Keegan Bradley

So as someone who doesn’t follow golf, is this a black eye for Keegan?

The build up to this thing seemed immense.
Seems like it would be hard for him to get the captain role again, considering the unique circumstance to begin with. But in larger sense I don’t think it will have much of a negative impact.
 
Super exciting atmosphere today. Great comeback just fell short but the guys didn't fold it in today.

That all being said the ride share section afterwards was the biggest debacle I've ever seen and whomever was in charge of logistics should be fired. Wifi not working for a lot of people and I just got home 3 hours later. It would have been quicker for me to take train to Manhattan then train back to Huntington

It was chaos. Eric got dropped by an uber the next one was over an hour and half wait he ended up taking a bus to Jones Beach.
 
Super exciting atmosphere today. Great comeback just fell short but the guys didn't fold it in today.

That all being said the ride share section afterwards was the biggest debacle I've ever seen and whomever was in charge of logistics should be fired. Wifi not working for a lot of people and I just got home 3 hours later. It would have been quicker for me to take train to Manhattan then train back to Huntington

It was chaos. Eric got dropped by an uber the next one was over an hour and half wait he ended up taking a bus to Jones Beach.
As a certain volunteer, I was able to park at Farmingdale State near an entrance right at the 9th hole. Easy peasy...except the ride back to Forest Hills was excruciating on Friday and Saturday.
 
Great day out there. Enjoyed the day with Maher and his better half Nat. Exhausting to walk that course and whole complex with those hills. How I play it carrying clubs??? I guess in jeans made it a bit tougher to walk. And what a shit show leaving for sure.


The whole victor hovland not playing and it being a tie and a half a point for each team needs to be changed. What a dumb rule and that easily could have been the reason we didn’t win and make that miraculous comeback. If English is winning that match maybe burns or Morikawa respond and win theirs instead of halving theirs.
 
I went Friday and Saturday. And will preface by saying I've been going to PGA events all over the Metro area for 30 years, plus I went to the Ryder Cup at Medinah (Friday) 13 years ago. As many know I work in sports so I've had the luxury of attending many different events around the world.

This was hands down the worst sporting event I've ever been to.

The PGA of America- Leadership should be cleaned out after this.

Crowd- Too many people. Not nearly enough Marshalls on the course. Medinah did not have 50k people a day. And the course is able to handle crowds better than Bethpage. You can't have 50k people on course that splits 13 holes across a road on sideways hills following 4 groups. I'm sure Sunday was better experience but I haven't found anyone who went Friday or Saturday with complimentary words. Those who weren't so harsh are quiet and I think they are just feeling the pain of $750 being robbed from them. You literally had fans sitting on the 12th green in the stands when the first group was on 3rd hole just because there is no other way to watch. I played frogger at Medinah. Watched 4 groups come through a hole then jumped to see 4 more. Impossible at Bethpage. Someone on Twitter said- "You experience a Ryder Cup once, then never again". I think they are right.

Personally my back locked up and my legs were screaming from standing from 6am until 7pm both days. Nowhere to sit because those fans did not leave those stands.

Transportation- Horrible plans to move people. Parking lot information to Jones Beach and signage in the dark at 5am was piss poor. I will say Friday transportation went fine both to and from, however Saturday we waited half hour for buses to show at 5am and getting out Saturday night was over an hour. That said Ride Share and LIRR seemed 1000 times worse. I get it. Bethpage is in a residential area. But this goes into event planning. All Leagues do this when they pick venues.

Food/Drink- the free food/drink was another disaster. Long lines. The water and Gatorade was warm. Food ran out.

Atmosphere- Embarrassing. Can't tell if its the Barstool culture or just alcohol induced assholes. I hate the stuffiness country club prima donna's that dominate golf but this was the ugly other side of the spectrum. This was such a fun playful banter event. It's jumped the shark IMO.

The Match- Sucks that 2 of our 3 best players were practically zero's on Friday and Saturday. Scary how Scottie is exactly like Tiger and a complete waste in team competitions. Another issue was 2 of the 6 AQ's in English and Henley were also zero's. Keegan didn't do himself any favors pairing English and Morikawa which was statistically the 132nd of 132 possible pairings. Cantlay is impossible to root for. JT, Young, Span, Xander and Griffin (who should have played more) were the only ones who showed up to play. The WD rule has to change. If the US getting a full point is too much fine but no points should be awarded at all. Funny how Solheim Cup the other team gets the full point. Would have been really interesting if that half point was the determining match.

