Willett to run gauntlet
DARREN CLARKE fears Ryder Cup rookie Danny Willett could be singled out for abuse by angry American fans tomorrow at Hazeltine.
Masters champion Willett, right, has been left exposed after an astonishing tirade from his brother in a column on the National Club Golfer website, which labelled the American supporters a “baying mob of imbeciles” and “pudgy, basement-dwelling, irritants”.
Europe’s captain distanced himself from the comments but is concerned the damage may already have been done in turning a partisan Minnesota crowd hostile.
Clarke said: “As soon as I was made aware of the article I went out to find Danny, who was playing in the last group out there this morning. I spoke to Danny about it, I showed it to him and he is bitterly disappointed in his brother’s
article. It is not what Danny thinks. It is not what I think.
“Danny was unaware of it and he fully intends to speak to his brother about it, because that is not what Team Europe stands for. The fans could not have been nicer and better to us this week. Hopefully that continues.”
Willett’s brother Pete, a Birmingham-based drama teacher, was not intending to travel to the Ryder Cup and it is probably just as well after his attack.
It read: “Team USA have only won five of the last 16 Ryder Cups. Four of those five victories have come on home soil.
“For the Americans to stand a chance of winning, they need their baying mob of imbeciles to caress their egos every step of the way. Like one of those brainless b ***** ds from your childhood, the one that pulled down your shorts during the school’s Christmas assembly, they only have the courage to keg you if they’re backed up by a giggling group of reprobates. Team Europe needs to shut those groupies up. They need to silence the pudgy, basement-dwelling, irritants, stuffed on cookie dough and p***y beer, pausing between mouthfuls of hotdog so they can scream ‘Baba booey’ until their faces turn red. “They need to stun the angry, unwashed, Make America Great Again swarm, desperately gripping their concealed-carry compensators and belting out a mini-erectioninducing ‘mashed potato’ hoping to impress their cousin. “They need to smash the obnoxious dads, with their shiny teeth, Legoman hair, medicated ex-wives, and resentful children. Squeezed into their cargo shorts and boating shoes, they’ll bellow ‘get in the hole’ whilst high-fiving all the other members of the Dentists’ Big Game Hunt Society. Team Europe need to silence these cretins quickly.”
Those ‘cretins’ may have something to say in return when Willett arrives at the first tee tomorrow. A first shot in a Ryder Cup is a tough challenge. Tough just got tougher.
The Yorkshireman studied at Jacksonville State University in the United States and charmed the Americans in April in winning the Masters a fortnight after becoming a father.
Pete Willett’s entertaining tweets that evening captured plenty of attention afterwards but not half as much as the words that have pinned a target to his brother’s back.
American captain Davis Love refused to read the offending article. “If I read it I’m just going to get mad; if I read it I’m going to get defensive, so I will just try to ignore it,” said Love.
“The fans at a home event and in Europe get into it. They are so excited and it’s a big part of home-field advantage. They are golf-starved here. They don’t get to see PGA Tour golf that much so we’re going to try to embrace it and use it to our advantage.” CLARKE: Expecting a backlash after Pete Willett’s outburst