I was at the training ground late Monday afternoon Ryder Cupso does Bryson DeChambeau. He was alone, signing autographs for a handful of people on the other side of the railing, and one woman, a middle-aged blonde in a tight white dress, leaned toward him. She was only a couple of feet away from him, but she was screaming in his ear as if she was trying to reach someone on the far side of the golf course. “We love you, Bryson! Bryson! We love you! We love you for everything you've done for Donald! We love you for everything you've done for Donald!”
It was a long and strange week, and as I look back on it now, golf is filled with vivid memories of the strange scenes at Bethpage Black and the surrounding town of Farmingdale. I'd like to say that what I remember best is Scotty Scheffler's 180-yard approach shot on the 10th, or Rory McIlroy's 40-foot putt on the 6th, or Jon Rahm's rough putt discount on the 8th. But that's not true.
This is the first man I met when I got to the field who was wearing a T-shirt with photos of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and the slogan “It's Official – Trump Beats Women,” and the one I talked to later who was wearing a top that said “Alex Jones Did Nothing Wrong.” It's the wild grin on the face of New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul as she was shouted furiously by thousands during the opening ceremony, and it's the cop in the parking lot who demanded, “Let me see my ID” when I said good morning because he wasn't satisfied with the press cred hanging around my neck.
It's a yard sign that says, “We're all Charlie Kirk now.” And this is the argument I observed between a couple of middle-aged white golfers and a young black girl on a 7:20 p.m. train after she refused to move a large cardboard box occupying the last two empty seats in the car, which ended with him shouting, “It's the Long Island Rail Road bitch and I'm sitting on your shit!” when he lunged at her things. This is the woman who told everyone else off for “letting him talk to a woman like that,” and this is the old man who turned around and told her that she was “everything that's wrong with this country.”
This is the scene at dawn on the first morning, when the shuttle buses that were supposed to take everyone from the station got stuck and everyone spilled out into the streets to get to the field. They're dumb twenty-something thirty-somethings who decided to attack the level crossing while the next train was approaching the turn because they were in such a rush and it was the driver sticking his head out the window and cursing at them while his brakes squealed. It's endless lines, closed roads and underpaid concession workers complaining to unsympathetic police that they need to come in for their shifts.
It's “Lucky Son” playing on the speakerphone. These are snipers on the roof of the club. It's “airport security” behind the podium and the Secret Service man telling the man in front of me, “I'll let you bring this apple with you, but I need you to understand that if you throw it at the President, you'll go to jail.” There's Air Force One flying low over the first tee, there's the presidential limousine pulling up, and a glimpse of the familiar yellow crest flapping in the wind. This is Keegan Bradley doing the Trump shuffle.
It's Scheffler telling a room full of European journalists that the only thing he knows about the president from personal experience is that “he treats everyone the same and treats people with the utmost respect” on the very day Trump stood up at the UN General Assembly and said, “Your countries are going to hell.”
These are the people who are munching double cheeseburgers at 8am because they had all-inclusive tickets. This is comedian Heather McMahan, host of Stage One. squeals: “Fuck you, Rory!” into the microphone at dawn. This Team USA put together one of the worst team performances I've ever seen in any sport over two days, and it's a sickening feeling when you watch them take over the leaderboard during Sunday singles and think, “Surely not?” McIlroy turns around and tells the crowd to “shut up” before throwing an iron shot to two feet.
And he thinks that if you boil a frog, you'll have to turn up the temperature slowly so he doesn't notice it's being cooked, and he flies home and looks out the window and wonders how many people downstairs noticed how hot the water is.