Lastly its just crazy that they talk about tight knit team and all that. I don't buy it one bit. It's forced. But for some reason the European team that has multiple nationalities can bond together. They aren't the best players in the world. Lowry has never been higher than 10th in the world. Fitz was 5th but now 29th. Hatton peaked at 6 five years ago. They just play well together. Not sure who next captain should be. Chamblee was ranting about Freddie (who is my fav golfer of all time) or Leonard. It's not like either were world beaters with their RC records. Not many are actually.

 
I went Friday and Saturday. And will preface by saying I've been going to PGA events all over the Metro area for 30 years, plus I went to the Ryder Cup at Medinah (Friday) 13 years ago. As many know I work in sports so I've had the luxury of attending many different events around the world.

This was hands down the worst sporting event I've ever been to.

The PGA of America- Leadership should be cleaned out after this.

Crowd- Too many people. Not nearly enough Marshalls on the course. Medinah did not have 50k people a day. And the course is able to handle crowds better than Bethpage. You can't have 50k people on course that splits 13 holes across a road on sideways hills following 4 groups. I'm sure Sunday was better experience but I haven't found anyone who went Friday or Saturday with complimentary words. Those who weren't so harsh are quiet and I think they are just feeling the pain of $750 being robbed from them. You literally had fans sitting on the 12th green in the stands when the first group was on 3rd hole just because there is no other way to watch. I played frogger at Medinah. Watched 4 groups come through a hole then jumped to see 4 more. Impossible at Bethpage. Someone on Twitter said- "You experience a Ryder Cup once, then never again". I think they are right.

Personally my back locked up and my legs were screaming from standing from 6am until 7pm both days. Nowhere to sit because those fans did not leave those stands.

Transportation- Horrible plans to move people. Parking lot information to Jones Beach and signage in the dark at 5am was piss poor. I will say Friday transportation went fine both to and from, however Saturday we waited half hour for buses to show at 5am and getting out Saturday night was over an hour. That said Ride Share and LIRR seemed 1000 times worse. I get it. Bethpage is in a residential area. But this goes into event planning. All Leagues do this when they pick venues.

Food/Drink- the free food/drink was another disaster. Long lines. The water and Gatorade was warm. Food ran out.

Atmosphere- Embarrassing. Can't tell if its the Barstool culture or just alcohol induced assholes. I hate the stuffiness country club prima donna's that dominate golf but this was the ugly other side of the spectrum. This was such a fun playful banter event. It's jumped the shark IMO.

The Match- Sucks that 2 of our 3 best players were practically zero's on Friday and Saturday. Scary how Scottie is exactly like Tiger and a complete waste in team competitions. Another issue was 2 of the 6 AQ's in English and Henley were also zero's. Keegan didn't do himself any favors pairing English and Morikawa which was statistically the 132nd of 132 possible pairings. Cantlay is impossible to root for. JT, Young, Span, Xander and Griffin (who should have played more) were the only ones who showed up to play. The WD rule has to change. If the US getting a full point is too much fine but no points should be awarded at all. Funny how Solheim Cup the other team gets the full point. Would have been really interesting if that half point was the determining match.

Lastly its just crazy that they talk about tight knit team and all that. I don't buy it one bit. It's forced. But for some reason the European team that has multiple nationalities can bond together. They aren't the best players in the world. Lowry has never been higher than 10th in the world. Fitz was 5th but now 29th. Hatton peaked at 6 five years ago. They just play well together. Not sure who next captain should be. Chamblee was ranting about Freddie (who is my fav golfer of all time) or Leonard. It's not like either were world beaters with their RC records. Not many are actually.

Great post. It’s pretty much exactly how I felt and I went on Sunday. You can barely see any action up close. And that course is a bitch to play with those hills etc but as a spectator man it sucks. I was spent. Guess I’m getting older and out of shape.

As for Tom Watson and many others talking about the crowds behavior. I hate when fans act like that shit. But I also hate it when the majority get lumped together like that and of course majority are not like that. Wish they would just acknowledge that before saying it as if all fans were terrible. Tom Watson who is my favorite golfer of all time I don’t like his post on it making it sound like the entire crowd was like that.
I will acknowledge there were a couple of assholes in the stands on 12 heckling a lot of European fans. No need for that. Me and maher were saying it’s just such a bad look on us.
 
