Ryder Cup golf: Europe responds to America fans' abuse

World No.2 Rory McIlroy received the brunt of the abuse at the Bethpage Black Course, on Long Island, where the 2025 Ryder Cup was held.

LONDON — Europe may have defeated the United States in golf’s marquee event. But the verbal abuse hurled at the European players by a baying, boozed-up New York crowd left a sour taste Monday, with calls for tighter policing of American spectators.

The scenes at the Ryder Cup were unrecognizable from golf’s genteel archetype, where etiquette demands silence on the tee and applause greets opponents’ drives and putts. Instead the Bethpage Black Course, on Long Island, descended this weekend into a bearpit of personal insults, vulgar chanting and — in one instance — a beer thrown at the wife of star Rory McIlroy.

McIlroy, the world No.2, led the jubilant response, including a chant asking President Donald Trump if he had seen the result (he had — and congratulated the Europeans.)

The Northern Irishman received the brunt of the abuse, which veered into anti-Irish and homophobic jeers and references to his well-documented marital issues.

It wasn't just the crowd.