{"id":178004,"date":"2025-10-03T21:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T21:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/178004\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T21:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T21:45:10","slug":"tom-watson-ashamed-of-usa-fans-as-europe-taunt-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/178004\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Watson \u2018ashamed\u2019 of USA fans as Europe taunt Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

American golf legend Tom Watson said that he was \u201cashamed\u201d of the abuse directed at Team Europe\u2019s players and families after crowd behaviour marred a dramatic Ryder Cup in New York.<\/p>\n

Repeated chants of \u201cf*** you, Rory\u201d were directed at Rory McIlroy, whose wife, Erica, was also subjected to vile remarks and had beer thrown at her. Shane Lowry, the man whose putt retained the trophy after a stirring USA comeback, said: \u201cThe stuff Erica McIlroy had to listen to for a few days was horrible, so fair play to her for being out there supporting her husband and team. She was the big winner in my eyes this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Keegan Bradley, the USA captain, did not condemn the fans, one of his Ryder Cup predecessors expressed his shock at the scenes. Watson, an eight-times major winner and the last American captain to win an away Ryder Cup, in 1993, wrote on social media: \u201cI\u2019d like to congratulate Ryder Cup Europe on their victory. Your team play for the first few days was sensational. More importantly, I\u2019d like to apologise for the rude and mean-spirited behaviour from our American crowd at Bethpage. As a former player, captain and as an American, I am ashamed of what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowry received plenty of abuse, but said the vitriol directed at McIlroy was on a different scale. Asked if he felt Bradley or the USA players could have done more to calm the crowd, the Irishman said: \u201cThey could have but they were well behind and trying to do all they could to win. Win at all costs for them. It was out of hand in the end. What I can\u2019t understand is I look into the crowd and these people are the same age as my mum and dad. And they\u2019ve probably got kids and grandkids. And they\u2019re throwing out obscenities, I just don\u2019t get it. Look, we knew it was going to happen, we were ready for it. We did well to handle it the way we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager.<\/a><\/p>\n

Enable cookiesAllow cookies once<\/p>\n

Luke Donald, who said the abuse was \u201cbrutal\u201d and \u201cnasty\u201d, said he would take his time before deciding whether he wanted to serve a third term as Europe captain in Ireland in 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t even thought about it,\u201d he said a few hours after the post-match party at the team hotel had finished. \u201cAgain, I\u2019m super-humbled that they [the players] would even mention it. I think I have to sit down and think things through and what that would be, what that would look like. I won\u2019t rule it out, but I want to kind of enjoy this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ryder<\/p>\n

Watson, right, captained the USA at Gleneagles in 2014 against a European team that included McIlroy<\/p>\n

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER BRADLEY ORMESHER<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods is widely expected to take on the role for the USA at Adare Manor in Limerick. Europe have lost a string of potential captains after their moves to the LIV Golf tour circuit. Justin Rose is a stand-out candidate, but his form at 45 suggests he could still make the team as a player in 2027. \u201cI hope Justin continues on his path because he was unbelievable out there this week,\u201d said Donald.<\/p>\n

Francesco Molinari, the 2018 Open champion and a vice-captain at Bethpage, is another option, but Lowry said whoever succeeds Donald will face a daunting task. \u201cGod help whoever\u2019s going to fill his shoes. It\u2019s like trying to come in after Sir Alex Ferguson and we\u2019ve seen how that\u2019s gone over the last 12 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Are you watching Donald Trump?\u2019 \u2014 Team Europe\u2019s message to president<\/p>\n

It emerged President Trump texted his congratulations to McIlroy while the players were together in the aftermath of what was Europe\u2019s fifth win in the USA. McIlroy then filmed the players singing: \u201cAre you watching, Donald Trump?\u201d and the President went public with his reply: \u201cYes, I\u2019m watching.\u201d Donald explained: \u201cRory read it out to us and he\u2019s like, \u2018Let\u2019s do the video with the funny chant and send it back.\u2019 That\u2019s what we did, and he sent out a reply to the world. It was just a bit of banter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager.<\/a><\/p>\n

Enable cookiesAllow cookies once<\/p>\n

Lowry said the victory party was still going when he left at 2.30am. Tyrrell Hatton, whose half-point won the cup, had given a detailed inventory of his drinking exploits on receiving his Ryder Cup call-up, but said he had been \u201ca good boy\u201d and did not have a hangover on Monday. \u201cI just felt knackered,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was one of the most stressful rounds of golf of my life.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American golf legend Tom Watson said that he was \u201cashamed\u201d of the abuse directed at Team Europe\u2019s players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-178004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}