That tracks with what a buddy who went said. He said the exact same thing about feeling robbed. He's usually a course walker. We've done a few events together before including majors and he is a serious golfer and fan. Another friend was a volunteer on 11 and has worked almost every major the past 5-7 years. She said the behavior, albeit by a select few, was exponentially the worst she'd ever experienced. Honestly I expected the worst after the 2002 Open Experience and they delivered in spades.
 
I went Friday and Saturday. And will preface by saying I've been going to PGA events all over the Metro area for 30 years, plus I went to the Ryder Cup at Medinah (Friday) 13 years ago. As many know I work in sports so I've had the luxury of attending many different events around the world.

This was hands down the worst sporting event I've ever been to.

The PGA of America- Leadership should be cleaned out after this.

Crowd- Too many people. Not nearly enough Marshalls on the course. Medinah did not have 50k people a day. And the course is able to handle crowds better than Bethpage. You can't have 50k people on course that splits 13 holes across a road on sideways hills following 4 groups. I'm sure Sunday was better experience but I haven't found anyone who went Friday or Saturday with complimentary words. Those who weren't so harsh are quiet and I think they are just feeling the pain of $750 being robbed from them. You literally had fans sitting on the 12th green in the stands when the first group was on 3rd hole just because there is no other way to watch. I played frogger at Medinah. Watched 4 groups come through a hole then jumped to see 4 more. Impossible at Bethpage. Someone on Twitter said- "You experience a Ryder Cup once, then never again". I think they are right.

Personally my back locked up and my legs were screaming from standing from 6am until 7pm both days. Nowhere to sit because those fans did not leave those stands.

Transportation- Horrible plans to move people. Parking lot information to Jones Beach and signage in the dark at 5am was piss poor. I will say Friday transportation went fine both to and from, however Saturday we waited half hour for buses to show at 5am and getting out Saturday night was over an hour. That said Ride Share and LIRR seemed 1000 times worse. I get it. Bethpage is in a residential area. But this goes into event planning. All Leagues do this when they pick venues.

Food/Drink- the free food/drink was another disaster. Long lines. The water and Gatorade was warm. Food ran out.

Atmosphere- Embarrassing. Can't tell if its the Barstool culture or just alcohol induced assholes. I hate the stuffiness country club prima donna's that dominate golf but this was the ugly other side of the spectrum. This was such a fun playful banter event. It's jumped the shark IMO.

The Match- Sucks that 2 of our 3 best players were practically zero's on Friday and Saturday. Scary how Scottie is exactly like Tiger and a complete waste in team competitions. Another issue was 2 of the 6 AQ's in English and Henley were also zero's. Keegan didn't do himself any favors pairing English and Morikawa which was statistically the 132nd of 132 possible pairings. Cantlay is impossible to root for. JT, Young, Span, Xander and Griffin (who should have played more) were the only ones who showed up to play. The WD rule has to change. If the US getting a full point is too much fine but no points should be awarded at all. Funny how Solheim Cup the other team gets the full point. Would have been really interesting if that half point was the determining match.

Lastly its just crazy that they talk about tight knit team and all that. I don't buy it one bit. It's forced. But for some reason the European team that has multiple nationalities can bond together. They aren't the best players in the world. Lowry has never been higher than 10th in the world. Fitz was 5th but now 29th. Hatton peaked at 6 five years ago. They just play well together. Not sure who next captain should be. Chamblee was ranting about Freddie (who is my fav golfer of all time) or Leonard. It's not like either were world beaters with their RC records. Not many are actually.

Moose, I didn't go to the Ryder Cup because I live in NC but your description put me right in the middle of the action. After reading it, I felt I was there. Many thanks.
 
Great post. It’s pretty much exactly how I felt and I went on Sunday.

As for Tom Watson and many others talking about the crowds behavior. I hate when fans act like that shit. But I also hate it when the majority get lumped together like that and of course majority are not like that. Wish they would just acknowledge that before saying it as if all fans were terrible. Tom Watson who is my favorite golfer of all time I don’t like his post on it making it sound like the entire crowd was like that.
I will acknowledge there were a couple of assholes in the stands on 12 heckling a lot of European fans. No need for that. Me and maher were saying it’s just such a bad look on us.
I agree. The banter is fun and I'm a soccer fan, the Euro's are arguably better at it than us. And they aren't choir boys either. I'm pretty certain they were all over Tiger for his marriage problems. What I don't like is breaking up the pre-match routines and the simple F-You Rory chants. I don't get that. Rory single handedly fought LIV and backed the PGA Tour. Playful jabs are fun but its now so far to the extreme its tough to put back in the bottle.
 
