The Ryder Cup proves once again that it’s the greatest spectacle in golf

This is not your father’s Ryder Cup and if that was unclear, a player Dikembe Mutombo finger wagging his opponent to his face should have made it apparent on Sunday afternoon at Hazeltine. This Ryder Cup may have had moments that make prior generations uncomfortable, but this weekend illustrated why it’s become the best and most exhilarating event in golf.

The 2016 Ryder Cup started with an opening ceremony speech by Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin, the two main characters from one of the most famous Ryder Cup endings, “The Concession.” Nicklaus and Jacklin reminded us of the Ryder Cup mission and the virtues of the game, the goodwill between both sides, and the importance of sportsmanship. Nicklaus was asked about that ending recently and delivered the same sentiment from the opening ceremony speech, saying that the “competition was incidental” to all those grander concepts of international goodwill.

That’s not the modern Ryder Cup, however, and we saw that on full display this week. The modern Ryder Cup is the greatest spectacle in golf. It is the game’s best competitive environment and also it’s best event. The fans are hostile, many often violating those notions of fairness and goodwill. The players will say nice things before the matches and when it’s all over, but they want to rip each other’s hearts out when they’re on the course. It’s been amplified in this era and the competition is anything but incidental. The competitiveness is what makes it great. That kind of dynamic does not exist in any other event all season.

This Ryder Cup dynamic crescendoed on Sunday in what became one of the greatest matches in the history of the event. NBC analyst Johnny Miller, who has seen some things, speculated that we were watching the greatest match ever televised. Up close, it was a cauldron, one that made you scream like a madman if you were a partisan or giggle like a little kid if you were an impartial observer -- that is, if your mouth wasn’t slack jawed. The Rory McIlroy vs. Patrick Reed display was unlike anything we’ve ever seen before in golf and it was spectacular. The Ryder Cup made it possible.

McIlroy was the alpha of this thing on Saturday. On Sunday, he approached the first tee glistening, literally, in the Minnesota sun with that long cocksure stride. I am a Rory homer, but I swear to you it was damn inspiring just watching the man glide across the range, over a bridge, and to the first tee while gazing off to the horizon and not nervously at whatever lay directly in front of his feet. Rory may be as intense as they come, but he does it with a coolness. Patrick Reed is probably (definitely) as intense as they come, and does everything -- from picking up his tee out of the ground to recoiling his driver after a follow-through -- with a rough aggression. This was going to be a clash of styles and it was, after two manic days, the match we all dreamed of in Sunday singles.

It started before either player ever hit a shot. Reed entered the arena that is the first tee grandstand setup, throwing his arms up exhorting the crowd to get louder. He preened about the tee box in every direction of the L-shaped grandstand to make sure they were paying attention and getting louder.

Then McIlroy rolled up and a Euro contingent started an old refrain with lyrics applied to the instant match. “Patrick Reed is terrified, Rory’s on fire.” Rory did this jogging-in-place dance as they hollered it, until it was drowned out by U-S-A chants that provoked Reed to do his patented “Shhhhhhh!” toward the Euro vocalists. Then the hype man who is supposed to have the crowd in a full lather for the NBC cameras as they go live came in to whip the fans up. Rory just looked at him with this incredibly powerful face of disdain as the man flapped his arms. It was so on and now we just needed the play to match the anticipation and antics on a day when the United States was trying to avoid a record fourth straight loss.

It did not seem possible for the match to actually exceed the hype, but that happened by the eighth freaking hole. It was beyond our wildest expectations, the two playing out of their minds with seven birdies and an eagle on holes 5 through 8. The two played the stretch a combined 9-under but more than all the shots were the reactions after each putt poured in to match the preceding punch thrown. It was a privilege to watch. It was surreal. It was life-affirming. It was intoxicating. It was entertaining as hell. It was so not golf.

I’m not sure this is how Nicklaus or Jacklin would have approached a match, and that’s OK! This is the modern Ryder Cup, an era in which Europe has dominated and put a loaded USA roster on its heels, and it’s what makes it the best experience in golf. It is a spectacle. You walk up and, oh hey, there’s Bill Murray and the One Direction guy and Michael Jordan hanging around the first tee grandstand. There are some over-developed, hokey, and produced tinges around the entire week. But it’s all part of the theater and one that’s so far from any other event in the game.

As shots would approach the green after their apex, the grandstands would rise as one as if a football player had just broken a big run and was going toward the end zone. If it was a good shot, the mini USA flags would all wave in unison and chanting would break out immediately until the combatants arrived to take their putts. The reactions -- Rory actually leaving his feet in a fit of convulsive rage on No. 8, yelling “F***KING COME ON!!! I can’t hear you!” and Reed’s Mutumbo finger-wag shortly thereafter in response -- left even Tiger Woods giggling hysterically as he watched it unfold greenside.

The crowds, which crossed the line at times, are what ignited the kind of Reed-Rory bout that we got on Sunday. And those two, along with other headliners like Phil Mickelson, whipped up the crowd. It’s a symbiotic force that does not need altering or changing. So we need to understand what this event is in this modern era -- we want the Reed-Rory screaming and yelling. Please don’t rollback or tone down based on a few drunks getting over their skis -- Rory acknowledged as much afterwards, too, saying he didn’t think there was a way or need to police things beyond what’s being done now.

The Reed-Rory match was the main event on Sunday, but the entire weekend was perfectly executed. There’s nothing you would change about the format, the rules, the teams, the schedule. It’s a show that seems impossible to over-promote for even the biggest cynics among us. There is no money for 24 of the best players in the world but that’s never mentioned anymore and does not matter. Sergio Garcia said afterwards that he would not trade one of his five Ryder Cups for a major, the white whale of his career.

Sergio, who was heckled mercilessly this week, still could not get enough of his experience. “At the end of the day, I love the Ryder Cup. There’s nothing like it. I loved every minute of it.” An older, more genteel Ryder Cup veteran might not appreciate the Reed-Rory antics. Those two took it to another level all week, but we’re still getting those kind of player outbursts from every single participant whenever he comes through with a birdie putt or a big shot. And for those who might get huffy that this was way too much a departure from “proper” golf, Ian Poulter, perhaps the face of this modern Ryder Cup intensity, explained it all, saying, “Patrick is one of those guys that gets intense. And so does Rory. And I think that’s all in the spirit of the game. It’s in the spirit of the Ryder Cup.” The players know -- the casting aside of many golf inhibitions can be the spirit of this competition, which runs hotter than any other week in the game and is the fuel of the spectacle.

You leave the Ryder Cup wishing they could run it back and do it again next week, or next month, or pretty please next year. Then you realize the two years of waiting is what makes this three-day explosion what it is. It stands out because we don’t oversaturate and try to copy it regularly during the season. So we’ll remember Patrick and Rory, yelling at each other and the crowd in the Minnesota sun for the next 24 months, anticipating what it will be like next at the greatest show in golf. Can’t wait for Paris.