An Inside-the-Ropes Tale of the 2025 Ryder Cup, Told by Jon Rahm

It’s tough to describe the environment of Bethpage Black during September’s Ryder Cup to anyone who wasn’t on property, but let me tell you, it was pretty nasty. Folks on social media got a peek when videos started to go viral, including one of a beer being thrown at Rory McIlroy and his wife, Erica. It was brutal. But if you don’t believe me, a mere media member who was lucky enough to be there, let Jon Rahm tell you the tale.

Rahm, one of Team Europe’s stalwarts, recently sat down with the boys of Golf.com’s SubPar podcast and touched on many things, one of them being an inside look at what it was like for the Europeans on Long Island.

“Oh, yeah, (I got mad at fans in the gallery) many times. You almost have to make a choice at that point. You either give it back to them, or you don’t…Clearly, Rory and Shane fed off of that and did great. I know if I start having the banter with the crowd, it’s going to take away from golf. The best I could do was stay quiet and act like it wasn’t there. It was rough. It was a tough week.”

Rahm admitted he didn’t hear what McIlroy had to deal with—the pro-American crowd was giving it to the Northern Irishman all week long—but he was on the receiving end of some pretty nasty comments.

“With my group, so with me and Tyrrell and Sepp, right, all three of us rather overweight, two of them with a very far back hairline and two of us being in LIV, all I heard was traitor, terrorist, fat, Ozempic.”

And this didn’t start when the Europeans arrived on the first tee. They heard chirps from the moment they got on the range until they left the golf course.

Aside from all the fan talk, I thought Rahm’s comment on Team Europe’s mindset going into Sunday Singles was very interesting.

“Our goal was to hopefully get to—we lost pretty badly in Whistling (19-9), getting that record of 19, 19-9, so the goal was to hopefully tie that or get to 18.5, which doing it away would’ve been incredible.”

Team Europe wanted blood, but the USA’s late rally ended up making things a whole lot more interesting. Even Rahm admitted it “looked grim for a while.”

Brooks Koepka, who wasn’t part of Team USA this time around, recently decided to leave LIV Golf, and Rahm said that he saw it coming.

“I had an idea, but more through him than the league itself,” Rahm said. “I don’t know what happened, but I know he was dealing with some stuff off the golf course. I still don’t know what’s happened....I wish him the best."

RELATED: The LIV Golf Bubble is Ready to Burst

“I’ve had some great times with Brooks on the golf course. Obviously, ‘23 Masters, we won in that playoff in ‘24 at Greenbrier, going at it at the Ryder Cup a few times. He’s always fun to play with, fast, honest guy. Wish him nothing but the best. I mean, obviously, I wish he stayed and keep playing with him, but hopefully we can compete for either other events, majors in the future.”

As for Koepka’s future, Rahm believes, given the opportunity, Koepka would play on the PGA TOUR again.

“He might take some time, but I think he would...he’d never play 30 events,” Rahm said. “He’d probably play at least the minimum, I would say. Why not the events he likes, the big ones if he can [get] into elevated events or get invites to elevated events, he would play those as well.”

Koepka would first have to be reinstated by the TOUR for any of that to happen, or he could take some time and wait out the one-year suspension. He’s yet to make a statement on his plans for the future.

RELATED: What Does Brooks Koepka Leaving LIV Really Mean?

As for Rahm, LIV Golf’s season kicks off in February in Saudi Arabia. In all, he’ll play five LIV events before the Masters in April.