Editorial: Rory McIlroy helps his Ryder Cup teammates forge a path to victory through aggressive US fan behaviour

​The Ryder Cup is very nearly a century old and has long been a forum for friendly rivalry between Europe and the United States.

In fact it began in 1927 as a competition between Britain and the US, and while it would not quite be right to say that the American revolution of the 1770s was still within living memory of that first competition, it was a much fresher historical rift than it is now.

The biennial event is an outlet for transatlantic competition and can rouse significant passions. But there was a harder edge to the American nationalism this year, in which the Northern Irish golfer Rory McIlroy and his Irish team-mate Shane Lowry displayed understandable frustration.

The raucous US fan chants of ‘USA, USA’, now a staple of not only the Ryder Cup but other big golfing events (it was heard in support of players such as Scottie Scheffler at the Open in Portrush this very summer), became particularly apparent at the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline, Massachusetts.

American fan exuberance that year, which at one point was described as “most unfortunate” even by the legendary and even-tempered late TV commentator Peter Alliss, was matched by a premature invasion of the green by the US team itself when Justin Leonard sank a very long putt, before José María Olazábal had attempted a shorter, but still long, one, which would have kept the score even (he missed).

All in all, the passion of golfing fans is typically all part of cliffhanger sporting moments.

This year, however, there seemed to be an extra force to the American nationalism. It seems almost to be a reflection of these tense geopolitical times, and the rise of America First sentiment.

All credit goes to Rory and his European team-mates for their sportsmanship and their victory in such an at times trying atmosphere in New York.