Another thing too is the Ryder cup is just weird to me now that most of these guys play on the pga tour and we see them in America all the time. They live here more than in Europe honestly and most of them went to college in the United States too!

Different when they just played here in the majors and full time on the European tour.
 
As a certain volunteer, I was able to park at Farmingdale State near an entrance right at the 9th hole. Easy peasy...except the ride back to Forest Hills was excruciating on Friday and Saturday.
Curious your take as volunteer. My father and I both volunteered for years at Buick Classic, Barclays and other events in Westchester and NJ. Seemed like there were very light on volunteers and lacking leaders who know what to do when. Lot of trapped patrons at cross walks and not knowing when to drop the ropes.

Another PGA shot I will take. These groups had no joke 60 people inside the ropes following the groups. From wives to assistant captains to CC Sabathia and Bobby Flay. They had their little green knee pads but rarely kneeled down and definitely caught a few remarks from fans. You cannot have 60 people inside the ropes following each of the groups.
 
Great post. It’s pretty much exactly how I felt and I went on Sunday.

As for Tom Watson and many others talking about the crowds behavior. I hate when fans act like that shit. But I also hate it when the majority get lumped together like that and of course majority are not like that. Wish they would just acknowledge that before saying it as if all fans were terrible. Tom Watson who is my favorite golfer of all time I don’t like his post on it making it sound like the entire crowd was like that.
I will acknowledge there were a couple of assholes in the stands on 12 heckling a lot of European fans. No need for that. Me and maher were saying it’s just such a bad look on us.

Agree it was a small minority. And to be fair respectful heckling between shots is also fine as is getting loud to support your guys (whoever those guys might have been;)). But being disrespectful and profane, or continuing after the player transitions from routine to address is totally out of bounds. I would say it's because of the bad performance in the first two days but it was awful from the start.

It was funny in the post tourney presser when Rory talked about some guy who followed him around telling him he was no effing good for a few holes. As Rory, one of the top 5 golfers of the past 30 years, said, no actually I'm pretty effing good.
 
Another thing too is the Ryder cup is just weird to me now that most of these guys play on the pga tour and we see them in America all the time. They live here more than in Europe honestly and most of them went to college in the United States too!
Married Americans too ;)
 
Curious your take as volunteer. My father and I both volunteered for years at Buick Classic, Barclays and other events in Westchester and NJ. Seemed like there were very light on volunteers and lacking leaders who know what to do when. Lot of trapped patrons at cross walks and not knowing when to drop the ropes.

Another PGA shot I will take. These groups had no joke 60 people inside the ropes following the groups. From wives to assistant captains to CC Sabathia and Bobby Flay. They had their little green knee pads but rarely kneeled down and definitely caught a few remarks from fans. You cannot have 60 people inside the ropes following each of the groups.
I've found that the USGA does a far better job than the PGA in terms of course management and volunteers. For example, I was on the 6th green yesterday with instuctions to radio in to stop the video board when the players were at their approach shots, and then wait until after they hit their 7th hole tee shots. At one point the green was free but they asked if the green was clear. It was, but they were still hitting on 7. So they admonished me that I was only on 6, EVEN THOUGH THEIR INSTRUCTIONS TOLD ME TO WATCH 7 TOO. :) After the last group went through on 7, they still closed the ropes even though there were no more groups coming through.

As to the inside-the-ropes situation, I was shocked at thow many there were. Sponsors, player guests, PGA people etc., it was an endless stream of people with credentials. But being inside the ropes is pretty cool, especially when you get to go under in front of the regular people. :)

The snack situation for volunteers is better for USGA events also. And they're better organized. Since I'm also working Shinnecock nest year, I'll update this post....
 
I did a few tournaments for CBS and ABC via JNP early this century and it was great to be walking inside the ropes. It was a blast. Did one of those old silly season events, Match Play at LaCosta, and LA Open a couple times. Just advising club selection, who was putting for birdie and stuff like that.
 
