Team USA fans react during the Ryder Cup.PETER CASEY/Reuters
After someone threw a beer at his wife during the Ryder Cup, golfer Rory McIlroy went into the 2022 PR playbook for a rebuttal.
The behaviour of American fans was “unacceptable,” McIlroy said. It was “abusive,” even.
Over the weekend, he and his European teammates were cursed up and down the course in Long Island, New York, and did some cursing back. At points, it seemed that it would all end in a huge brawl.
“I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what we’ve seen out there this week,” McIlroy said later.
He doesn’t mean ‘golf.’ McIlroy can’t say the word he wants to, which is ‘Americans.’
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No country has a monopoly on badly behaved spectators, but Americans have traditionally cornered a niche in frat-boy coarseness. These are the sort of people for whom the pinnacle of creativity is repeating three letters over and over again.
Everyone else has to eat it because, what, you’re not going to play in America? That’s where the money is. So you do what McIlroy and his teammates did – project anger without saying anything that might get your visa pulled.
Two, three years ago, McIlroy’s pleas to reason would have elicited some contrition. Columns would have been written about the sorry state of American boosterism. But not this time.
Nobody’s rushing out to condemn boozy American exceptionalism. Not with Big Brother in the White House watching. Even the anonymous beer chucker got a pass.
Most of the native coverage I saw was of the exasperated ‘These guys over here’ variety.
The American boor isn’t just back. He’s back in fashion.
United States fans react after Europe won the Ryder Cup golf tournament against the United States on the Bethpage Black golf course on Sunday in Farmingdale, N.Y.Lindsey Wasson/The Associated Press
I have no problem with people jeering athletes. If you prize a life of decorum, give your children a conductor’s baton instead of a golf club.
I also find it odd that when players bring their spouses not just to work, but onto the shop floor. In what other job do people do this?
The Ryder Cup is famously rowdy. McIlroy has a colourful romantic history. Why would you bring your poor wife into the middle of that?
But berating her? Throwing drinks at her? What sort of goon does that? An American one, apparently.
Nobody is pelting Santa with glass bottles yet, but it’s coming. The most likely next recipient of that abuse is us in the upcoming Major League Baseball playoffs. This is function of two things – proximity, and the fact that we asked for it.
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Booing the U.S. anthem back in February was the right thing to do, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, we got a pass on it. When the 4 Nations Face-Off switched from Montreal to Boston, there wasn’t much aural pushback. Bostonians are too contrary to go along with the Republican line.
Since then, opportunities to start an international incident have been limited. Having made our point at the 4 Nations, Canadians felt no need to continue making it.
Trade war talk was boring by summer – though maybe not if you’re losing your job over it – and who gets upset about sports in summer?
But it’s autumn and things are serious again, so we’re about to retest the contours of American and Canadian courtesy.
Sidney Crosby celebrates with his Team Canada teammates after defeating the United States in overtime to win the 4 Nations Face-Off at TD Garden in Boston in February.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
It’s a long time since Canada got its undies in a bunch because an American ceremonial guard hung the Maple Leaf upside down at a World Series game. We were a different country then. The local mood wasn’t anger, but hurt feelings. Do they really not know what our flag looks like?
Of course they don’t. They don’t know what anybody’s flag looks like. Most of them couldn’t tell you which way is up on their own flag. That’s America’s charm. It’s a child in the world.
Since that nadir, relations had been friendly. Nationality was only raised once during the Raptors’ two-month run to the 2019 NBA title. Golden State’s Draymond Green chided fans for cheering when one of his teammates was injured.
“I’ve always witnessed Canadians to be the nicest people I’ve encountered, but that was classless,” Green said.
Again, hurt feelings rather than anger.
But things have changed in recent months. The Ryder Cup showed that America is done with being nice. Right on cue, the U.S. President was at it again on Tuesday.
“Become the 51st state,” Donald Trump told a bunch of American military brass.
Not threatening at all.
If the Toronto Blue Jays start winning, will the players and fans of the teams they are beating be able to restrain themselves? Or will they start with the low blows? Are Yankees fans better, worse or much worse than Ryder Cup fans?
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Given how hot we are about everything that’s going on, maybe we’re the more likely party to act out first. What would that involve? More anthem booing? Jeering certain guys until they pop? Beer chucking? We have a history.
One of the peculiarities of baseball is that players spend hours passively interacting with fans, especially the outfielders. Toronto is already notorious on this count. Something that is not caught on the broadcast could be the thing that tips this over.
The difference between now and the ’92 World Series is that we no longer care if America likes us. We’re too busy disliking it.
Few things would be sweeter than to beat the Americans at their national pastime, again. History has taught us that it’s one of the few times they notice us.
If it starts going sideways, I say we lean into it. Canada can only have a fair fight with America in one place – on the field of play. So let’s have it.
Everybody’s feeling a little tender right now. We have a lot of negative emotions to work out. So let’s do that in a cathartic environment that’s free of violence. Possibly after having had a couple of drinks.
It may be true that sports was, briefly, above this sort of thing. Thanks to our former friends, I don’t think it is any more.