AN AMERICAN IDIOT MOCKS HIS TEAM AND WRONGLY BOTHERS RORY MCILROY
A caddie named Joe LaCava was sloppy in waving his hat after Patrick Cantlay made a long putt, leading to a near-fracas between McIlroy and another caddie, Bones Mackay, in a shameful U.S. moment
Let’s just all be Americans, even when it’s an awful idea. The Ryder Cup score soon would be 10 1/2 - 5 1/2, well in favor of Europe, but Joe LaCava chose to play a cheap game on the course that only would be appreciated by Donald Trump. He should have adopted event etiquette when the caddie’s player, Patrick Cantlay, made a 43-foot putt on the 18th hole that finally gave a boost to a struggling, controversy-muddled U.S. team.
But LaCava, who once worked years for Tiger Woods and helped him win his 2019 Masters, kept waving his hat from the green. This wasn’t appreciated by the Europeans or their star player, Rory McIlroy, who still could have halved the match if he made his putt and took time asking LaCava to move out of his way. When he missed the shot Saturday, barely keeping the Americans alive in a suddenly nutty scrum ending this morning, LaCava was the evil enemy.
And moments later, as McIlroy was trying to climb into a BMW for a ride back to the team hotel, he was incensed when another U.S. caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay, tried to say something to him. McIlroy became livid and told Mackay to get lost, screaming “F bombs” before shouting at American Justin Thomas’ helper, “This can't happen. This can't happen. It's a f—ing disgrace.” Not until McIlroy’s wife grabbed him by the midsection and was ordered into the car by his teammate, Shane Lowry, did we understand what just happened at an event known for the pride and joy of golf.
Rightfully so, McIlroy took off on Mackay for being where he shouldn’t have been, at a valet stand outside Marco Simone Golf Club. Was he there to make amends for LaCava? Or maybe rub in the hurt? Nothing is wrong with showing enthusiasm for Cantlay, especially when Europe’s fans were blasting him all day about an erroneous media story — you know, something about wanting to be paid to participate in the Ryder Cup, which made him not wear a hat during play. But not showing McIlroy amid the faith of the sport was American sloppiness. On NBC, which isn’t shying from the fiasco with this in the morning and Taylor Swift watching Travis Kelce at night, the replay showed LaCava walking away but returning to utter something else to McIlroy.
“I mean, a few scenes they’re on 18 and just fuel for the fire tomorrow,” McIlroy said before the near-fracas.
Said European captain Luke Donald, “Obviously, I was there on 18. I saw it unfold when Patrick made that putt. Joe was waving his hat. Obviously, there was some hat-waving going on throughout the day from the crowd for our players. Talked to Rory. He politely asked Joe to move aside. He was in his line of vision. He stood there and didn't move for a while and continued to wave the hat, so I think Rory was upset about that. From what Rory told me, he did ask Joe to move. He took a long time to move. It was a little off-putting because he still had to putt.”
Some of our lads will say this is golfers acting like basketball players, football players and Ultimate Fighting Championship goofs. I say let golf remain the one civil sport, particularly when rival continents are vying for a championship. The Euros need only four points to extend victories against the Americans to 30-plus years on overseas soil, meaning they’ve beaten us in 10 of the last 14 showdowns. Wasn’t LaCava’s stunt an offshoot of the changing rivalry? The players understand when galleries are out of hand, which has hampered both teams through time. Of all matters, they were gouged in Rome after a British report said the U.S. team is fractured, and while it makes sense some LIV haters on the squad would dislike Brooks Koepka’s appearance, the story had to do with Cantlay. He’s a character and supposedly wants players paid to be Ryder Cup-compensated, but he said the story is wrong. And he didn’t wear a cap not because he didn’t like it — have you seen how terrible they look? — but he felt better without it. He also didn’t wear one in 2021, when the U.S. won at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
“I've never had so many standing ovations going to tee boxes and greens," Cantlay said. “I thought it was fantastic. You know, I told Wyndham (Clark) when we were going to the first tee today that we were going to use all the energy out there as fuel, and we did. It’s just about Team USA and representing our country.”
A comeback won’t happen. The Euros are loaded with Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm — and McIlroy, still burning — and know the biggest last-day rally ever is four points. They lead by five. But at least there’s a reason to watch, which came a day after Koepka ripped Rahm and said, “I mean, I want to hit a board and pout just like Jon Rahm did. But, you know, it is what it is. Act like a child. But we're adults. We move on.”
They did not.
“I really believe that everybody on this team believes in each other," American Max Homa said. “It is a massive hole, don't get me wrong. But I believe in every single one of these people to put a point on the board. And yeah, I don't think that there's been a second that's gone by where it hasn't been like that. So hopefully we'll go out there tomorrow and just go crazy like we can.”
In this case, Joe LaCava and Bones Mackay can keep their distance. They’ve already caused an international incident, never their place in the world when they’re here to chart drives and guide putts. The valet stand isn’t for them.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.