{"id":197007,"date":"2025-10-02T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/197007\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:18:09","slug":"team-europe-hit-back-at-bitter-us-ryder-cup-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/197007\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Europe hit back at \u2018bitter\u2019 US Ryder Cup claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team Europe have hit back at claims from United States Ryder Cup officials that the abuse dished out at Bethpage<\/a> was no different from that suffered by the Americans in Rome two years ago. Europe\u2019s Matt Fitzpatrick went as far as to call the accusations \u201coffensive to our fans\u201d.<\/p>\n

PGA of America president Don Rea dismissed the vile heckles hurled at Rory McIlroy<\/a> and his wife, Erica, as the same as you would hear \u201cat a youth soccer game\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRory understands that,\u201d Rea added. \u201cIt happened when we were in Rome on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are growing calls for him to resign after his comments made in an interview on Sunday.<\/p>\n

US captain Keegan Bradley<\/a> agreed with Rea, saying in the post-match press conference: \u201cI wasn\u2019t at Rome, but I heard a lot of stories that Rome was pretty violent as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a whole, Team Europe were stunned, if not sickened, by these comments, particularly with Erica not only forced to listen to cruel taunts about her marriage, but also being struck by a beer thrown by a member of the galleries.<\/p>\n

There were no reports of any incidents even remotely similar at Marco Simone two years ago, or indeed at any matches hosted in Europe. Fitzpatrick and Tyrrell Hatton were both keen to point this out on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat that PGA of America guy said about it being the same as in Rome\u2026 well he clearly wasn\u2019t there or must have been listening to something else because it was nothing like New York,\u201d Fitzpatrick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saturday afternoon [in 2023] was one of the best things I\u2019ve seen in my entire life \u2013 the chanting, the cheering, the songs. It was creative and fun and that to me, is what makes European fans so great versus American fans. It\u2019s always been playful and just banter and the fact that he [Rea] said that it was the same as in Rome is actually pretty offensive to European fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hatton concurred, but also referenced Bradley\u2019s words. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with what they both said,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think they were close at all. Certainly, with what I heard last week, I don\u2019t think Rome came anywhere near that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After these statements, there were inevitable fears within Team Europe that the PGAA will just sweep the disgraceful scenes<\/a> under the carpet and fail through inaction to rectify the issue before the next US match at Hazeltine in 2029.<\/p>\n

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However, on Tuesday, Derek Sprague, the PGAA chief executive, issued an apology. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to reach out to Rory and Erica and\u2026 the entire European team,\u201d he said. \u201cThey should not have been subjected to that. And I feel badly and I plan on apologising to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly it\u2019s not the values of the PGA of America or 30-plus thousand PGA golf professionals who work every day to bring joy and laughter and fun to golf. Certainly we did not witness that. We are not happy with what happened last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite coming 48 hours too late and after former captain Tom Watson said he felt \u201cashamed\u201d<\/a> the Europeans have welcomed Sprague\u2019s contrition. There can be no doubt, though, that a huge chasm has been created between the sides.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick believes this was only widened by Rea\u2019s perfunctory muted compliments at the trophy presentation \u201cI don\u2019t want to speak on behalf of everyone but we did feel there was a little bit of bitterness when they presented the trophy,\u201d Fitzpatrick said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRosey [Justin Rose] and I both looked at each other as if to say, \u2018well, that wasn\u2019t a very heartfelt congratulations\u2019. And he [Rea] said we only retained it but actually we won it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick and Hatton were speaking in St Andrews on the eve of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, the DP World Tour pro-am event that takes place on three links \u2013 the Old Course, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie.<\/p>\n

Also in the field are two other members of Luke Donald\u2019s successful team<\/a> in Tommy Fleetwood and Robert MacIntyre, as well as 17 LIV Golf players.<\/p>\n

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team Europe have hit back at claims from United States Ryder Cup officials that the abuse dished out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[72968,113963,113964,1076,427,23719,18609,81424,6082,99,26275,18611],"class_list":["post-197007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-bethpage-black","tag-don-rea","tag-dylan-dethier","tag-europe","tag-golf","tag-keegan-bradley","tag-matt-fitzpatrick","tag-rome","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sports","tag-team-europe","tag-tyrrell-hatton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}