A Few Quick Feelings on the 2025 Ryder Cup
No heartfelt story here, no pretty golf pictures, just some thoughts. None of the thoughts involve the envelope rule, or nerfing the rough, or the president visiting.
Just a simple “golf deserves better.”
I know the PGA Tour seems to be all about the “stadium experience” nowadays and LIV is structured around fan spectacle. But did you see Happy Gilmore 2? A movie franchise that both celebrates and denigrates golf featured a villain hell bent on making golf a gaudy spectacle. Yes a lot of it was tongue in cheek, and a bit of good fun. However, I think HG2 touched on a bit of real world dark side. Is all this stadium and spectacle pushing golf fandom in a bad direction?
I’m not saying that I’m not down with some fun, and that the tee box at a PGA event should be a library. But does it need to be the bleachers at Wrigley or the end zone of a Eagles game? Those are great places, but they exist for that environment. It would be unnatural for the NFL to push fans to shut up and stay in their seats during big plays, or have people hold up “QUIET” signs before every MLB pitch. So why does pro golf nowadays push the rowdiness? The fan behavior headlines for the Ryder Cup is a glaring sign that the stadium environment in golf has perhaps gone too far.
This isn’t some outlier either. Beers getting chucked on the 16th at Scottsdale, every single swing on a TV broadcast has some shouty heckler, hell even the Euro fans at the 2023 Ryder Cup smoking Patrick Cantlay for not wearing a hat, there’s a lot of evidence that golf fans today just behave badly. No wonder Augusta National gets so freaky about things.
Speaking of Augusta, they too don’t get it right. Golf traditionally has had an image problem of being stuffy and dare I say boring. Also there is a crushing exclusivity complex that places like August National hold up as a badge of honor. That is not the way either.
Golf doesn’t need to become Frank Manatee (the villain from HG2), but it doesn’t need to be Judge Smails either. I hope last week’s events will perhaps push PGA out of the stadium mindset and in the direction of say some “chill” vibes. Golf is exciting and fun, but it’s at its best when it’s more laid back and not drunk off its ass.