A masterpiece of Ryder Cup drama with a truth Donald Trump could never understand

Friday at the Ryder Cup was the story of two tee shots, the first allowing mawkish pageantry and discourse to melt into actual golf, an ever-fascinating moment of folklore and fate. The second, five hours later, was significant not for the sport but the man Robert MacIntyre called “just another spectator”.

In his endless benevolence, Donald Trump arrived just before midday, a futile attempt to avoid inconveniencing fans, with one calling it “the most disorganised event I’ve ever been to”. And in a way he was always here, an endless shadow cast by not only the lingering prospect of his arrival but by an event seemingly designed for him, taking time out from his busy schedule of curing autism and failing to end whichever conflict has grabbed his eye this week.

In his home state, in a county which voted for him last year, playing a sport with largely right-leaning fans and overwhelmingly conservative players, this was Trump Day of the Trump Ryder Cup. As both Bryson DeChambeau and the White House Press Secretary have claimed, it would not be happening without him, having averted a minor rail strike. Even European fans now do jingoism through a Trump lens with “Make Europe Great Again” caps and T-shirts depicting Luke Donald in the Oval Office reading: “There’s a new Donald in town.”

A tepid Friday morning atmosphere can be attributed to the unfortunate outbreak of sobriety, but given the televised evidence that funny Americans do exist, it was remarkable how few of them appeared to be in Bethpage. The fabled bearpit of New York vulgarity this was not, hollering “tuck your shirt in” at Ludvig Åberg as he waited at the first tee, despite the fact he was clearly wearing a sweater vest and his shirt was tucked in. You guys! It is a surprise the lingering Secret Service weren’t called into action.

Sports crowds are generally becoming meaner and more crass, but even fuelled by Trump and Michelob Ultra, gratuitous and unimaginative digs at players’ weight were seemingly the apex of humour, almost exclusively wielded by lone voices desperate for attention and water.

Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Ryder Cup, not because he is the first who cared enough about golf, but because he is the first who didn’t care enough about its supporters. His sojourn lasted two hours and didn’t involve him making it much past the first tee. It cost the American people about $15 million. But a 79-year-old egomaniac got to play at being on the Ryder Cup team for 10 minutes, and so every attender’s memory will always be marked and marred by Trump, just as was the case for the US Open tennis final, the Super Bowl or the Daytona 500 in February. Everything he touches becomes part of the circus, an inevitable power you get the sense he enjoys wielding.

When asked, most players opted to focus on the office rather than the man, on the “keep politics out of golf” schtick, increasingly difficult when politics is doing a flyby of the grandstand in Air Force One, when politics forces spectators through an interminable doomloop of security scanners and stops people bringing in chairs and umbrellas and vapes, when politics has its arm round DeChambeau as he approaches the first tee of the fourballs.

And so Keegan Bradley, JJ Spaun and Sam Burns all did versions of the “Trump dance” in front of its supposed originator, while fans hit it en masse to the strains of YMCA, having cheered as snipers assumed their positions. Justin Rose chatted and Rory McIlroy pointed. McIlroy said on Thursday that America is “the best country in the world, and if you come here and work hard and dedicate yourself, you can be or do whatever you want”, which might well be true if you’re a generationally gifted golfer.

Scottie Scheffler opted for “he treats everybody the same and treats people with the utmost respect”. As a sport populated by obscenely wealthy loners, the almost ubiquitous right-wing tendency of professional golfers is not news but the obsequiousness still jarred.

The Ryder Cup remains unique in golf for its meaning and idealism, supposedly the one competition too sacred to be sullied by discussions of money, but the pre-tournament farrago focused on little else. The US team are being paid for the first time – $500,000 each, which all 12 players are donating to charities of their choice. It is unclear whether such generosity was always the plan, but it has unquestionably become something good, unless you’re connected to Team Europe.

“We’re fuelled by something money cannot buy,” Donald snidely proclaimed in his opening ceremony speech, as though “brotherhood”, “responsibility” and “adequate payment for your services” are mutually exclusive. We are long past any romantic notions that sport and money are separable.

At $750 (£550) per day for the cheapest matchday tickets – three times the price in Rome two years ago – this is one of the most expensive sporting events in the world. Even the 4,300 “volunteers” are actually paying about $400 a head for the privilege of standing near the course for long hours in searing heat, more than a standard ticket at Whistling Straits in 2021 when attendances were restricted by Covid.

A beer costs $15. “There are people who have the Ryder Cup on their bucket list,” said Bryan Karns, the PGA of America championship director. It used data from a partner company to see what local fans pay for other major events, ignoring that a ticket to any of those events means you can see all the action. It bears repeating that golf is not a good spectator sport by any metric. You normally even get a seat included, or don’t have to trek your way round, or walk for almost an hour to the course because the surrounding infrastructure is collapsing.

But then this is almost the unanimous approach across modern sport: we can charge you more, so why wouldn’t we? We know you’ll pay it, so whose fault is this really? Thirty thousand people were on the waiting list to “volunteer”; $10,000 per day hospitality packages sold out.

By Friday morning 2025 Ryder Cup merch was the most common fashion choice. Are we supposed to not exploit you? The current theory is that there’s always a richer or more gullible fan, an idea the Ryder Cup appears set to stress-test to breaking point.

Sport and attention might well be the two most enduring and genuine loves of Trump’s life, comfortably outlasting any person or belief, and he has finally managed to successfully synthesise and weaponise the two. The White House told The Athletic this week that Trump is “the greatest champion for sports of any president in American history”.

This is America’s sporting decade, and as such Trump’s sporting decade. Everyone wants American money and American influence, American eyeballs and hearts and minds. The World Cup is here next year, the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028. Fifa has rented an office in Trump Tower.

Only four years ago the PGA of America removed the PGA Championship from Trump Bedminster in the wake of 6 January, but the PGA Tour will return to Trump National Doral next year for the first time since his initial election, marking it as a Signature Event, meaning it is mandatory for the world’s best players.

Scheffler and McIlroy are headlining a team competition held at Trump National Golf Club in December. Whether the PGA invited Trump to Bethpage or whether he invited himself is unclear, but his commandeering of the spotlight completes a depressing volte-face even by the impossibly low standards of sports chiefs. This is without delving into his plans to celebrate 250 years of American independence with a UFC event on the White House lawn next 4 July.

Twilight again on Friday. Presumably inspired by Trump, the midges are wresting back control. McIlroy just misses a putt on the 18th which would have given Europe a 6-2 first-day lead. The weather feels closer, everything else further away.

Despite everything, after one of the great European days on US soil, the Ryder Cup remains a masterpiece of sporting entertainment, perfectly paced, an arena to forge legend, something always happening and mattering. Somewhere in the middle of this is sport’s unparalleled ability to endure, grounded in an inherent, original truth that Trump will never quite be able to penetrate or fully understand.

And yet it shouldn’t have to depend on its cactus quality to flourish in even the harshest conditions. Ben Griffin and Justin Rose trading long putts at the seventh would still be impressive if everyone had paid £100,000 to watch them on Darth Vader’s private links.

A World Cup final in a Qatari stadium purpose-built by exploited migrant workers might well be the best ever for pure sporting theatre. Trump knows this. Executives know this. Fans know this. And yet they can only watch as limits are pushed ever further, as someone else co-opts it for their gain. Where does it end?

Photograph by Mandel Ngan/AP