{"id":57742,"date":"2025-10-02T18:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/57742\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T18:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:54:08","slug":"pga-of-america-chief-apologises-to-rory-mcilroy-and-wife-erica-over-ryder-cup-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/57742\/","title":{"rendered":"PGA of America chief apologises to Rory McIlroy and wife Erica over Ryder Cup abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

McIlroy spoke earlier this week<\/a> about the nasty abuse he suffered from sections of the American gallery in New York \u2013 including seeing his wife hit by a flying beer on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

“It’s unfortunate that people crossed the line last week,” Sprague said.<\/p>\n

“There’s no place for that at the Ryder Cup, no place for it in the game of golf and we are not happy with what happened last week.”<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI haven’t spoken to Rory or Erica but I do plan on sending them an email with my heartfelt apologies because of what occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

But former US Ryder Cup skipper Paul Azinger hit out McIlroy for trying to have it \u201cboth ways\u201d in his criticism of foul language by the home fans. <\/p>\n

McIlroy was targeted consistently during all five matches he played in Europe\u2019s 15-13 win.<\/p>\n

The Grand Slam winner reacted several times to abusive fans and admitted after Europe\u2019s heart-stopping victory that he \u201cchirped back because it got to me a few times, but we tried to handle everything that came our way with class and poise, and for the most part, I felt like we did that\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a rough week for all of us. But at the same time, we shut them up by our performance,” said McIlroy.<\/p>\n

The Holywood star also said that the abuse crossed a line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think we should ever accept that in golf,\u201d he said. \u201cI think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cGolf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, after hearing McIlroy say \u201cIt felt f**king good\u201d when asked what it was like to hit a shot to a few feet after first telling a heckling fan to \u201cshut the f**k up\u201d, winning 2008 captain Azinger took exception.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Subpar podcast, he expressed admiration for McIlroy for saying in Rome that they were going to New York to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give Rory credit for that,\u201d Azinger said. \u201cBut now I want to take a shot at Rory, who I love\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the press conference after it\u2019s over, he is saying that I think golf should be held to a higher standard of decorum, but in the meantime he says \u2018f you, f you, f you\u2019 in full voice for the world to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe turns around and says to the guy, \u2018shut the f up\u2019. The guy in the media asks him, \u2018How did that feel Rory, to tell him to shut up and then hit it to two feet\u2019? And he said, \u2018It felt pretty f\u2019ing good\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m, like, which is it, Rory? Is it that golf is held to a higher standard or are you just going to \u2018f you\u2019 the fans and act like that\u2019s OK?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I love Rory, but you can\u2019t say that. You can\u2019t say the fans need to behave better and then in the meantime lay them to waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t do both. You\u2019ve got to be one or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azinger said he was unsurprised by the behaviour of the fans, which today drew an apology from the CEO of the PGA of America, the body that organises the Ryder Cup in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t the PGA of America know when they came here what was going to happen?\u201d Azinger said. \u201cOf course, we all knew. We\u2019ve all been talking about it for 10 years, that this crowd could go crazy. Hey, if the beers weren\u2019t $16 a piece, it could have been worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McIlroy spoke earlier this week about the nasty abuse he suffered from sections of the American gallery in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7938,61,60,1394,10916,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-57742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-brian-keogh","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-rory-mcilroy","12":"tag-ryder-cup","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}