I was out by the practice green late afternoon on the Monday of the Ryder Cup, and so was Bryson DeChambeau. He was on his own, signing autographs for the handful of people on the other side of the railings, and there was this one woman leaning over towards him, a bottle blonde, late middle-aged, in a tight white dress. She was only a couple of feet away from him but she was screaming in his ear like she was trying to reach someone across the far side of the golf course. “We love you Bryson! Bryson! We love you! We love you for everything you’ve done for the Donald! We love you for everything you’ve done for the Donald!”
It was a long, strange week, and when I think back on it now the golf is entirely overwhelmed by technicolour memories of the weird scenes around the grounds of Bethpage Black and in the surrounding town of Farmingdale. I wish I could say that the things I remember best are that approach shot Scottie Scheffler hit from 180 yards at the 10th, or the 40ft putt Rory McIlroy made on the 6th, or Jon Rahm’s chip-in from the rough at the 8th. But they’re not.
It’s the first man I met when I walked on to the course, who was wearing a T-shirt with pictures of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and the slogan “It’s Official – Trump Beats Women”, and the one I spoke to later on, who was wearing a top with “Alex Jones did nothing wrong” on it. It’s the wild grin on the face of New York state’s governor, the Democrat Kathy Hochul, as she was being furiously heckled by thousands of people during the opening ceremony, and it’s the cop in the parking lot who demanded: “Let me see some ID,” when I said good morning because he wasn’t satisfied with the press accreditation I had around my neck.
It’s the yard sign saying “We are all Charlie Kirk now”. And it’s the argument I watched between a couple of white middle-aged golf fans and a young black girl on the 7.20pm train after she refused to move the big cardboard box which was taking up the last two free seats in the carriage, which ended with him shouting: “This is the Long Island Railroad bitch, and I’m sitting on your shit!” as he dumped himself down on top of her belongings. It’s the woman who reprimanded everyone else for “letting him talk to a woman that way” and it’s the old man who turned around and told her she was “everything that’s wrong with this country”.
It’s the scene at dawn on the opening morning, when the shuttle buses that were meant to ferry everyone from the train station got gridlocked and everyone poured back off them into the streets to walk to the course. It’s the 30-something dumb 20-somethings who decided to charge the level crossing while the next train was coming around the bend because they were in such a rush, and it’s the way the rail driver stuck his head out the window and swore at them while his brakes were squealing. It’s the endless queues, the closed roads and the underpaid concession staff complaining to the unsympathetic police that they needed to get in for their shift.
It’s Fortunate Son playing over the public address. It’s snipers on the clubhouse roof. It’s “airport-style security” around the back of the grandstand and a secret service member telling the man in front of me: “I’m going to let you bring that apple in with you but I need you to understand that if you throw it at the president you are going to jail.” It’s Air Force One flying low over the first tee, it’s the presidential limo pulling up, and a fleeting glimpse of a familiar yellow comb-over fluttering in the wind. It’s Keegan Bradley doing the Trump shuffle.
It’s Scheffler telling a room full of European journalists that the one thing he knows about the president from his own personal experience is that “he treats everybody the same and he treats people with utmost respect” on the very same day that Trump stood up at the UN General Assembly and said: “Your countries are going to hell.”
It’s people double-fisting cheeseburgers at 8am in the morning because they had all-inclusive tickets. It’s the comedian Heather McMahan, the MC at the 1st tee, screeching: “Fuck you Rory!” into a microphone at dawn. It’s Team USA turning in one of the single worst team performances I’ve ever seen in any sport for two days and it’s the nauseous feeling of watching them sweep the leaderboard during the Sunday singles and thinking: “Surely not?” It’s McIlroy turning around and telling the crowd to “shut the fuck up” then dropping an iron shot to two feet.
And it’s thinking that if you boil a frog you have to turn the heat up slowly so it won’t notice it’s being cooked, and it’s being on the flight back home and looking down out the window and wondering how many of the people beneath have noticed just how hot the water is.
