Danny Willett believes his experience of some US fans at Hazeltine proved that his brother Pete’s infamous article was “in fact correct”.
The Masters champion suffered a poor weekend at his first Ryder Cup – not winning a point in three matches – which he expressed in blunt terms when asked at the Team Europe press conference in the aftermath of the 17-11 loss to the USA how his first experience of the event had been.
“Sh*t,” he said to laughs from his team mates and media. “You want me to elaborate? Really sh*t.”
The article by his elder brother – claimed to be “satirical” – described US golf fans as “cretins” and was disowned by Willett and the European team prior to the event starting.
However Willett suffered almost constant heckling through the week and tweeted about his “very strange week here at the Ryder Cup”
“Tried my best but played poorly…unfortunately some American fans showed that @P_J_Willett was in fact correct,” he tweeted.
“Nothing to blame my bad play on..,but still shows that sometimes fans don’t know when to call it a day.. Shame really!!”
The European team continued to play down the effect of the crowd at Hazeltine and praised the reaction of the US team and the majority of fans.
Captain Darren Clarke gave the example of fans policing themselves on the Sunday.
“Rory was taking his practice swing on 16 and as he was about to hit it, some guy shouted in the middle of his backswing,” he said.
“The whole crowd there turned on the guy and pointed who he was out to security, and that guy was swiftly ejected. All that was all done by the American fans.
“It’s only the odd person that created this whole thing. While it was unsavoury and not the right thing to do, 99.9 percent of the crowd pointed straight at the guy and he was taken away.
“So the crowd deserve a lot of credit for their policing of the situation as well.”
