Rowdy Bethpage Ryder Cup could be make or break for mainstream golf

NEW YORK – The chaos encroached from every corner early Tuesday outside The Times Center in the heart of Manhattan.

The city that never sleeps also doesn’t have much interest in the quiet confines where golf resides as evidenced by Tuesday’s “One Year to Go” press event for next year’s Ryder Cup, which will be played on Long Island’s Bethpage Black layout.

As the captains gathered to set the stage for next year’s matches it was apropos that New York’s steady din filled the room — sirens blaring, people yelling, cars honking and the ubiquitous pound of construction at every hour of the day.

Loud is a state of mind for New Yorkers and no one knows that better than Keegan Bradley, the New Englander who attended St. John’s University in Queens. For those who thought the Ryder Cup had reached a tipping point last year in Rome, or three years ago in Wisconsin, grab your ear plugs because the 2025 edition promises to be a seminal moment that could either make or break the matches.

“It’s definitely going to be an intense environment for both teams. New York is an incredible place to play but they expect you to win and win your matches, win your game, win your whatever,” Bradley said of the partisan crowds both teams will face next fall. “We know we have to go out there and perform for the fans to be behind us.”

Asked his thoughts on how New York will “welcome” the Europeans next year at Bethpage, Continental captain Luke Donald offered a take that felt more wistful than realistic. “We are looking forward to playing in front of a New York crowd. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be feisty. It’s going to be spirited, and it will be fun,” the soft-spoken Englishman said.

Spirited? OK. Feisty? Absolutely. Fun? Not sure Captain Luke and his Europeans will characterize the Bethpage Ryder Cup as “fun,” depending on the outcome.

The probability of raucous fans is so great that the PGA of America has a plan in place, according to Bradley, to deal with overly rowdy or rude galleries, which sounds like a fun game of picking the loud New Yorker out of crowd of thousands of loud New Yorkers.

For the PGA of America, having a plan in place makes sense. For Donald, hoping for a modicum of decorum amid the mayhem also makes sense. Both are unlikely to the extreme, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Nothing exposes professional golf’s duality more than the Ryder Cup. On one hand, the game’s leaders talk of moving golf forward toward mainstream sport status, but inevitably an over-served fan at the Ryder Cup will step over the delicate line and the pearl clutching will begin.

It’s the jingoistic nature of the Ryder Cup that brings out the best and worst in fandom. It’s also where the game struggles for an identity.

If mainstream is what golf wants, and the players certainly want to be paid as if that is the goal, the ugly side of mainstream awaits. Fans at Bethpage will be loud and utterly uninterested in following the game’s ancient rules on behavior.

“We’re all grownups and we know how tough it is to go play an away Ryder Cup,” Bradley said. “I definitely think the Ryder Cup, in particular, accentuates a certain type of player and especially at Bethpage, you have to be ready for that intense atmosphere.”

It’s not going to be a question of if fans step over the line next year at Bethpage. Fans, these fans, have been stepping over the line since the Brooklyn Dodgers played at the Polo Grounds and no amount of wishful thinking or proactive policing is going to change that.

The ’25 matches will either be a super-sized step forward for an event that already transcends golf as a sporting phenomenon or a blow to those who cling to the gentle ways of the ancient game.

How the Bethpage Ryder Cup is remembered will depend on how the game embraces the loud.