RIDGE RUNNER CHRONICLES: Is Golf Still the “Gentleman’s Game”?

By Editor | October 22, 2025 |

By Bill Hoagland

For years, the game of golf has been regarded as the “gentleman’s game” because it focuses on calm nerves, quiet demeanor and being consistent and reliable over the long haul. But if you watched any part of the recent Ryder Cup match, played at the Beth Page Golf Course in New York, you might think that it is anything but a gentleman’s game any more. The crowd was unusually antagonistic and rowdy, particularly toward the Irish team who was playing against the Americans. There were so many F-bombs between the gallery and the players that I thought I was watching a Netflix movie instead of a storied golf tournament.
Most Americans who watched the match were embarrassed by the behavior of the fans. Tom Watson said he was “ashamed.” Luke Donald, a steady influence in professional golf, said the Americans lost their sense of civility. One commentator said it best when he said the Americans in the gallery were acting “like baying Romans in an amphitheater.” And Rory McElroy, one of the Irish team members, said he would never play in the Ryder Cup again. (During the match, someone threw a cup of beer at his wife and others were yelling during his swings just to distract him.) So it begs the question: is golf still the “gentleman’s game”?
I am sure everyone who plays golf has their stories of embarrassing behavior involving an outing of golf. Usually excessive alcoholic consumption is at the heart of the matter, which is probably why the Ryder Cup became so ugly. I wrote a column last year about nine drunk golfers who were pushing the servers at a fashionable restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona when Paul Bissonnette, a former National Hockey League enforcer, attempted to stop them, only to be shoved to the ground and kicked repeatedly by the nine men. (Bissonnette later said he would gladly take each man on, one by one, but these “tough guys” wisely never accepted the challenge.)
Years ago, I defended four or five lawsuits involving the game of golf and all of them involved the excessive consumption of alcohol. The worse case involved four men playing during a ladies day event. (I was retained by an insurance company to represent one of the men.) These men weren’t even supposed to be on the course during ladies day but there they were, playing behind two elderly ladies until the 17th hole where, due to a hill in the middle of the fairway, from the tee you could not see where golfers ahead of you were located. Well, these “gentlemen” teed off shortly after the two women disappeared over the hill. When the men came to the top of the hill, they found one of the women on the ground, in severe pain. She had been hit by one of the balls driven by this group. (Later medical tests revealed she sustained a herniated cervical disc in the accident.) The men played through. When they heard the ambulance siren while on the eighteenth hole, they picked up their balls and ran to their car. Fortunately, someone wrote down their license number before they got away. (Actually, this episode involving these four “gentlemen” got even worse later but I may save the details of that portion of the story for a later column.)
So what do you think? Was the behavior at the Ryder Cup an aberration or will there continue to be less and less civility in the game of golf? Personally, I think it was embarrassing, but not necessarily the end of golf as the ultimate “gentleman’s game.” There have always been transgressions in golf (such as the examples in the preceding paragraphs), but do we now have a stepped-up phase of bad behavior? I prefer to think that eventually there will be a return of civility, not just as to golf but as to life as we know it. At least I hope so.
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■ Bill Hoagland has practiced law in Alton for more than 50 years, but he has spent more than 70 years hunting, fishing and generally being in the great outdoors. His wife, Annie, shares his love of the outdoor life. Much of their spare time is spent on their farm in Calhoun County. Bill can be reached at [email protected].