Ryder Cup 2025: Rory McIlroy endured hell at Bethpage and came out the other side

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy slipped away from the back of the 18th green at Bethpage Black on Sunday, a man who needed a moment to himself. He’s an emotional lad, McIlroy. It was just yesterday that he buried his face in Shane Lowry’s shoulder steps away from here, a cathartic release of anger and hurt and relief that comes from surviving the abuse 50,000 tried to inflict.

The Ryder Cup has a cruel way of exposing McIlroy’s nerves. Two years ago in Rome, he nearly traded blows with the American team in a parking lot melee. Two years before that in Wisconsin, he shattered while speaking of his teammates' unshakeable faith in him, even as he felt he had betrayed an entire continent. He has never hidden behind manufactured composure, and understood his teammates expected him to join their victory huddle, Europe holding on for its impressive if somewhat nerve-wracking 15-13 road win. That would come soon. But right now, he needed peace from a weekend beret of it. A moment earned through stubborn will that can only be measured against the crushing reality that it might never come.

“It's nice to be right,” McIlroy said afterward, in glow of the Europeans’ tighter-than-expected Sunday triumph. “I'm not right all the time.”

McIlroy was not Europe's leading points scorer—that distinction belonged to Tommy Fleetwood, who went 4-0-1. He was not their most dependable performer; that would be Jon Rahm, the Spanish bulldozer who has tormented American dreams for three consecutive Ryder Cups. But McIlroy is their spiritual fulcrum, their true north. When he bleeds, they all bleed. When he roars, they follow into battle. Only McIlroy possessed the audacity to declare, as he did amid the euphoria at Marco Simone, that Europe would conquer Bethpage—pounding his fist on the table for emphasis while his teammates erupted in approval, because this wasn't bravado but gospel flowing from their preacher.

This week, however, he walked knowingly into a storm that proved more savage than even he could have imagined and emerged unbowed on the other side. In doing so, McIlroy has transcended any stardom of the present into a realm impervious to time.

Such elevation is something only earned through performance, and McIlroy delivered. He steamrolled to a crushing 5-and-4 victory alongside Tommy Fleetwood in Friday morning foursomes, unleashing a merciless barrage of birdies against the bewildered pairing of Harris English and Collin Morikawa. He salvaged a crucial half-point with Lowry that afternoon when momentum hung in the balance. The Americans, gluttons for punishment, trotted out English and Morikawa again Saturday morning, and McIlroy and Fleetwood gleefully administered another beatdown—punctuated by McIlroy drilling an approach to gimme range on the 16th after a spectator hurled profanity in his direction. Saturday afternoon felt like the beginning of a coronation march.

Instead, McIlroy was about to walk through hell.

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In fairness, McIlroy had painted a target on his own behind. His behavior since capturing the career Grand Slam had taken an odd turn—uncharacteristic confrontations and a defiant refusal to explain himself or apologize to anyone. This wasn't the beloved McIlroy that American galleries had championed for 15 years, the same crowds who had willed him to Augusta National lore just months earlier. His Rome prophecy echoed in their minds, as did the scene at the Players Championship where he had snatched a heckler's phone. Add the natural Ryder Cup bloodlust that turns every opposing player into prey, and McIlroy had willingly cast himself as chief antagonist. He embraced the role with theatrical flair—blowing mocking kisses to the first-tee grandstands, flexing defiantly after holed putts, goading the masses with every gesture. It was a badge of honor; they only hate who they fear.

To television viewers, it appeared he was stoking the fire, practically begging for their venom. But that narrative ignores the reality of what unfolded.

No player in modern Ryder Cup history endured the relentless, systematic dehumanization McIlroy faced on Saturday. It was one of the most shameful spectacles this event has seen—a sustained campaign of cruelty that should embarrass every golf fan and American. For five hours, they questioned his manhood, recited the lowest moments of his career, screamed personal rumors as truth. Every five minutes brought fresh torrents of F-bombs hurled like grenades. They bellowed and booed as he lined up shots, sometimes even mid-swing, violating the gallery code. Every Ryder Cup spawns its share of knuckle-dragging behavior, but never has the abuse been this thunderous, this universal, this unrelenting.

And the fans weren't even acting alone. A first-tee emcee weaponized the crowd, imploring them to chant "**** YOU RORY!" like some deranged cult leader. Volunteers and rules officials stood by with indifference, deaf to McIlroy's pleas for decency, allowing the circus to spiral. For a guy who has always treated the Ryder Cup as sacred, he spent Saturday afternoon looking like a prisoner of war—bewildered by how the event he cherished had morphed into public execution, devastated that a country where he’s lived would savage him so completely.

