Souhan: Irish eyes are trained on Ryder Cup

DUBLIN – The Ryder Cup can inflame passion, as it did at Hazeltine in 2016, when Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy screamed in exultation over every made putt, and fans verbally abused McIlroy in a sometimes-vulgar display of over-the-top patriotic fervor.

With the 2025 Ryder Cup set to start on Friday at Bethpage Black, a few prominent members of the Dublin golf community reflected on their favorite golfing sons, and the Irish perspective on one of the few competitions in the world that specifically pits Europe and the United States.

Eric Byrne, assistant club pro at Elm Park Golf Club in Dublin, doesn’t foresee the Irish members of the European team behaving the way Reed did.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think it would be more of what we would call a `gentle slagging.’ A bit of back-and-forth, all right, but I don’t think it would get as personal.”

The European team features two Irish players. Shane Lowry grew up in Clara, which is about an hour’s drive from Dublin. Rory McIlroy is from Northern Ireland and competes for Ireland in the Olympics.

Lowry spends much of his time in the United States but maintains a membership at Castle Golf Club in Dublin. McIlroy is known to play occasionally in Dublin, and Peter Morgan, the head pro at Elm Park Golf and Sports Club, is friends with McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond.

On Thursday in Dublin, Philip Hollowed, the golf and facilities manager at Castle Golf Club, stood with his back to the course’s improbably green first hole and rhapsodized about Ireland’s place on golf’s world stage.

“It’s one of those events that resonates beyond the normal pool of golf. We get our feed of PGA events on the TV pretty much every weekend. The Ryder Cup is different. There’s something special to it, in part because it’s biannual, but there’s also a tribalism to it.

“It’s always nice when Europe wins and you see the players celebrating with their respective flags. They’re very proud to represent their country, and the continent. I suppose it is a strange event because it is one of the only events on our sporting calendar where you can represent Europe.”

Lowry has earned the reputation of being a man of the people.

“He’s been a member here for about seven or eight years,” Hollowed said. “Very, very quiet, a very unassuming guy. Very laid back, down to earth. He’s very well-received when he comes here.

“And people here have a lot of respect for Rory. The border seems to disappear when we’re talking about golf. It’s a very small island. A lot of sports on the island are `Ireland’ sports, not separating the two countries — like we’re an all-Ireland team in the Olympics.

Castle golf pro Colin Clancy works for Golf Digest, grew up practicing alongside Harrington and is friends with Lowry. He was at Hazeltine National for the 2016 Ryder Cup and called Irish interest in the event “massive.”

“It’s very positive,” he said. “It’s the biggest thing on the calendar, isn’t it? And we’re happy with some good reps there.

“We’re nearly spoiled for it. Harrington is from Stackstown [Golf Club, south of Dublin], so we’re used to having a local boy represented. Shane’s based in the States, so we don’t see him that often, but he always drops in when he’s around.”

Why wouldn’t he? The golf clubs around Dublin seem to be uniformly lush and relaxed.