Rory McIlroy wasn’t the only member of Team Europe to face verbal abuse during the Ryder Cup.
The behavior of the Bethpage Black crowd became the main story of Europe’s 15-13 victory in New York, and things turned particularly ugly on Saturday as Europe extended its lead. McIlroy faced a wave of verbal insults, and his wife, Erica, faced what Shane Lowry called an “astonishing” level of abuse. But every member of Team Europe had to deal with the unruly New York crowd.
Two-time grand champion continued WAVES Subpar podcast and called Bethpage the toughest environment he has ever played golf in, before outlining what he and his partners, Tyrrell Hatton and Sepp Straka, faced during the three-day event.
“It was tough. It was a tough week,” Rahm told co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. ‘With my group, so me and Tyrrell and Sepp, yes, all three of us were quite heavy, two with very far back hairlines, and two of us were in LIV, all I heard was: ‘Traitor, Terrorist, Fat, Ozempic a lot, and Turkey and hairline appointment stuff.’ It’s not so much – of course you have the usual thing that they say something about your wife and your children, which is expected, but over the line. It was more the fact that it started from the moment we hit the golf course until we left the golf course. Ten to twelve hours non-stop.”
Rahm noted that all athletes hear some level of abuse and bickering, but the proximity of professional golfers to the public makes this different. While Team Europe prepared for a raucous New York crowd, they weren’t ready for what ultimately came their way.
“The other thing I wasn’t ready for when I hit the opening tee shot 400 yards was I wasn’t ready to keep going as we took the club back,” Rahm said. “We hit a lot of shots while they were still talking, and that was something we had to adjust to. That first hole I said to Tyrrell on the green, ‘Well, I don’t think we’re going to hit a shot the entire tournament without it getting rowdy.'”
Rahm believes the behavior of the Bethpage crowd helped make an already tight European team even closer. And at some point, the insults faced by Rahm, Hatton and Straka lost their impact.
“We all really enjoyed watching it,” Rahm said. ‘Every time they called us fat, especially me and Sepp, [we] would laugh. For example, do you think we don’t have a mirror? I know. We know. We are the ones who eat. I get it. Let’s move on. It was less original than expected.”
The captain of Legion XIII received a lot of LIV hate from the New York public. When Rahm hit a wayward shot on the fifth hole, he had to venture to the gallery where a patron began to lay against him. But that fan ended up arguing with another fan about LIV.
You can listen to it Rahm’s entire episode here or watch the YouTube video below.
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