eyes, went 2-0 in four-ball with close friend Lee Westwood, then broke down crying after a 3-and-2 singles victory over rookie Zach Johnson. Clarke finished the week undefeated and his heroics might have produced enough tears to overflow the nearby River Liffey.
“Every single one of us dedicated this to (Heather),” Ian Woosnam said after the win.
Clarke’s home side trounced the Americans 18 ½ to 9 ½, and a bit of familiarity likely helped the cause as the K Club had been used as a European Tour stop for a decade.
But more important, at least in Clarke’s mind, was an attitude that had been instilled years prior. In his first foray into the event, the 32nd Ryder Cup at Valderrama Golf Club in Spain, Clarke learned from veterans like José María Olazábal, Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Colin Montgomerie and then-captain Seve Ballesteros that the only way to reverse years of agony for the European side was to become a stronger collective unit.
A small gesture outside the Euros’ locker room proved an important indoctrination for Clarke into the world of team golf.
“There was a note on the door that said, ‘Leave your ego outside here when you walk through this door, and pick it up next Monday morning,’” Clarke recently remembered. “That’s what the Europeans did. No egos. They parked them before they got into the locker room and left them there.
“Unfortunately, you can’t say the same thing about the Americans. But they are getting it. They really are. I think the American team is understanding why the European teams have been so good and they’re trying to do the same thing.”
The Americans have rallied to win two of the last four Ryder Cups, but since Ballesteros’ captaincy, the Europeans still hold a commanding 9-4 edge, largely by harnessing the fervid emotion that surrounds the spectacle, and conforming to a team mentality that contradicts the weekly pro tour grind.
Bethpage will flip the script at Ryder Cup
This time around, however, Clarke knows the U.S. side has a little something extra up its sleeve — what will likely be a deafening crowd that’s certain to spur on the home side.
“This year at Bethpage, it’s gonna be a very different one,” Clarke said. “Very different. (European captain) Luke (Donald) better find himself the best earplugs money can buy.
“When the Europeans cross that road on 14, going onto 15, they better have some earplugs.”
While much of the golf world trends into exclusivity, Bethpage Black is a reminder of golf’s municipal roots, the complex is typically a hornet’s nest of activity even on days when the trophy originally donated by English businessman Samuel Ryder isn’t being contested.
With five 18-hole courses, players of all levels can be challenged on the hallowed grounds, which sit inside a nearly 1,500-acre state park that also includes tennis courts, picnic and recreational areas, as well as a polo field.
Players are already emotional at the Ryder Cup. Bethpage Black’s grassroots galleries should only heighten those emotions.
Rory McIlroy playing in eighth straight Ryder Cup
One player who’s been astounded by his reaction to Ryder Cup frivolity was Rory McIlroy, who will make his eighth consecutive Ryder Cup appearance at the biennial competition, scheduled Sept. 26-28 in New York.
McIlroy locked up his spot with two months of the qualification period left, thanks to four wins since the European points list began last August.
Now 36, McIlroy has won 18 points in his seven Ryder Cup appearances.
And although he was steely as a youngster, the competition has become more integral to his fiber, as was evidenced by an emotional meltdown after he beat Xander Schauffele in the 2021 event.
“I don’t necessarily get that emotional about golf, so I guess in that way it surprised me. But as you know, it’s a very emotionally charged week,” McIlroy said. “There were so many different thoughts and emotions. There was relief that I won a point, there was frustration that I didn’t get more out of myself and disappointment I didn’t do more for the team, so there was so many sort of different emotions sort of going through me there and it was all just a little overwhelming in a way.”
Part of what he learned during the outburst was to be true to himself. He’s often talked about the game not defining him, not being his top priority, that you win some and you lose some and you move on. The approach tempers the blow of defeat but can be a crutch.
But with the focus not just on himself, McIlroy felt the weight of an entire continent on his shoulders and it reminded him how passionate and even essential the game can feel.
“I think sometimes I give myself too easy of a time and I try to play it off with, you know, golf doesn’t define me and I’ve got balance in my life and I’m happy away from the course,” McIlroy said. “And that’s obviously very true, but if I’m honest, sometimes I sort of maybe use that as a way to lessen the blow if I don’t play good golf.
“But I think it was a good thing for me. I think I realized a couple of things about myself that I hadn’t, or maybe I had known but I was maybe trying to keep down and not let them out. I was surprised at how emotional I got, but then after a little bit of reflection over a couple of weeks, I realized why I did get that way.”
Bubba Watson’s gesture showed Ryder Cup spirit
Bubba Watson embodied that passion during the 2016 Ryder Cup in Minnesota. Passed over by captain Davis Love III for the U.S. side — even though he was the seventh-ranked player in the world at the time — Watson swallowed his pride and accepted a job as vice captain.
When the Americans pieced together a 17-11 win and captured the cup just the second time in eight tournaments, Watson wept openly.
“Finally, I found my place on the team is to help,” he said. “A couple of guys called me and said, ‘Bubba, I need you by my side, shoulder to shoulder.’
“That’s what I did. It was a dream come true for me. This is the greatest thing I have ever done in golf. I am so happy for this team. This team was amazing. They took me with open arms and let me be a part of it.”
And Watson was anything but a wallflower at the event. He was active and engaged, helping a team led by Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka to an emotional win on home soil.
Brandt Snedeker, who went a perfect 3-0 at Hazeltine that year, insisted that Watson’s presence was a significant game-changer for the Yanks.
“He’s the reason why I got my (last) point,” Snedeker said. “He was in my ear all day, walking with me every step of the way, letting me know he was supporting me 100 percent. That means a ton in this kind of stuff.
“A guy like him, putting his ego to the side and saying, ‘I want to be a part of this.’ You need somebody in your corner all the time.”
Is camaraderie king? Nobody knows for certain
Can a selfless team approach help overcome the emotions that swirl around the Ryder Cup? Nobody can say for sure.
But players seem to keep coming back to it as a strategy to overcome the nerves and emotions that can engulf a player.
Graeme McDowell played in four Ryder Cups as a competitor, winning three of the four. But it wasn’t until he became a vice captain for Thomas Bjorn at the 2018 event in France that his belief in the concept gained roots.
“I started to think it was a bit of a fallacy, all this talk about the camaraderie, about the European team, that maybe that idea was over-played because half the guys play in America and the other half play in Europe. But it’s real,” McDowell said. “It does exist. I saw it in front of my own eyes. I saw Rory McIlroy lift Tyrrell Hatton’s spirits. I saw Justin Rose being able to lift Thorbjorn Olesen up to his level. I’ve seen it happen. I know it’s real.
“European players naturally gel together without thinking. They become different people every two years. It comes naturally. Rory McIlroy’s a different person this week than he is week to week on the PGA Tour when he’s looking after himself. Seve was the same. So was Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal).”
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