British fans corner market for ‘zany’ sports tourism

Ryder Cup showed how Europe’s golfers have harnessed the ribaldry of modern crowds, while the Americans shrank from it and were left flummoxed

At the Masters in Augusta, most of the Ryder Cup crowd would have been thrown out by the time the first fourball group had reached the turn. This is not meant as a compliment to the Masters; nor is it a complete endorsement of the audience at Le Golf National.

Modern sports crowds are developing into a mobile comedy troupe, turning major events into outdoor satire workshops while filming it all on phones. They dress as postboxes, crusaders, dinosaurs and leprechauns: anything, in fact, that will make them stand out from the swarm, often in groups of five or six.

In the drinking halls that predominate at big contests – and the Ryder Cup is certainly one – they raise pints en masse and think up witty chants. And the symbiosis between fans and sports marketing is such that the Ryder Cup Europe Twitter feed acted as their unofficial broadcaster. One such video on Monday showed hundreds of punters singing, to the tune of the Will Grigg song, “Europe’s on fire, USA is terrified, na na na” etc.

Many American spectators were flummoxed by this orchestrated ribaldry. The traditional US Ryder Cup fan is a conservative sort, dressed by Ralph Lauren. Not that American Ryder Cup audiences are meek or mute when a European player passes them on a fairway over there. Oh, no. Ask Rory Mcilroy about the Sweet Caroline song (a reference to his past relationship with Caroline Wozniacki). But across the pond there is nothing like the mass wisecracking we have seen for a long time at Test cricket and are now witnessing at Ryder Cup golf.

One commenter on the “Europe’s on fire” video posted that the Ryder Cup was now firmly on his bucket list of trips. Seeing this mass glug-up and sing-song, he simply had to join the Ryder Cup experience one day. Anyone paid to sell the biennial Europe-america ding-dong is hardly going to turn their back on the enthusiasm of the modern sports tourist.

In fact, Ryder Cup golf went the other way, grabbing the comedy mic first with some fine impersonations of Europe’s players by Conor Moore, and that spoof of Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari waking up in bed together with the trophy between them.

This bromance skit expressed the idea that if fans regard sporting occasions as a massive “laugh”, then players and organisers might as well get in first and do it better than a load of blokes in postbox costumes can manage. Other sports will now study the European team’s social media skills for ideas. A James Anderson-stuart Broad bromance at next summer’s Ashes?

One safe bet is that players have no choice but to get on board, because Twitter and live sport are now indistinguishable. Larking about on social media feeds has moved from the web to the outdoors, and can be felt by performers on their rounds.

First, it should be said the Ryder Cup crowd in Paris were wonderful. They were mostly silent for shots and respectful of the players. Their alternating, booming chants of “Rory, Rory” from the first fairway and the second green was like something from Lord of the Rings. Plainly, Europe have harnessed this passion, while America’s golfers shrink from it. These are men who mostly walk round country club America, with its suffocating etiquette. The Europeans come across as men who watch Premier League football every week and understand the adversarial humour of the modern crowd.

Around the edges, though, you realise that a life in sport now requires a level of forbearance unimaginable to the Jack Nicklaus or Donald Bradman generations. So, Patrick Reed has to accept a Ryder Cup punter shouting “Show us your titties, Patrick”; and each player has to ignore a hum of low-grade sneering. A typical example: Brooks Koepka chipping off the green and a spectator shouting sarcastically: “I think you’ll find it’s you again, Brooks” (ie, you are now furthest away from the hole again).

Minor stuff, but cumulatively over three or four days this kind of comedy goading requires a mental strategy either to ignore or feed off it. Mcilroy’s “I can putt” eruption was a good example of a player biting back.

The upsurge in swearing on the course was both a sign of strain and an adjustment by the players,