This wasn’t how it was meant to end.
Donald Trump—the world’s most famous golf nut—was trolled by Europe’s Ryder Cup team after their closer-than-expected victory on Sunday, with the golfers chanting on video: “Are you watching, Donald Trump?”
Trump responded to defeat with unusual good grace, posting the clip to Truth Social along with the caption: “Yes, I’m watching. Congratulations!”
Trump became the first sitting president to attend the golf event on Friday, flying in on Air Force One to give his backing to the American team in their attempt to wrest back the trophy from Europe.
With the blockbuster tournament taking place at Bethpage Black, near his home in New York City, Trump had hoped his appearance—at which some U.S. fans chanted his name—would gee up the players.
Instead, they were obliterated on the course by a rampant European team and—worse—shamed off the course, by the conduct of a vocal minority of fans who abused the European players and even threw a drink over the wife of Rory McIlroy.
Fans’ behavior went beyond the accepted good-natured Ryder Cup ribbing and descended into homophobic slurs and insults aimed at players’ wives. Even the first tee’s official master of ceremonies, comedian Heather McMahan, was forced to stand down after encouraging a chant of “F--- you Rory!”
“What happened here didn’t invent the tone of American life so much as reflect what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior,” wrote The Guardian’s Brian Armen Graham.
“The country now lives in all-caps, from school-board meetings that sound like street rallies and comment sections that have spilled into the street.
“Some might argue golf, in the U.S. particularly, has always been a sport for white conservatives, but it’s hard to remember galleries calling opposing players “f---ers” and openly deriding their wives until recently. What could have changed?"
Others were even clearer in apportioning blame. John O’Brennan, a prominent Irish political scientist, described the fans as “a physical manifestation of the cancer of Trumpism.”
The Ryder Cup has always been lively, and has been getting more and more so in the past few years, but this weekend marked a new low.
So low, in fact, that the U.S. fans who behaved so atrociously at Bethpage Black have since been shown up by the good grace of Donald J. Trump, their very own troll-in-chief.
