The most unforgettable hour of this year’s Ryder Cup — heck, one of the wildest hours of golf this year — came on Saturday evening with just one group left on the course.
I won’t use this space to run back through every moment (I did a fair amount of that here) but to sum things up, the entire proceeding at Marco Simone had suddenly gone wild. The European crowd had turned up the dial all the way and then snapped it clean off. It was intense, electric, pressure-packed, hostile, fun. By the time Patrick Cantlay reached the drivable par-4 16th he was greeted by a massive fan-filled amphitheater, thousands deep, and the large majority of them were waving their hats in his direction.
What happened next was nothing short of surreal. Cantlay poured in a birdie putt at 16, another birdie putt on 17 and then the true shocker: a 43-footer for birdie at the par-5 18th that sent the American team into a hat-waving frenzy and sent Rory McIlroy (and Joe LaCava) into confrontation mode. Professional golf never sees scenes quite like that one.
What made it such a strange, modern story was that the fan fervor — particularly the way it was directed at the hatless Cantlay — had stemmed from a Sky Sports report that had circulated on Twitter midway through the morning session, citing Cantlay’s hatlessness as a protest over not getting paid to be there and alleging that protest had “fractured” the U.S. team room.
But even in real time, Cantlay’s team (plus other U.S. team members) pushed back against that narrative. Cantlay himself called them “outright lies.” And on Tuesday, Max Homa, the U.S. team’s top points-getter, denied it in no uncertain terms, calling reports of a fractured team room, in his words, “the biggest bulls— I can remember, maybe ever.”
That’s the message he delivered on the No Laying Up podcast on Tuesday in a 90-minute recap episode detailing his week at the center of all things Ryder Cup. The interview is worth a listen (here on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts) even if just for the 20-minute explanation of his final knee-knocking putt. But his insight into HatGate is useful context in thinking about the U.S. team and how the weekend played out.
So, how’d things look from his perspective? On Saturday afternoon, Homa and partner Brian Harman had just won their own match on the 17th green before returning to sit behind the green at No. 16, where Cantlay’s group was teeing off, in desperate pursuit of a point that would bring the U.S. team within 5.
It didn’t look good, they were 1 down with three to play. And they’re walking down the fairway and absolutely everybody — 10, 20,000 people — has their hat off, waving it,” Homa told hosts Chris Solomon and D.J. Piehowski on the podcast.
And we just think they’re f—- with Pat because he’s not wearing a hat. That’s all we thought. So they’re doing it and he’s doing it back. Pat’s being the most sarcastic, laughing at everybody. Every time we’d see him we’d do the fake hat [tip] thing. I mean, it was hilarious. We’re all laughing like this is so fun, this is what the Ryder Cup’s all about.
“Pat’s embracing it. And then Pat goes Pat. Made 10-footer, 9-footer, 35-footer. It was nuts. Going back to what Brooks said [earlier in the week], Pat wants the damn ball. There ain’t no denying that. He is unbelievable. And he did the coolest thing I’ve seen in all of golf in I can’t remember. Those three putts in those three holes was tremendous.”
At this point, neither Cantlay nor even Homa have heard much about this report. Cantlay received a brief briefing after his round, but when the two players were among six American players who arrived at the media center for interviews, they were surprised at what awaited them. .
“The first 15 to 18 questions were about Pat’s hat,” Homa said incredulously. “This is the first time we found out – and so did Pat – that’s why people did this, because he was protesting the team in some way from the United States because he wasn’t allowed to do it. pay to compete. This is just bull…. It was the strangest thing ever. We couldn’t stop people from asking about the hat. I remember at one point they finally asked a question that wasn’t about the hat, [Wyndham] chimed in, I said something, and the next question was about the hat. It’s like it’s very strange.
“A tweet, man. One tweet set all of Rome on fire.
Homa said he, Cantlay and the rest of the group felt let down by what they saw as irresponsible journalism. He looked into the various allegations and said any perceived rift was a product of circumstances and not anything else.
They said they had a different dressing room than us, which was funny. They said they wouldn’t eat with us. They said they don’t do X, Y and Z, [Cantlay] and Alex. And it’s funny because it’s like our team room doesn’t even have a door. So we were all in the same room. Yes, we have to bring different types of cars to the yard every day because that’s the way things are. People eat at different times, because depending on the time you finish eating, how quickly you get home depends on when you can eat. You go back to the hotel at 9:00, do physical therapy, take an ice bath, exercise, do whatever, and then try to go to bed as quickly as possible because you have to get up at 4:00. At those times everyone was divided. And when we’re at the golf course, everyone’s together.
“We love Pat and Alex. Apparently it’s two peas in a pod. But that doesn’t make me lose my friendship with Pat and Alex any more than before. There is no division. So it’s kind of strange to hear all this news and deal with it all. But it made him happy because – I don’t know, that Saturday night was one of the funnest parties –. The pictures, the videos, everything, man. It makes the week more fun.
For Homa, who in the same podcast diagnosed himself as “too online,” the moment was an eye-opening look at the world of social media itself.
“It seems I finally understand. Like, none of these people know. People just say nonsense. You can tweet anything you want. And a lot of people said: ‘Pat only cares about the money, not the Ryder Cup.’ He intended to ignore it. It seems that none of this is correct.
After the Cup, the issue of player remuneration came to the fore – partly prompted by a number of interviews given by Stefan Schauffele, Alex’s father. Homa said he could neither confirm nor deny the two’s thoughts on player compensation and even emphasized that the issue was worth discussing without intending to offend anyone. But he insisted it wasn’t a distraction because it was never mentioned.
“I agree with you that it would be very distracting if that happened. But this is not the case. Like we never talked about it. Literally no. Pat didn’t object to not wearing a hat and we talked about not getting paid every time.
Homa concluded that that week was “the most fun I’ve ever had.” He said the team “had a lot of fun together and the atmosphere was great, even when we were getting killed.”
His takeout?
“I guess this is the first time I’ve been immersed in one of those types of stories where it’s so weird because I can’t tell you how wrong what I read back online was, how wrong it was. and it’s stupid.