{"id":246707,"date":"2025-10-23T18:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/246707\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T18:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:28:10","slug":"the-heads-of-the-ra-and-the-masters-offer-a-warning-they-hope-the-golf-world-will-heed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/246707\/","title":{"rendered":"The heads of the R&A and the Masters offer a warning they hope the golf world will heed"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI \u2014 Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley and R&A chief executive Mark Darbon have echoed Rory McIlroy\u2019s sentiments from the recent controversial Ryder Cup at Bethpage that golf should be held to a higher standard of fan behavior than other sports.<\/p>\n

The European team withstood considerable abuse from the crowds on Long Island last month, particularly Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, to earn a 15-13 away victory.<\/p>\n

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Video footage on social media captured a series of regrettable moments such McIlroy\u2019s wife having a drink thrown at her. McIlroy spoke out afterward<\/a>, declaring \u201cI don\u2019t think we should ever accept that in golf. I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week.\u201d The fan behavior drew the ire of numerous figures in golf from Tom Watson to Gary Player<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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On Thursday at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship<\/a> in Dubai, Ridley was asked what the organizers of the Masters, a tournament celebrated for its elevated decorum and tradition, thought about the scenes at Bethpage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that you asked the question and that we are all talking about it is really important. The Ryder Cup has gained just public interest in the last few years,\u201d Ridley said. \u201cIt’s become incredibly competitive. I mean, 30 years ago, it wasn’t all that competitive. I think that certainly is good for the game and the interest that it’s created among fans around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think that anyone was particularly happy with what happened this year,\u201d Ridley continued. \u201cI think it just reminds us, as custodians of the game, the responsibility that we have to perpetuate its underlying values. And I think hopefully that this is something we’re going to focus on more, and because that’s part of what makes golf special is that it is a different sort of set of rules, if you will. It’s something I think we need to work on, and it’s something I think I hope everyone involved with the game will reflect on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fred Ridley, Masters chairman, and Mark Darbon, R&A CEO, spoke about the need for golf to “perpetuate its underlying values” when policing fans at tournaments.<\/p>\n

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David Paul Morris<\/p>\n

Darbon came to the R&A after holding various roles in other sports such as the Olympic, rugby, endurance racing and cycling. He said golf should not lose the values \u201cthat other sports would crave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think first and foremost, you want and need passion,\u201d Darbon said. \u201cThere are very few sports that succeed anywhere around the world without a strong following and passionate supporters. But one of the things that defines golf, and I’ve worked in a number of sports and I’m new to this industry, one of the things that struck me in my first 10 or 11 months, is there’s real strength in the values of the game. They are so critical. They are a highly differentiating factor for us versus other sports, and they provide us with something many other sports would crave. Without them, it will become much harder to grow this game. Collaborations between organizations like Augusta National Golf Club and the R&A and brilliant federations all around the world are so critical to underpin and elevate those values.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI \u2014 Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley and R&A chief executive Mark Darbon have echoed Rory McIlroy\u2019s sentiments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[134878,115531,74136,427,134877,124661,6082,11383,99],"class_list":["post-246707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-augusta-national","tag-fan-behavior","tag-fred-ridley","tag-golf","tag-mark-darbon","tag-ra","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-ryder-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246707","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=246707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}