FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy came charging down the hill behind Bethpage Black’s 17th hole, arms outstretched in a fist pump as he howled in the direction of a group of European fans as they sang and danced on the other side of the ropes.
McIlroy was returning from the 18th hole, where he and best mate Shane Lowry had just finished off their American opponents in the first match of the fourth session of this Ryder Cup. And now he’d come back to cheer on the matches remaining behind him, energized by the blue flags filling up the scoreboard and the blowout victory they’d all but assured.
These fans were serenading him with the anthem of the day, sung to the tune of the Cranberries’ “Zombie”:
He’s in your heeaaaad
In your heeeeead
Ro-o-ry, Ro-o-ry, Ro-o-ry, ry, ry
McIlroy headed their way, dishing out high-fives to the delirious scrum before re-routing back toward his teammates. But then, as he turned, something came flying from the crowd: a half-filled drink, which sailed through the air and ricocheted off the hat brim of McIlroy’s wife, Erica, walking beside him.
The entire contingent whirled around in surprise — Erica, Rory, Lowry, marshals, teammates, assistant coaches — and Lowry began to walk toward the crowd before he was restrained by a Team Europe staffer. It wasn’t clear where the cup had come from or why, whether there was malicious intent or if it had come from an excited Euro. Either way, the moment passed, the cup-thrower escaped unidentified and the team turned to continue toward the 17th green, returning their attention to the remaining two matches. But the moment told the story of the day: The joy of sport and the thrill of a charged environment set against some jarring instances of fans crossing the line — and, ultimately, complete domination from McIlroy and the road team, who got the final word.
DID THE FANS CROSS THE LINE? That was the question pinging around the Bethpage grounds for much of Thursday afternoon, particularly after “is there any way the U.S. gets back in this…?” was laid to rest.
There’s no way to give one simple answer, so let’s try several. Yes, fans crossed the line. Two lines, to get specific. European captain Luke Donald laid them out post-round, the procedural and the personal: First, it’s poor form to scream at a player when he’s in the process of actually hitting his shot and second, it’s nasty behavior to scream about a player’s family, particularly knowing that player and his family are there to hear it. Fans did both, and not just one or two fans but a lot of fans, frothy and frustrated from the magnitude of the event and the magnitude of the home team’s deficit and the fact that there are tens of thousands of fans but only four groups on the course. So when you’re a certain type of fan and you finally get a glimpse of Rory and Co., you’re going to make it count.
But it’s also reductive to repudiate the entire event’s atmosphere based on the line-crossers. This is sport, after all, and sport really gets good once people start caring, both the players and the fans. The caring is the whole point — and we got that in spades. There were brilliant sporting scenes all day, European heroics spurred on to greater heights by American antagonists. Those came with unprecedented numbers of f-bombs, thousands sent the players’ way, pre-7 a.m. and on, and dozens returned. It was over the top. It was a spectacle. And the golf played between it all was impressive as hell.
“Look, we knew what we were going to get coming here,” Lowry said. “It was a very tough day. Being out with Rory doesn’t make it any easier; I think he’s getting the brunt of it.”
McIlroy said he was happy to have Lowry at his side Saturday afternoon: “He was there for me today. All the credit for this win today goes to Shane.”
Lowry added this: “It was intense. It was like something I’ve never experienced. But this is what I live for. This is it. This is, like, honestly, the reason I get up in the morning, for stuff like this. This is what I love doing.”
IT’S TOUGH FOR ANYONE TO HATE ON TOMMY FLEETWOOD or any of several other lovable members of the European team. But Saturday’s atmosphere was so pressure-packed that tensions boiled over elsewhere, too. The afternoon match behind McIlroy/Lowry pitted World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (0-3-0 in the first three sessions) and megastar Bryson DeChambeau (1-2-0) against Fleetwood and Justin Rose. The Americans came in desperate for a win but it was Rose who arrived with magic in his pocket, pouring in putts left and right as he unleashed six birdies in their first eight holes and built a lead that would prove insurmountable.
But a moment on the 15th tee showed once again just how different the Ryder Cup is than any other golf tournament in the world. Rose was lining up his birdie putt when DeChambeau and his caddie, Greg Bodine, got too close to Rose’s line for his liking, so he motioned them away.
“Asked him to move. Maybe not as politely as I could have done,” Rose said later.
Rose made his putt. Moments later DeChambeau made a birdie putt of his own and celebrated in Rose’s direction. Suddenly they were jawing as they walked to the next tee — DeChambeau and Rose, Bodine and Fleetwood’s caddie, Ian Finnis, even Scheffler’s caddie Ted Scott and, improbably, European assistant Francesco Molinari, who took a shoulder from Scott as he strode between the involved parties. Eventually Finnis — a peace-through-strength type at 6-foot-6 — made it clear that they should all drop it, and so they did. But it spoke to just how tense the environment had gotten — and just how good the golf was within.
“I felt pretty good but watching Justin Rose on the golf course is some of my proudest few hours on the golf course,” Fleetwood said. “I absolutely loved it. So blessed to be by his side today.” That was the day’s defining third ingredient: Tension. Incredible golf. And European brotherhood.
“You know, crowds have energy, and you can use it however you want. It’s however you frame it,” Donald said, offering some perspective on the scene.
“There’s a stimulus, a response, and in between that is how you decide what you want to do with it. I think some people find that motivating. Sometimes the crowd going at you can be a motivator for some of these players, and I think Rory and Shane certainly looked like they were sort of almost enjoying the difficult environment out there.”
THERE WERE MOMENTS OF REAL SPORTSMANSHIP between the two teams. Each side seemed to appreciate the heroics of their opponent; in the afternoon Golf Channel reported the Euros finished a combined 34 under par while Team USA shot 31 under, a preposterous number of total birdies.
Justin Thomas and Cameron Young were the golfers opposite McIlroy and Lowry in their charged afternoon session. After several holes of unrelenting heckling the Americans started shushing the crowd before their opponents played. This is harder than it sounds; how do you slow down a mob? But they stuck with it for the rest of the match, doing their best to ensure a match played under fair, if brutal, conditions. That made it a particularly tough loss, though.
“The Ryder Cup is the only event you can have this much fun and lose,” Thomas said. “It just brings out some unbelievable golf. I’d play and go to battle with Cam any day of the week. I’m just bummed we didn’t get it done.”
For the last hour of play, members of Team Europe floated around Bethpage’s closing stretch of holes, laughing and hugging and basking in the Ole, Ole Ole Ole chants of their fans. The whole thing had a celebratory feel, like they’d already sealed the deal. In fairness, they effectively did seal the deal; no Ryder Cup team has ever come down from more than four points and the U.S. team enters Sunday down 7.
But we’ll get golf on Sunday nonetheless. We’ll get hours more of celebration. And we’ll get McIlroy at its center as he sees whether he can finish off a dream season with a win over Scottie Scheffler. The fans will do what they can to stop him. They might spur him on instead. And then will begin the two-year wait until we get to the next Ryder Cup — and wonder where the line is there.