The fire was so short of fuel it was in danger of quietly extinguishing itself; that is, before Danny Willett’s brother stoked things up with a little bit of name-calling, another bit of mud-slinging and even a piece of good, old shit-stirring.
And, hey presto, the 41st Ryder Cup flared up. Let's put it this way: the US team room is now set to have a copy of Peter Willett's article denegrating American golf fans and what they stand for to post beside the enlarged Arnold Palmer pictures for inspiration.
Poor Danny Willett, the Masters champion didn't know what hit him when Europe's captain Darren Clarke pulled him aside for a quiet word. It wasn't his fault, nothing to do with him. But if the ground could have opened up and swallowed him, he'd have been appreciative. It didn't, and he had to listen to his captain's speak.
"I showed it to Danny, and he's bitterly disappointed in his brother's article. It is not what Danny thinks. It is not what I think. It is not what Team Europe stands for," said Clarke, speaking clearly and calmly about the piece which appeared in British publication 'National Club Golfer'.
In the article, Willett’s brother – Peter – wrote of what two teams needed to do to win the Ryder Cup.
He wrote, “For the Americans to stand a chance of winning, they need their baying mob of imbeciles to caress their egos every step of the way.
“Team Europe needs to shut those groupies up. They need to silence the pudgy, basement-dwelling, irritants, stuffed on cookie dough and beer, pausing between mouthfuls of hot dog so they can scream ‘Baba-booey’ until their jelly faces turn red. They need to smash the obnoxious dads, with their shiny teeth, Lego man hair, medicated ex-wives and resentful children. Squeezed into their cargo shorts and boating shoes, they’ll bellow ‘get in the hole’ whilst high-fiving all the other members of the Dentists’ Big Game Hunt Society.”
Let’s just say that European captain Clarke didn’t see the funny side of it all. After years of planning and careful political correctness, a theme that had continued this week with his team love-bombing the American fans by stopping to sign copious amounts of autographs and standing for photos, Clarke told of how “disappointed” he was at the tenor of the piece and added: “That’s an outside person expressing their opinion which is not representative of what our thoughts are.”
Clarke talked of how Willett, the player, would be expressing his dissatisfaction to his brother, Willett, the writer.
“The article is very, very disappointing and that is not reflective of Team Europe. That is not the way we view things. The fans could not have been nicer and better to us this week and hopefully that continues. As I say, the article was beyond our control and Danny is bitterly disappointed himself. It is up to Danny to speak to his brother. I will leave that between siblings . . . I will leave it to Danny to resolve that.”
US captain Davis Love was aware of the article but had refused to read it. “If I read it, I’m just going to get mad. If I read it, I’m just going to get defensive. So I just try to ignore it,” said the USA captain. Easier said than done. Something smelling rather unpleasant had already hit the fan.
