The 2025 Ryder Cup at New York’s Bethpage Black is just weeks away. It’s expected to be among the most heated Ryder Cups in history, with the Long Island fans expected to provide the U.S. team with a major boost… and give the European team hell. That is, unless you talk to Shane Lowry.
The 2019 Open champion and now three-time European Ryder Cupper received a captain’s pick to make this year’s Euro squad. And Lowry thinks he and his European compatriots will have plenty of fan support of their own at Bethpage, claiming the European players have “a lot of fans in America.”
But history shows Lowry’s hopes for a civil Ryder Cup on Long Island are likely fantasy. Here’s what you need to know.
Lowry thinks Team Europe will have support at Bethpage Black
On Monday, European captain Luke Donald announced his six captain’s picks for this year’s Ryder Cup team. Lowry was an obvious choice, having finished seventh in the European Ryder Cup standings.
Lowry also starred on the victorious 2023 Ryder Cup team, which prevailed in an intense competition that saw players on both sides, Lowry included, get into confrontations.
Having been played in Rome, the event also featured boisterous crowds heavily biased for the European team, and fans unafraid to get involved by jeering the American players. Such is the tradition of the Ryder Cup.
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But Lowry thinks this year’s Ryder Cup will be different. During Luke Donald’s press conference announcing his captain’s picks on Monday, Lowry argued that the crowds at Bethpage Black won’t be as biased toward the Americans as most believe.
“There’s been a lot of talk about what the crowds are going to be like and how bad they are going to be. But, hmmm, I don’t know,” Lowry said on Monday.
He continued by saying he thinks the European team will have plenty of fans rooting them on at Bethpage. Why? Because most members of Team Europe live in the U.S. and receive fan support at PGA Tour events in the U.S.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of European fans there. I said it last week when I was asked about it, we play week-in, week-out in America. We all live in America, or most of us do, anyway, and we have all got a lot of fans in America,” Lowry said.
He finished his thought by throwing doubt at the idea that fans who cheer for him at say, the Arnold Palmer Invitational (where Lowry finished seventh this year), will turn and root against him at the Ryder Cup.
“I don’t think they can turn on you that bad for one week,” Lowry said, “but that remains to be seen.”
But the Ryder Cup is not a regular PGA Tour event. Once the top pros are playing for a flag instead of themselves, nationalism tends to take over and outweighs everything else, as Lowry himself has experienced multiple times in the past.
Lowry called out ‘disgusting’ American Ryder Cup fans in 2021
Of course, Lowry has already competed in a Ryder Cup on American soil, when the U.S. team trounced Team Europe 19-9 in 2021.
That week, the European players were pilloried by Midwestern golf fans, resulting in several incidents that riled up the European pros.
And one of those ugly incidents involved Lowry. Following the 2021 Ryder Cup, Lowry opened up about the abuse his wife received from American fans at Whistling Straits.
“I didn’t think it was that bad until I asked my wife what it was like for her, and they got abuse coming around as well,” Lowry said at the time, adding, “Some people are idiots, especially when they drink.”
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But on Monday, Lowry revealed that he thinks the crowds at Bethpage won’t be as bad as those who attended the 2021 event at Whistling Straits, and that the European team will have more fans this year than in 2021.
“Yeah, obviously Whistling Straits was a bit different where there was no European fans at all. I know there won’t be as many European fans as Americans this time but there will still be a few, and I imagine the few that come will bring their support,” Lowry said. “There’s been a lot of talk about what it’s going to be like at Bethpage. If there’s one thing I know for sure, I know Luke Donald and his team had have us ready to go when it comes to that Friday morning.”
In other words, Lowry thinks that New York sports fans, who are notoriously brash and uncivil, will treat the Europeans better than Midwestern fans, who are stereotypically polite.
But if this year’s Ryder Cup is anything like the 2002 U.S. Open played at Bethpage Black, where American fans relentlessly hounded top European pros Collin Montgomerie and Sergio Garcia, it would be unwise for anyone to put money on Lowry’s prediction.
Xander Schauffele’s dad plans boycott of Ryder Cup
The intensity of competition at Ryder Cups has been a hot topic of late. One father of a U.S. Ryder Cup star even announced that he would boycott the event over past behavior by fans and players alike.
In an interview with the Times of London in July, Stefan Schauffele, father of American star Xander Schauffele, announced that he wouldn’t be attending this year’s Ryder Cup due to the fraught nature of the event.
Interestingly, Schauffele used two recent examples of bad behavior to underline his point, both of which involved Lowry.
“No. I’m not going to the Ryder Cup,” Schauffele told the Times of London. “I’m afraid of what’s going to happen in New York. I was there [at the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits] when they called Shane Lowry’s wife a w—- in front of him. I couldn’t believe my ears.”
