But framing Bethpage as a one-off misses the larger point. What happened here didn’t invent the tone of American life so much as reflect what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior. 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. The algorithm bankrolls outrage, the put-down is political vernacular and the culture applauds “saying the quiet part out loud”. In 2025 you can say almost anything in public and be cheered for it (unless you’re Jimmy Kimmel). Put a rope line and a microphone in front of that mix and you get exactly what you got at the Ryder Cup: people testing boundaries not because the moment needs them to, but because they’ve been told volume is virtue. Some might argue golf, in the US particularly, has always been a sport for white conservatives, but it’s hard to remember galleries calling opposing players “faggots” and openly deriding their wives until recently. What could have changed?
Guardian 29th September
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/28/usa-fans-ryder-cup-rory-mcilroy?CMP=share_btn_url
Of course there is another US that is not at all like the above just as there is another UK that wants nothing to do with Farage and his mates
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