FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — For the second consecutive Ryder Cup, we've got some heated exchanges between players and caddies that bubbled over late on Saturday afternoon.
Here's a quick rundown of what happened.
Context
Tensions were higher than I've ever witnessed on Saturday afternoon at Bethpage Black. For the Europeans, it resulted from the deeply hostile Bethpage crowd that spent most of the day crossing far beyond the line of acceptable behavior. For the U.S., it stemmed from frustrations over a historic performance by Europe, which saw them win the first session 3-1 and threaten a sweep in the second.
It's the kind of environment that made things ripe to bubble over. It did in other matches, and it was about to in the second match of the day: Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau vs. Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose.
Rose and Fleetwood were 3 up at the time, and Rose himself was putting on a historic putting performance, gaining an astonishing 3.97 strokes with his putter during that round alone.
The incident
On the 15th hole of their match, Rose was analyzing his birdie putt that would potentially win the match. That's when DeChambeau's caddie, Greg Bodine, busy reading his player's putt, walked close to Rose as he was preparing to hit his.
According to Rose's account, this was the second time DeChambeau's caddie had interfered in this way, though Rose added after the fact there was "no wrong intent."
Rose appeared to tell DeChambeau's caddie to get back, and not so politely. In Rose's own words:
"I was waiting to putt, they were busy going through a lot of their calculations. I waited a few seconds, they came up again. … If you wanted me to say 'excuse me please,' then my bad. I didn't say it as politely as I could've said, but I don't want us to dwell on that moment because it was a good match."
Rose then, of course, made the putt.
DeChambeau then made his putt to halve and extend the match.
The aftermath
As the group walked off the green, there was a tense exchange between both American caddies, Rose, who reiterated that the incident had happened "twice," and a conversation between DeChambeau and Fleetwood. Audio didn't pick up the full exchange, though at one point Fleetwood's caddie Ian Finnis told DeChambeau to "chill out."
Then, as they were walking to the next hole, European assistant captain Francesco Molinari ran up to fill the gap between Fleetwood and Scheffler's caddie, Ted Scott, presumably to create some space. At that point there was a second exchange between Scott and Molinari because it appeared Molinari had accidentally pushed Scott.
By the time the group arrived on the tee, the group had calmed down, cleared up that there was no ill-intent on any side, and agreed to focus on the match, which Rose and Fleetwood finished on the following hole.
What did the Americans think of the exchange? We don't know for now, because NBC said they refused to speak after the match.
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