No reasonable observer would have blamed McIlroy for crumbling under this assault. Instead, he and Lowry savagely dismantled Justin Thomas and Cameron Young, clinching vital points that left America staring into the abyss of a Sunday miracle mission. McIlroy remarked “it was for others to decide” if the crowd crossed a line. Only after leaving the green did McIlroy allow the emotional dam to burst, collapsing under the weight of a marathon that spectators had convinced him would never end. He later confided to teammates that Saturday's gauntlet had inflicted deeper wounds than what Masters Sunday presented.

(It wasn’t just Rory that had to absorb the vitriol, but his wife, walking with his group, too. “I was out there for two days with Erica McIlroy,” said Lowry on Sunday evening, “and the amount of abuse that she received was astonishing and the way she was out there supporting her husband and supporting her team was unbelievable, and kudos to her for that."

Rory McIlroy walks off with his wife Erica after winning his match during the Saturday afternoon fourballs, both enduring a torrent of jeers from the Bethpage crowd.

David Cannon

Unfortunately, Sunday brought only marginal mercy in McIlroy’s heavyweight bout against Scottie Scheffler. Beefed-up security formed a protective wall, and European fans who had swooped in to buy tickets that panicked Americans dumped on the secondary market created a slightly less venomous atmosphere. But the reprieve was fleeting. Hole after hole, McIlroy still absorbed fresh barrages—screams about women who weren't his wife, taunts about his Pinehurst nightmare, mockery of his nationality, his height, nonsense spewed by hecklers who confused sadism with comedy. Through almost each assault, McIlroy maintained restraint. But even steel bends under enough pressure, and as Sunday dragged on, you could see the accumulated trauma of the week slowly crushing his spirit—all while trying to duel the world's most dominant player.

Small wonder McIlroy posted one of the day's most forgettable rounds, ranking 18th among the 22 players in strokes gained. He somehow dragged Scheffler to the 18th hole before succumbing, but in every meaningful sense, this felt like triumph disguised as defeat.

Afterward, when reporters circled, McIlroy delivered the expected platitudes—admitting he was "running on empty," thanking Luke Donald and the vice captains for keeping his sanity intact. Politically correct. Professionally reasonable. But later, when his armor finally cracked, McIlroy peeled back the curtain and revealed the inferno he survived.

“I don't think we should ever accept that in golf. I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week,” McIlroy said. “Golf has the ability to you unite people. Golf teaches you very good life lessons. It teaches you etiquette. It teaches you how to play by the rules. It teaches you how to respect people. Sometimes this week we didn't see that.”

Richard Heathcote

McIlroy grimly noted instead of fans cheering on Scheffler, there were only arrows aimed squarely at him. When pressed about the arrival of police officers and their snarling German shepherds, McIlroy's eyes flashed as he suggested, only half-joking, that he wished those dogs had been unleashed on the crowd. He closed the subject by drawing his brightest red line: families should remain out-of-bounds, especially after watching his wife Erica get pelted with a beer on Saturday. Finally unburdened, McIlroy leaned back and savored a long pull of his own beverage, a man who had earned every drop.

He deserves to enjoy the dividends, the week serving as a capstone to the finest year of his career. His Masters breakthrough forever silenced the doubters who questioned his finishing ability, his resilience, his capacity to be the player he once was so many years ago. He added the Players Championship, conquered Pebble Beach, and claimed his national Irish Open.

But this Ryder Cup transcended victories. His sixth triumph moved him past Tony Jacklin on the all-time points leaderboard, with José María Olazábal and Seve Ballesteros now within striking distance. He had made good on his audacious Roman prophecy with interest.

It should be noted they call McIlroy the "Man in the Arena" for his Ryder Cup heroics, a tribute to both his theatrical brilliance and competitive ferocity. But that nickname overlooks the wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt's immortal words from the speech of the same name:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

His conduct this week—as both performer and human being—cannot be measured by score alone. True greatness demands accepting the risk of heartbreak and humiliation and criticism, because vulnerability is the price of immortality.

Which explains why McIlroy finally cracked when Donald began speaking about the team's sacred bond, about what this brotherhood means to men willing to bleed for each other's dreams. With nowhere left to hide, nowhere left to run, McIlroy tears came. The kind that flow only when you surrender to something larger than yourself.