American fans' abuse leaves Europe dismayed at Ryder Cup

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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.

Heather McMahan, an American warm-up comedian, was forced to apologize and step down after leading a chant of "f--- you, Rory!" And there was a heated verbal altercation between Englishman Justin Rose, California native Bryson DeChambeau and their caddies.

Reuters
All the while there was a torrent of trash talking, at one point so bad that McIlroy refused to take his stroke until it ceased. Other supporters tried to distract the Europeans with squeaky rubber ducks that came free with a cocktail being sold out on the course.

It got so bad that by the end McIlroy had to be flanked by state troopers. He was not shy of giving it back, at one point addressing a separate, pointed “f--- you!” to a number of offenders after smashing a drive.

It was a remarkable scene for a sport whose historic restraint means audiences are permitted within an arm's reach of the athletes.

In the end, McIlroy and his European teammates silenced the crowd the hard way — edging out the Americans 15–13 to win and retain the the biennial golf tournament, which pits a super team of Americans against their Euro-counterparts.

Europe's win came despite a dramatic late surge from the American hosts, who had looked destined for a historic, humiliating thrashing going into Sunday.

The visitors said the gauntlet of mockery and abuse made their resistance doubly hard.

European captain Luke Donald told a news conference afterward that the atmosphere was “rough,” “brutal” and “nasty.” McIlroy himself said it was unacceptable behavior.

“I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week,” McIlroy said. “Golf has the ability to unite people. Golf teaches you very good life lessons. It teaches you etiquette. It teaches you how to play by the rules. It teaches you how to respect people. Sometimes this week we didn’t see that,” he said, deploying understatement to the extreme.

In truth, the Ryder Cup has long since departed from golf’s gentlemanly beginnings, with rowdy taunts and sledging now par for the course. And the sport in general is far from unblemished, with issues over inclusion and race lingering long after the era of segregation.

But many American pundits agreed the abuse this weekend was on another level — and crossed a line.

Joel Beall, writing in Golf Digest, bemoaned “the toxic alchemy at work here: alcohol mixed with entitlement, rudeness fused with xenophobia.”

Some Americans were audibly dismayed at the conduct of their countrymen. Justin Thomas, on the U.S. team, gestured to his supporters in a failed attempt to calm their worst excesses.

"I don't think anyone's safety was necessarily in danger" but "words hurt, too," he said afterward. American captain Keegan Bradley defended the "passionate" New York crowd. “You’re always going to have a few people that cross the line, and that’s unfortunate,” he added.

Inevitably perhaps, politics was not far away.

“Grotesque Bethpage circus holds a mirror up to Trump’s America,” read a Monday headline in Britain’s right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper. The left-leaning Guardian opined, “U.S. fan ugliness at the Ryder Cup was merely a reflection of Trump’s all-caps America.”

In the event, Trump was gracious in defeat.

He had made an appearance at the course Friday, eliciting chants of his name and the ubiquitous “U-S-A! U-S-A!” The European team responded playfully late Sunday, posting a video online in which they chanted, “are you watching, Donald Trump?”

And, it turns out, he was, responding with a comfortingly generous message to end a toxic weekend.

“Yes, I’m watching,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Congratulations!

Zip Aviation said it made aviation history at the 2025 Ryder Cup, executing what it said is a record-breaking helicopter operation that set a new benchmark for event airlift logistics.

Over the course of the championship at Bethpage Black, Zip Aviation conducted more than 300 flights carrying over 2,000 passengers, marking an historic milestone in both scale and precision for the aviation industry.

“This was a record-breaking operation and a proud moment for our company and for aviation in New York,” said Itai Shoshani, CEO of Zip Aviation.

“Together with the PGA of America, we have been developing and refining this helicopter operation since 2016 for the PGA, Masters, and Ryder Cup championships, and this year’s performance demonstrates the strength of that partnership.

This was the largest helicopter movement ever executed for a golf championship in the U.S., the company said.

The behavior of American fans was not the only annoying thing about the Ryder Cup.

Another annoying thing was all the many loud, low-flying helicopters all day every day, starting a week before the Ryder Cup event itself. Many of them flew directly over my neighborhood.

Some of these helicopters were, apparently, private sight-seeing tours by wealthy fans. Others may have been related to the event in other ways. Others may have been unrelated. In any case they were loud, low-flying, and frequent enough to annoy people all over Nassau County, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

Here is a relevant Reddit thread: Blade is using 15 helicopter landing zones on Bethpage’s Red Course for this weekend’s Ryder Cup. They were expecting 3,000 passengers to take the 15 minute flight from Manhattan. Total cost = $1,575 per passenger each way.

I just now found a press release from the company responsible for some of the helicopters, Zip Aviation cites ‘record-breaking’ helicopter operation at 2025 Ryder Cup:


Besides the private helicopters, there were also various government helicopters.

The very first helicopters, about a week before the event, were from ICE, according to my partner who looked up the helicopters on FlightRadar24. Others were unidentified. Some of the early helicopters even had their ADS-B turned off.

When the helicopters first appeared, we weren't aware of the Ryder Cup. We thought they were ICE preparing for a massive raid here in Queens.