![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/rory-mcilroy-and-his-family.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRory McIlroy was left “sickened” by “horrific” comments directed at his young daughter made by American fans during the European team’s triumphant Ryder Cup campaign in New York last year. <\/p>\n
The Northern Irish golfer revealed the deeply personal nature of the abuse he endured at Bethpage.<\/p>\n
The four-time major champion, who served as a leading figure in Luke Donald’s victorious squad, described how spectators crossed a line by targeting his five-year-old daughter Poppy with their insults.<\/p>\n
McIlroy faced the worst of the hostile treatment from American crowds across all three days of competition.<\/p>\n
The abuse extended beyond verbal attacks, with McIlroy’s wife, Erica, being struck by a beer cup thrown by a spectator during the tournament.<\/p>\n
The situation became so volatile that authorities were forced to bring in police officers accompanied by dogs during Saturday afternoon’s matches in an attempt to restore order.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Stick to Football podcast, he said: “I don\u2019t care if people say whatever they\u2019re saying to me, even the first-tee announcer saying: F**k you, Rory. That much is nothing compared to the other stuff we heard.<\/p>\n
“Erica, my wife, would say, she\u2019s a grown woman, she\u2019s strong, she can handle that, but when it starts to get into, I heard stuff about my daughter that I couldn\u2019t even repeat here, it was horrific.”<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy was left ‘sickened’ by ‘horrific’ comments directed at his young daughter made by American fans<\/p>\n
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GETTY<\/p>\n
He added: “It\u2019s also like society at the minute as well, it\u2019s the mob mentality. They see other people doing something and think it\u2019s okay. 2016 we played the Ryder Cup in Minnesota, I thought that was bad, I compare this year [2025] to 2016, and 2016 was nothing compared to some of the stuff we heard.<\/p>\n
“There are 50,000 people there, all it takes is 500 of those to be bad eggs, and it skews the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The European players collectively endured significant hostility from sections of the home crowd throughout their successful defence of the trophy.<\/p>\n
Despite the challenging atmosphere created by unruly fans, Donald’s team managed to overcome the hostile environment and secure victory against the American side on their home soil.<\/p>\n
![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/rory-mcilroy-led-team-europe-to-victory-at-the-ryder-cup.jpg\")
McIlroy added: \u201cKeegan [Bradley] and I have talked about this. You have to play into the home-field advantage, absolutely.<\/p>\n
“But during the competition on Friday night and Saturday night, after the stuff that we heard on the course, there was an opportunity for either Keegan or some of the teammates to be like: Let\u2019s just calm down here. Let\u2019s try to play this match in the right spirit.<\/p>\n
“Some of them did that, but obviously Keegan had the biggest platform of the week in being the captain. I feel like he could have said something on that Friday or Saturday night and he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the verbal abuse, McIlroy still emerged victorious.<\/p>\n
![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/rory-mcilroy.jpg\")
He said: \u201cIn the Ryder Cup for the first two days, there\u2019s 50,000 people on four holes. It\u2019s so tight and so packed in and so condensed.<\/p>\n
“Then on Sunday there\u2019s 12 matches, so the crowd is a little more dispersed around the golf course. It doesn\u2019t really get into that mob mentality as much.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a great event for golf to have because it\u2019s the only time you have that real partisan feel. What we feel or what I feel as a football fan or what you felt when you were playing.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s a rivalry and people really get into that. It\u2019s the reason it\u2019s probably the biggest tournament in golf.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy was left “sickened” by “horrific” comments directed at his young daughter made by American fans during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-395378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sport","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}