Are American Ryder Cup golf fans the most cretinous in world sport?

Nasty, brutish and witless, there will be barrel loads of beery bro culture on display at the Marco Simone course near Rome when the 44th contest begins on Friday. Why are Team USA fans so jingoistic and unsavoury? Jim White has a theory....

USA fans at the Ryder Cup in 2021 (Anthony Behar/PA)

The Ryder Cup’s organisers claim theirs is “an event like no other”. And it certainly has fans like no other sporting occasion. At the last staging of the biennial transatlantic golf fest back in 2021, it was hard to miss them. Or who they supported.

A group of a dozen blokes in shades and baseball caps were kitted out in matching stars and stripes jumpers, with the words “God Bless America” stitched across their chests. And they were noisy. Very noisy.

Stationed at the 16th hole at the American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, very conveniently positioned for a nearby beer tent, across three days of intense golfing action they maintained a relentless barrage of roaring brouhaha. For hours it went on, increasingly boorish as the beers were sunk. Every European player as he arrived at the hole was greeted with arrogant disdain, every American with an aggressive cry of “USA, USA”. Tellingly this was a chant that apparently required the face to be contorted into an ugly mask of superior fury. It was not a pleasant sight for the neutral.