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!”
