Rory McIlroy has spoken out about the horrendous abuse he received at The Ryder Cup with the The Masters champion revealing even his five-year-old daughter Poppy was a target
Rory McIlroy has revealed he heard “horrific” abuse directed at his five-year-old daughter amid the “mob mentality” at last year’s Ryder Cup. And the Masters champion has claimed US skipper Keegan Bradley should have done more to calm “by far” the worst crowd atmosphere of his career.
The New York crowd at Bethpage Black took out their anger on Team Europe as Luke Donald’s team made history by winning the first four sessions away from home.
Police dogs were deployed on the course during the frenzied Saturday afternoon before Europe won 15-13. Asked if this Ryder Cup had been the worst crowd he had experienced, McIlroy told The Overlap podcast: “Oh, by far. Look, I don’t care if people are saying whatever they’re saying to me, even the first tee announcers shouting: ‘**** you, Rory,’ which is nothing compared to the other stuff we heard.
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“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 (Poppy) that I couldn’t even repeat here. It’s horrific.
“But I think it’s sort of society and culture at the minute as well. It’s that mob mentality where people see other people doing something and then they think it’s okay. And then it sort of builds up.”
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year said some US players spoke up to try and stop the abuse of the European players but added: “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.”
The build-up to the new golf season has been overshadowed by the pre-Christmas announcement that Brooks Koepka has left LIV Golf. The five-time Major winner is likely to serve a ban before returning to the PGA Tour – or could tee up on the DP World Tour.
McIlroy, a vocal opponent of LIV, said he would not object to others like Bryson DeChambeau returning to see the best players compete more.
“They’ve made the money but they’ve paid their consequences in terms of their reputation and some of the things they have lost by going over there,” he said.
“If it made the overall tour stronger to have Bryson back and whoever else I would be OK with it but I recognise not everyone is in my position – it would be up to the collective group of PGA Tour members to make that decision.
“The thing it (LIV) has done is elevated the majors and the Ryder Cup because only four or five times a year you see all the best players playing together.
“For golf to be relevant I think we need the best players together more often than that.”
No permanent deal between the Saudi-backed league and the PGA Tour has been struck and the Ulsterman said: “If LIV is failing to capture the imagination and they’ve spent so much money on this venture and it’s not making a return for them I don’t know how much longer they can keep it going”.
