Rory McIlroy claims United States captain Keegan Bradley could have used his platform to rein in abusive crowd behaviour at last year’s Ryder Cup, but did not take the opportunity.
Europe defeated the US 15-13 at Bethpage Black to retain the trophy and become the first away team to win the event since 2012.
Yet they did so in the face of relentless heckling in New York, with Northern Ireland golfer McIlroy’s wife Erica hit by a drink thrown by an American fan and “horrific” abuse directed towards them both and their young daughter Poppy.
“We knew going to New York that we were going to get a lot of stick, a lot of abuse,” said McIlroy, while appearing on The Overlap., external
McIlroy said he was able to brush off a Bethpage MC joining in with an expletive-led abusive chant about him, while she warmed up the crowd, saying that was “nothing compared to the other stuff we heard”.
“Look, I don’t care if people are saying whatever they’re saying to me,” McIlroy said.
“Erica, my wife, would say she’s a grown woman, she’s strong, she can handle that. But then when it starts to get into your family, I heard stuff about my daughter that I couldn’t even repeat here. It’s horrific.”
He thinks Bradley could have made a difference by steering fans away from making it a toxic atmosphere for the visiting team.
The world number two added: “Keegan and I have talked about this. You have to play into the home-field advantage, absolutely.
“But during the competition on Friday night and Saturday night, after the stuff that we heard on the course, there was an opportunity for either Keegan or some of the team-mates to be like: ‘Let’s just calm down here. Let’s try to play this match in the right spirit.’
“Some of them did that, but obviously Keegan had the biggest platform of the week in being the captain. I feel like he could have said something on that Friday or Saturday night, and he didn’t.”
