They say the Ryder Cup doesn’t start until someone screams, “I can’t hear you!” to the crowd. Well, thanks to Sam Burns, the Ryder Cup has officially started.
It took until Saturday afternoon, but the U.S. is finally showing some signs of life. And no one was more fired up than the usually laid-back Louisiana native.
Burns rolled in a three-foot birdie putt on No. 6 and promptly morphed into Patrick Reed. Have a look for yourself:
“I can’t f-cking hear you.” pic.twitter.com/jt7yXrgLJy
— Patrick McDonald (@AmateurStatus) September 30, 2023
It doesn’t take a professional lip-reader to see that Sam said, “Huh, what’d you say? Huh? I can’t hear you! I can’t f—ing hear you!” Fiesty!
That’s a wild reaction. Particularly for making such a short putt that early in the match. And with your team getting absolutely run off the course. “That’s not the way to endear yourself to the crowds,” NBC’s Paul Azinger said. “They’ll make up songs about you over here.”
So what the heck caused this out-of-character response from Sam? (Not that we’re complaining considering how non-competitive this event has been.) NBC’s John Wood did a little investigative reporting to find out.
“Apparently, someone yelled ‘Get a haircut,’” Wood said, “and he is of course rocking a mullet this week, before he putted and he was just giving a reaction to that.”
OK then. Funny, because we’ve always been told that all European golf fans are classy and that they never, ever taunt players (LOL) or cheer bad shots (LOL).
“Well, golfers don’t get heckled until they get to this Ryder Cup,” Azinger added.
Burns and Brooks Koepka got matching mullets, or “Freedom Flows” as they called it ahead of this event. Call it whatever you want, we’re just glad it helped spark some fight from the Americans. Finally.
