There’s no shame in being a bad golfer. I’m pretty bad, too.
But a clueless golfer is something else. Most bad golfers understand why they’re bad. They accept that golf is hard and admire anyone who makes it look easy. If you’re berating Rory McIlroy loudly enough to require a squadron of state troopers, something is missing. You don’t grasp how precise a player needs to be in that environment. Either you don’t know the game, or you don’t really care. When it comes to golf, you’re clueless.
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I have no data to support the theory that the worst offenders at Bethpage Black either don’t play golf or don’t understand it. It’s just a hunch. When asked on Sunday, McIlroy said it was telling that the shouts from the stands—insults about the Europeans’ families, their weight, reminders of the most painful moments of their careers—were not for the Americans but against Europe. There’s a version of this in the golf the rest of us play: the people who hope an opponent tops a ball into the water, or complain about not being given a putt because they don’t want to risk missing. Everyone’s there to win, but these are the players who don’t really want to play the game.
This isn’t about some outdated ideal of decorum, but a reminder that golf humbles. Play the game enough and it can expose you so thoroughly that you’ll want to spare others the same humiliation. If golfers are reluctant to declare themselves better than anyone else, it’s because there’s always trouble lurking. (Also, I have a rule against insulting any man’s wife, let alone a man who can hit it 350 with a draw).
I am on the side that golf is too stuffy and golfers are too sensitive. In other sports, we cheer missed free throws and taunt opposing goalies, but in golf we tread cautiously because of the damage golfers can inflict on themselves. The Ryder Cup is an opportunity to test the boundaries. That it creates the same energy as other sports is a big part of its appeal. When Keegan Bradley appeared before dawn on Friday to rile up the Bethpage Black fans, he wanted them to galvanize his players and even rattle their opponents. The raucous energy was expected and would have been fun. But when Bradley’s players fell flat, the mood turned sinister. Maybe a closer contest would have elicited the same response. But in the absence of competition for most of the weekend, it’s clear some sought to score points any way they could.
You are free to criticize the Americans’ performance on the course, but it doesn’t register on the embarrassment scale compared to what emanated from the stands. Others will note how the behavior this weekend reflected the larger culture, how we’ve become crasser and less civil. Among mental health experts, there is frequent discussion of how people are less empathetic, perhaps owing to the time spent online, and how it detaches us from reality. That’s a bigger problem to tackle, but it ties to my theory. You can’t play this game without developing an appreciation for how painful and challenging it can be. It’s not about who you cheer for, or how. It’s recognizing the game is plenty demanding even in perfect silence. You can call that empathy. I call it understanding golf.
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