I went Friday and Saturday. And will preface by saying I've been going to PGA events all over the Metro area for 30 years, plus I went to the Ryder Cup at Medinah (Friday) 13 years ago. As many know I work in sports so I've had the luxury of attending many different events around the world.

This was hands down the worst sporting event I've ever been to.

The PGA of America- Leadership should be cleaned out after this.

Crowd- Too many people. Not nearly enough Marshalls on the course. Medinah did not have 50k people a day. And the course is able to handle crowds better than Bethpage. You can't have 50k people on course that splits 13 holes across a road on sideways hills following 4 groups. I'm sure Sunday was better experience but I haven't found anyone who went Friday or Saturday with complimentary words. Those who weren't so harsh are quiet and I think they are just feeling the pain of $750 being robbed from them. You literally had fans sitting on the 12th green in the stands when the first group was on 3rd hole just because there is no other way to watch. I played frogger at Medinah. Watched 4 groups come through a hole then jumped to see 4 more. Impossible at Bethpage. Someone on Twitter said- "You experience a Ryder Cup once, then never again". I think they are right.

Personally my back locked up and my legs were screaming from standing from 6am until 7pm both days. Nowhere to sit because those fans did not leave those stands.

Transportation- Horrible plans to move people. Parking lot information to Jones Beach and signage in the dark at 5am was piss poor. I will say Friday transportation went fine both to and from, however Saturday we waited half hour for buses to show at 5am and getting out Saturday night was over an hour. That said Ride Share and LIRR seemed 1000 times worse. I get it. Bethpage is in a residential area. But this goes into event planning. All Leagues do this when they pick venues.

Food/Drink- the free food/drink was another disaster. Long lines. The water and Gatorade was warm. Food ran out.

Atmosphere- Embarrassing. Can't tell if its the Barstool culture or just alcohol induced assholes. I hate the stuffiness country club prima donna's that dominate golf but this was the ugly other side of the spectrum. This was such a fun playful banter event. It's jumped the shark IMO.

The Match- Sucks that 2 of our 3 best players were practically zero's on Friday and Saturday. Scary how Scottie is exactly like Tiger and a complete waste in team competitions. Another issue was 2 of the 6 AQ's in English and Henley were also zero's. Keegan didn't do himself any favors pairing English and Morikawa which was statistically the 132nd of 132 possible pairings. Cantlay is impossible to root for. JT, Young, Span, Xander and Griffin (who should have played more) were the only ones who showed up to play. The WD rule has to change. If the US getting a full point is too much fine but no points should be awarded at all. Funny how Solheim Cup the other team gets the full point. Would have been really interesting if that half point was the determining match.

Lastly its just crazy that they talk about tight knit team and all that. I don't buy it one bit. It's forced. But for some reason the European team that has multiple nationalities can bond together. They aren't the best players in the world. Lowry has never been higher than 10th in the world. Fitz was 5th but now 29th. Hatton peaked at 6 five years ago. They just play well together. Not sure who next captain should be. Chamblee was ranting about Freddie (who is my fav golfer of all time) or Leonard. It's not like either were world beaters with their RC records. Not many are actually.

Excellent post. Pretty much nailed everything and while Sunday was a ton of fun the crowd size was brutal. I remember you going to the Ryder Cup a while ago I was curious if you had crowd problems back then. I went to the US Open in 02 and The PGA in I guess it was 19 and both times the crowds weren't an issue. In 02 I wanted to see Tiger so I learned after like 2 holes to skip a hole each time and get ahead of the crowd. Like Eric mentioned we were at 12 too. We figured the whole day could be decided by the first 4 pairings so we decided to jump ahead to 12 and way before the first pairing showed up the crowd was like 8 deep around the hole.

There were a group of like 9 assholes in the stands that were beyond obnoxious with some of their chants they were yelling down to any Euro fan walking by and talking crap pretending to want to fake fight if the Euro fans talked back. They knew no fans could get up in the stands. One guy in particular deserved to get his ass beat

After Rory came up Eric Nat and myself ended up walking back to the International Pavilion and watching the rest there. My body is freaking sore today
 
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I agree with Tom Watson. The Ryder Cup was a black eye for the US. One of the first things they teach about the game is how conduct yourself on the course and how to respect your opponent. Honesty while playing the game when competitive including self-reporting your miss hits/rules violations. Throwing a drink at Rory McElroy's wife was totally despicable and the person who did it should have been arrested.
 
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