Brother’s US rant could leave Willett ducking for cover
WHEN you are in the process of girding the loins for a Ryder Cup debut, the last thing you want is for your brother to upset an entire nation with a foul-mouthed rant in a national magazine. The reception Danny Willett receives on the first tee could be interesting.
His sibling Pete, meanwhile is probably a wanted man in 45 states. Goodness knows what Donald Trump will make of it. He might demand a wall be erected around Yorkshire.Having eased himself into his column in National Club Golfer by calling the American spectators a “braying mob of imbeciles”, Pete Willett, a school teacher by trade and the son of a minister, upped the ante by urging Team Europe “to stun the angry, unwashed, Make America Great Again swarm”, before advising them “to silence the pudgy, basementdwelling, irritants, stuffed on cookie dough and p **** beer, pausing between mouthfuls of hotdog so they can scream ‘Baba booey’ until their jelly faces turn red.”
Willett’s assassination of our close allies on the other side of the Atlantic concluded with the summing up that they are bunch of “fat, stupid, greedy, classless, b ******* .” It was quite a production and one which, unsurprisingly, has gone down like a sack of spanners amid a fairly relaxed, good-natured build up to the 41st Ryder Cup.
Willett the player was described as being “bitterly disappointed” at the printed haverings of his brother, who has certainly profited from his sibling winning the Masters in April. His regular updates on social media during that conquest led to him becoming an “internet sensation”, an immediately irritating tag which inevitably means they will eventually over step the mark when blinded by this inflated sense of importance and end up being damned by the very medium that superficially made them in the first instance.
“I was just made aware of the article,” said Darren Clarke, the European team captain in his daily address to the assembled media. “I hadn’t seen it. As soon as I did, I went out to find Danny.
“I showed it to Danny and he’s bitterly disappointed. It is not what Danny thinks. It is not what I think. It is not what Team Europe stands for. Danny was unaware of it and he fully intends to express his displeasure to his brother about it.”
Of course, in the hectic countdown to the big event, where every cough, wheeze and snort is analysed with the same microscopic attention of a lab technician peering down at some organisms swilling around in a petri dish, it doesn’t take much to light the blue touch paper.
The Americans are already up for the cup this week. It would be fair to assume that the column will be getting printed out and stuck up on the team room wall. Word travels quickly these days and that “braying mob” could be gathering at the Hazeltine gates as a lively, patriotic Mid Western crowd prepares to roar on the US. Poor Danny could be an unsuspecting target. Oh brother.