Rory McIlroy says Keegan Bradley failed to calm Ryder Cup crowd

Justin Thomas was among the American players who made attempts to settle the crowd when things escalated. But after the tournament, Bradley defended the fans, describing them as “passionate” and said they handled themselves well from his perspective.

McIlroy disagreed. Speaking on Stick to Football, he said that as US captain, Bradley should have tried to ease the tension.

“But I think whenever, during the competition on Friday night and Saturday night, after the stuff that we heard on the course, I think there was an opportunity for either Keegan or some of the teammates to be like, ‘Let’s just calm down here. Let’s, you know, let’s try to play this match in the right spirit.’

“And some of them did that, but obviously Keegan had the biggest platform of the week as captain. And I feel like he could have said something on that Friday or Saturday night and he didn’t.”

The abuse wasn’t necessarily Bradley’s fault. But a stronger response from him might have helped keep things in check – instead, he backed them.

Keegan Bradley’s failure to calm Ryder Cup fans among his biggest mistakes

Speaking after the tournament, Lowry said the fan abuse hurt the Americans more than it helped them. It brought the tightly-knit European team even closer together, while some of Team USA were visibly embarrassed by the fan behavior.

The atmosphere allowed Europe to adopt a familiar “us against the world” mindset, one that has served them well in past Ryder Cups. Instead of putting pressure on their opponents, fans ended up giving an already strong team extra motivation.

Bradley had his share of questionable decisions as captain, from how he set up Bethpage Black to pairing Harris English with Collin Morikawa. But how he handled—or didn’t handle—the crowd may have been his most significant misstep.

Not only did he fail to calm the crowd, but he also encouraged their “passionate” behavior, and that gave McIlroy and Europe all the motivation they needed to come together and pull off a momentous victory.

Supporting McIlroy wouldn’t have just been about doing what was right; it might have given Team USA their best chance of holding onto the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.