Sir Clive Woodward: I would have stopped the Ryder Cup

Sir Clive Woodward would have told captains Luke Donald and Keegan Bradley to stop the 2025 Ryder Cup as crowd behaviour crossed the line on countless occasions in New York.

Speaking on the NCG Golf Podcast, the legendary coach of England’s Rugby World Cup victory in 2003 saw the scenes at Bethpage as a bad weekend for the sport at times, despite a memorable win for Europe.

Europe won on away soil for the first time since 2012, eventually scraping a tense 15-13 win after a collapse in the Sunday singles. While there were impressive displays from the continent’s best players, the 45th Ryder Cup will be remembered for excessive hostility and vile fan abuse aimed at the visiting team.

Column inches in the build-up were bursting with worries about how the atmosphere created by the US crowd could spill over the top, and in some cases, it exceeded expectations.

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“While it was a great Ryder Cup in many ways, it was quite a sad Ryder Cup – The standards really did go across the line in a negative way, and golf has got to be really, really careful about that,” Woodward told the NCG Golf Podcast.

“The next Ryder Cup is at Adare (Manor, in 2027). I’ve played at Adare, I’ve been to Adare. It’s an amazing course, an amazing venue, a most beautiful place. But even just when the Ryder Cup finished, what happened at the weekend took a bit of shine off it.

“I’m not really saying, ‘Oh great, in two years’ time, it’s Adare’.

“Golf has got to be really, really careful. I think at one stage, if I’d been there and I could have spoken to Keegan Bradley or Luke Donald, I’d have said, ‘Guys, stop, stop the game. Just stop the game. Get all your players, tell them to put the clubs down. We’ll go back to the clubhouse, have a chat about this, and just say to all the fans – we’re not coming out’.

“Because you’ve got to take a stand at some stage.”

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A significant proportion of the worst fan abuse was aimed at Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, which seemed to meet its lowest point on the Saturday and Sunday of the Ryder Cup. Clips have subsequently emerged of weight remarks aimed at Lowry, and shouts about McIlroy’s personal life too, not to mention a beer being thrown at his wife, Erica Stoll.

“I remember McIlroy looking up and (saying) I’m not hitting the shot while this guy is shouting at me. We can’t have that in the game of golf,” Woodward added. “In football, you hear managers coming out and hearing racist terms, they take the players off the field of play. This is no different. This is not acceptable. It just wasn’t even one of those things of ‘because it’s New York’, it was not acceptable.

“There’s a lot more to come out of this yet. How Keegan Bradley is going to carry on playing when he meets everyone again… It went over the line, in my opinion, in a big way and they’ve got to really have a proper inquest in this for golf’s sake as well.

“Whilst I watched every second of it, there’s a lot of stuff where I’m going, this is not a good weekend for golf here.”

Woodward played 21 times for England and twice for the British and Irish Lions before becoming a coach. Spells at Henley and London Irish paved a route to the England under-21s job, before graduating to the country’s hot seat in 1997. Six years later, he masterminded England’s only Rugby World Cup victory.

While rugby is the word or sport that you’d associate first with Woodward, he has a long-term passion for golf, and believes the sport, among others, needs to be careful if the fallout from the most recent Ryder Cup indicates the direction it might be heading.

ALSO: ‘I was angry at what they did to Bethpage’: Was one of the world’s great courses ruined at the Ryder Cup?

Sir Clive Woodward: Ryder Cup crowd behaviour wasn’t acceptable

“Twickenham – it’s actually quite interesting, because at the same time as the Ryder Cup was on, there was an amazing game at Twickenham, 85,000 people watching England,” he added.

“You wouldn’t imagine for a second, someone in the crowd of 85,000 people standing up and using the F word, and if it did, it would all kick off. That would be almost, I wouldn’t say self-policing – you’d be evicted, and you’d be pointed out.

“Every sport has got to be really careful here, and rugby is not immune from this either, because there’s a lot of alcohol that comes into Twickenham now. People do have a few too many beers, and it’s not something we should take for granted.

“From the golfing point of view, I just thought again, it’s just got to stop. When you buy a ticket, and you go into Wentworth, or Woburn or wherever you’re watching these guys play, there’s probably some sort of code of conduct that you agree to and also, if you break it, you know that you’re on the wrong side of the law.”

Woodward is a huge fan of European captain Luke Donald and can relate to his leadership approach of marginal gains, or ‘100 things 1% better’, as he calls it. Before the Ryder Cup, Donald gave his players virtual reality headsets which simulated hostile conditions, in the hope that players would adapt before facing the real thing.

Woodward made the observations shared with many others, even McIlroy himself, that while the US fans aimed their jibes at the Europeans, there seemed to be a distinct lack of vocal support for their own countrymen competing for the stars and stripes.

“You want to be as raucous as you can to support your own team, and I think that’s another reason why the Americans failed. They felt pretty uncomfortable with what was going on as well, especially Scottie Scheffler. He knows these players, they play with them every week. He wouldn’t have liked what was going on. I think it affected their game.

“I didn’t hear people cheering for the American team anywhere (near as much) as booing for the European team. That was because of how the whole tournament was set up, and I think the Americans got it so, so wrong.

“Hindsight is a great virtue, but also I think you’ve got to learn from it. Golf has got to not ignore this. I think there is a lot more to come out of this yet, because it wasn’t acceptable.

“It’s not a case of pointing fingers, because we have got to put the line in the sand. This can’t happen again. You think of the icons of golf, and what they would be thinking, your Nicklaus’ and your Palmers and your Players. They would just be shaking their heads and going, ‘What on earth has happened?’

“We’re supposed to pass on a legacy to all of you guys, to take us to a better place, and you take it to a worse place, and, in fact, to a place where people don’t want to go.

“The thought of going to Adare now, and there’ll be no problems in Adare. The Irish won’t do this, the Irish will be a different league. They won’t allow for this, and they’ll self-police.”

On this NCG Golf Podcast episode, Tom Irwin and Sir Clive Woodward also talk about his golf venture, Stryve. Stryve’s three-stage process helps you understand the basics of every shot. Each stage is packed with expert insights and coaching points, delivering the knowledge you need to help refine your technique, increase consistency, and sharpen your golfing IQ.

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