Colin Montgomery Says Europe Can't Win a Ryder Cup on US Soil Due to 'Drinking Culture in America'

Stephen Munday. Getty Images.

Depending on who you are and where you come from, the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline is remembered for one of two things. If you're from the good old U.S. of A., you remember it as one of the greatest comebacks in the history of any sport. If you're from one of those oppressive, declining European empires our ancestors escaped from, you remember it as the moment when civilized society crumbled. Destroyed by the horrid lack of proper golf etiquette from those drunken rowdies in the gallery. And I'll add a third category: If you're a Masshole, you remember it with pride as the best thing to happen around here in the midst of the 15-year drought between the 1986 Celtics and the 2001 Patriots championships.

I know plenty of people who were at The Country Club during that final round Sunday and the historic Singles Matches. I was a missed phone call - and my brother's weird phobia for leaving messages on answering machines - away from being there myself, but that's my cross to bear. And to a person, they describe the scene as electric as Team USA kept winning the early matches and a comeback for the ages went from unthinkable to possible to probable to a reality. How the crowd actually felt they were positively willing their country to victory. 

But of all the people who came out on the wrong end of toilet plunger that day, no loser lost bigger than Colin Montgomerie. At least he was the one the Yellow Journos in the British golf press portrayed as the biggest victim. And we can assume the psychological damage done that day was permanent. Because here we are, a full quarter of a century later, and he's still showing his emotional scars. Most recently, in the profile done on him that Reags wrote about Tuesday:

The Times - Montgomerie’s passion remains undimmed by the taunts of time, or of others. He was an emotional player who could be tetchy-feely when it came to spectators, and he remembers fondly how Payne Stewart waded into the crowd at the rowdy Ryder Cup in Brookline in 1999 and pointed out some of the worst hecklers.  …

So what about Bethpage Black next year? “God almighty!” he says. “We desperately need an away win in the Ryder Cup, but I don’t think it’s going to happen in New York. I don’t think we will be allowed to win there. Someone will come on and steal a golf ball or something. It’s a drinking culture in America.”

I guess we bring our own biases with us whenever we perceive major events such as this. They are the prescription lenses through which we view things. Some of us remember '99 for the glorious display of grit, determination and teamwork that it was:

Some see it as the bad men being mean. And in doing so, bringing about the end of all things. We know where Monty falls on that spectrum. 

But that's fine. If one of the most successful Team Europe players in Ryder Cup history wants to go around saying his own side can't win because of our Drinking Culture, he'll get no argument from me. I mean sure, it's a little ironic to be lectured about alcohol consumption from a team that includes guys from Scotland, Germany, France and my ancestral homeland, both Ireland and Northern Island. But I'll embrace it. I second Monty's emotion. 

Just the fact he's expressing this proves Massholes are still in his head. And if he thinks it, the players probably do too. Which puts them a couple of points behind a year before they've even stepped to the 1st Tee. Every minute they spend worrying that some asshole from Massapequa or Amityville on his sixth Bud Light has to say, is one minute less they'll spend knowing where the best layup landing areas are, or how to read the greens at Bethpage. It's like when people used to accuse Red Auerbach of turning off the hot water in the Boston Garden visitor's locker room or saying there were dead spots in the parquet floor, he never denied it. Because why would he? He knew that them believing it was all he needed. He had a competitive edge without having to lift a finger. 

So thanks in advance to him. And to the ungovernable Massholes who drank their way into owning all that real estate in his head 25 years ago. The rest will be up to the good people on Long Island in 2026. Cheers.