It was during the morning matches of the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black on Long Island in New York that American captain Keegan Bradley, staring down a scoreboard full of European blue, said 鈥淲ell, we鈥檝e just had the President fly over in his Air Force One, so I鈥檝e got a feeling that things are going to turn here.”
That was right around the time American Xander Schauffele bombed a drive so far left that it landed in the grandstand, and a few minutes later the last American red on the scoreboard disappeared.
The Ryder Cup is the greatest thing in golf, especially if you cheer against the Americans, especially over the past 40 years. Europe is almost always the more appealing team: more collaborative, more spirited, more delightfully let鈥檚-get-drunk-as-skunks-to-celebrate, and once the Euros figured that out they became a perpetual band of oft-victorious underdogs. The Americans are a tidy 0-6 in Europe since 2002, and only 3-2 in America.
There is a new world order now, in which cheering against the Americans in sport is becoming a global pastime. Donald Trump had just left the White House, where he vowed to prosecute his political enemies, the day after imposing more economy-sabotaging tariffs, among all his other empire-dissolving ideas. Canadians booed the U.S. anthem during the 4 Nations earlier this year, and we were right to do so.听
When Trump landed on Long Island, the Americans were down 3-0, decisively; Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay recovered for a single American point in the morning foursomes. Then came Friday afternoon four-ball, and the European tide was disinclined to recede. Americans Justin Thomas and Cam Young dusted the Nordic duo of Ludvig 脜berg and Rasmus H酶jgaard, 6&5, but that wasn鈥檛 enough. Jon Rahm chose to get lost in LIV鈥檚 moneyed obscurity for much of the past two years, but he was magnificent at the Ryder Cup again, and Rahm and Sepp Straka beat American No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun, 3&2, on a day that Scheffler played like he was carrying a piano.
So the American hopes of staying close came down to two matches: Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood against Bryson DeChambeau and Ben Griffin, and Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry against Cantlay, who had a great day, and Sam Burns.
Rose and Fleetwood pulled ahead on 14 and stayed there, winning one up: Fleetwood鈥檚 birdie putt on 16 was enormous. So on a day where the raucous crowds were very New York 鈥斅燼t one point McIlroy delivered 鈥 the difference between 6-2 and 5-3 came down to whether McIlroy could put a match away. McIlroy and Lowry were leading until Rory鈥檚 birdie putt circled the hole and stayed out on 13.
The away win in a Ryder Cup is one of the hardest things in the sport. It was two years ago, after Europe smashed the Yanks in Italy, that McIlroy said, in the winning team’s news conference, 鈥淚鈥檝e said this for the last probably six or seven years to anyone that will listen: I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup, and that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e going to do at Bethpage.鈥 His teammates, chuffed with victory, pounded the dais in support.
And in the last match of the day the Americans pushed, and McIlroy held. McIlroy and Cantlay exchanged birdie putts on 16, and with fans heckling 鈥 loudly, fruitlessly, uselessly 鈥斅燤cIlroy dropped a birdie putt on 17, and Burns matched him.
On 18, with two American drives in the fairway, McIlroy blazed his drive 315 yards down the middle, then stuck his second shot inside 12 feet after Burns had already done the same. The Euros halved the match and led 5 1/2 to 2 1/2 after one day. Fabulous.
It鈥檚 not over, of course. Ryder Cups can swing. But what a day. As McIlroy has noted, 11 of the 12 Europeans were the same here as they were in 2023, and the 12th was the twin brother of the golfer he replaced: H酶jgaard for his brother Nicolai. Meanwhile, America as a whole has changed for the worse, and in some cases it is dragging sports with it: Trump has threatened to move 2026 World Cup matches out of Democratic-held cities, citing silly fantasies of rampant crime. Even more absurdly he threatened to move the 2028 Olympics out of Los Angeles, as part of a pudding-brained train of thought. (The Olympics cannot be moved, any more than Los Angeles can be moved.)
And at Bethpage, in the roaring din, McIlroy and Europe delivered enough on the first day. The Americans were always the team to cheer against in the Ryder Cup, and never more than now, and while Europe is not home yet, its golfers were unbothered by the braying hecklers, the swaggering Americans, and the vainglorious President. It was a glorious day of golf, truly. Two more to go.
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