Gleneagles: “So who are you rooting for?” It is a question Rich Hendrickon, of Seattle, gets frequently as he roams the grounds of Gleneagles here at the Ryder Cup.
The question is a joke, as even a passing glance at Hendrickson will suggest. He is dressed head-to-toe in an American flag outfit, signalling his loyalties about as subtly as a sign on Times Square.
Other Americans are here in garb that seems deliberately sacrilegious: American-flag kilts. Not to be outdone, dozens of Europeans are sporting neck-to-ankle outfits of the European colours, deep blue and gold.
For Americans, it isn’t easy to enjoy the biennial Ryder Cup showdown between the United States and Europe. America have won only once in this century, in 2008, and have not prevailed on European soil for more than 20 years.
But no matter. The Ryder Cup is everyone’s favourite international sporting event, hands down, partly because it’s okay for adults to act like kids again and be ostentatiously silly. Garish garb is only part of the picture.
A group of British former university chums, calling themselves Guardians of the Ryder Cup, greeted each European player at Friday’s first tee with a personalised serenade —“Bjorn v the USA” for Dane Thomas Bjorn, and a simple foot-stomping chant of “Rory, Rory,” for Northern Ireland’s world No. 1 Rory McIlroy.
Twelve visiting fans from the Minneapolis area are doing their best to redress the balance.
Dressed in Minnesota Vikings NFL jerseys with viking helmets complete with golden pony tails, they have serenaded the US team with their own customised songs.
At the 2012 Ryder Cup in Chicago America suffered a humiliating meltdown on the last day. But that didn’t squelch the signature American cheer for Bubba Watson: “Give me a B. Give me an ‘ubba.’ What does it spell? “Bubba!”
Watson, hugely popular with both sets of fans, summed up the spirit of the competition, on and off the course, when he was asked on Saturday if his relatively poor record was a result of him having too much of a good time with his opponents.
“I don’t want to play golf if I have to be mean to anybody” he said.
“These are good friends of mine. If they beat me, they beat me — and you are watching great golf.”
This year’s World Cup in Brazil also featured creative cheering and silly costumes. But there were also darker moments, including the occasional street riot and the incident when Uruguay’s Luis Suarez bit an opponent. At the Ryder Cup, “bite” means an approach shot staying on the green, not Rory munching on Bubba.
The Ryder Cup packs plenty of the ebb-and-flow drama into a compact three days — less time than baseball’s World Series or the Olympic Games. The momentum usually shifts back and forth, often dramatically, in individual matches and on the team level and the competition is littered with tales of stirring comebacks.
There are, to be sure, some off-putting aspects to the Ryder Cup. Sometimes the cheering brushes the boundary between ardent and xenophobic. Mega-money commercialism is rampant (even though the players don’t get paid), as in other big-time sports events. And viewing conditions for many of the 45,000 fans trying to follow only four matches can also be difficult. (Reuters)
