Take what’s already the loudest and rowdiest event in golf. Put it on a public course in New York notorious for its proud and raucous crowds. Now fill it with 50,000 flag-waving fans at Bethpage Black.
It’s a recipe that has made this Ryder Cup perhaps the most anticipated of them all — and certainly on the American side of things.
“I think hands down it’ll be the biggest golf event ever,” said Justin Thomas, 32, the most experienced member of the U.S. team despite playing in the biennial matches against Europe for only the fourth time.
If all that isn’t enough, U.S. President Donald Trump wasn’t about to miss out on the ultimate “us versus them” sporting event. He plans to be there for the opening session next Friday, Sept. 26, as the Americans begin their bid to win back the Ryder Cup.
The passion is unlike that at any other golf tournament, all for a 17-inch gold trophy donated by an English seed merchant (Samuel Ryder) for a friendly golf competition between teams on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. After nearly a century, it doesn’t seem all that friendly at times.
“When you’re a part of it, it really, it changes you forever, it really does,” said U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, who has gone 11 years since he last was part of it.
Bradley never unpacked his suitcase from his Ryder Cup debut in 2012. It’s still in his garage at his Florida home. He has pledged not to open and remove whatever is in there — in whatever condition it’s in — until he’s part of a winning team.
Bradley nearly took matters into his own hands, on the verge of becoming the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since 1963 until he decided against picking himself. All he wants is the trophy.
On the other side, Luke Donald returns as captain, trying to join Tony Jacklin as the only European skippers to win back-to-back events and fully aware it might not be as easy as it looked two years ago in Italy at Marco Simone. He returns the same 12 faces, but one different player: Denmark’s Rasmus Hojgaard replaces his identical twin Nicolai.
“Even though we have a lot of continuity, this is a different animal,” Donald said. “We understand how difficult it is.”
The U.S. team made sure to avoid the mistake from two years ago, when all but two of its players went a month before the Ryder Cup without playing. They practiced together and played together at the PGA Tour’s Procore Championship that wrapped up last Sunday in Napa, California, retreating to a mansion among the vineyards as their private hang during the tournament.
That got the attention of Justin Rose. He was doing a Q&A session at his Rose Ladies Open in England earlier this month when he needled the Americans trying to bond as a team.
“I think America have tried too hard to become a team, whereas Europe is a bit more natural and organic, and I think it comes from deeper roots in a way,” the 45-year-old Englishman said.
At the same time, Europe had all but one of its 12 players at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship in England. They met one night and received virtual reality equipment that would allow them to experience some of the noise and heckling that might occur at Bethpage Black.
“I think we’ve been talking about the Ryder Cup in Bethpage probably for 10 years, the anticipation of it, what it’s going to be like, how intense it’s going to be,” Rose said. “New Yorkers are crazy, and I think they become sort of caricatures of themselves. I think they feel like they have to live up to that reputation. So fully expect absolute chaos out there.”
That’s one reason winning a Ryder Cup on the road hasn’t been easy the past decade.
The Americans won on home soil four years ago with their biggest shellacking ever against Europe, 19-9 at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits, which prompted Jordan Spieth to say: “If we play like we did this week, the score will look the same over there.”
They didn’t, and it didn’t.
Europe won for the seventh straight time at home in 2023, doing so by a five-point margin. That prompted Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy — who completed the career Grand Slam when he won the Masters in April — to say winning a Ryder Cup away from home is the biggest accomplishment in golf.
“And that’s what we’re going to do at Bethpage,” McIlroy declared during the winner’s news conference at Marco Simone.
That will be determined over three days of nonstop action on Long Island, with four matches of foursomes and fourballs on Friday and Saturday, followed by 12 singles matches on Sunday.
Europe needs only 14 points to retain the cup. The U.S. needs 14 1/2 to take it back.
“We’ve got three days to see who’s the better team, and it’s going to be a good battle,” said American star Scottie Scheffler, who turned the recent week of bonding in California into his sixth PGA Tour win this year.
The tall Texan who has been No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking for two-plus years knows about the emotions. Scheffler had tears in his eyes two years ago after he and Brooks Koepka were on the losing end of the shortest 18-hole match in Ryder Cup history. Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg and Norway’s Viktor Hovland needed only 11 holes to beat them in foursomes, 9 and 7.
Emotions also spilled into the parking lot in Rome. American player Patrick Cantlay answered 20,000 hat-waving fans in Italy with birdies on the last three holes to win a fourballs match. McIlroy, on the losing end of that one, felt disrespected by caddie Joe LaCava and was seen shouting at Jim “Bones” Mackay of NBC Sports while being restrained by Irish teammate Shane Lowry.
Hard feelings have become part of the Ryder Cup in recent years, and the notorious Bethpage Black crowd could take that to a new level. At least Europe will have it share of fans, unlike the last time in the United States when travel restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic made it a one-sided gallery.
The visitors are expecting the worst.
Bethpage Black, along with its championship pedigree, belongs to the people. In 2022, it became the first course owned by taxpayers to host a U.S. Open. New Yorkers sleep in their cars overnight in the parking lot to wait in line to play the notoriously difficult layout in Farmingdale.
It cost $70 to play the Black Course during the week for New York residents, double that for everyone else, though $140 is still a bargain for a course that has hosted two U.S. Opens, a PGA Championship and, next week, the Ryder Cup.
But there is a pride that comes through from outside the ropes as New Yorkers watch the world’s best play their golf course, and they aren’t shy about letting players know what they think. As American player Justin Leonard said ahead of the 2009 U.S. Open: “It’s like you’ve got 50,000 owners out there, all wanting to see you play on their course.”
It’s different for a Ryder Cup. It’s not about who has the lowest score among 156 players, like at a major championship tournament. It’s the Americans or the Europeans.
“Long Island fans are the best. They are so passionate, and I’m just glad I’m on the team they’re rooting for,” Thomas said. “But they expect a lot from us, so we expect to give it to them.”