Harrington ready for wild welcome
Not enough that it was a public course but in New York too and a little over nine months since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 dealt a crushing blow to life in the Big Apple.
Harrington saw and heard at first hand both the best and the worst side of New York golf fans that week.
As a Dubliner on New York’s Long Island, heavily populated with blue collar Irish American folk, Harrington was feted almost as much as the people’s champion himself, Phil Mickelson, and certainly on a par with eventual champion Tiger Woods.
Yet Harrington had much earlier in the week been privy to some of the most spectacular heckling ever witnessed in professional golf and fortunately it was not directed at him but Colin Montgomerie.
The future Ryder Cup captain had already become a figure of fun and target for hecklers among America’s less respectful galleries due to his size and often less than jovial demeanour.
From being dubbed “Mrs Doubtfire” to being abused terribly at Brookline during the infamous 1999 Ryder Cup, it had become so bad that in 2002 Golf Digest magazine even went as far as to print 25,000 “Be Nice To Monty” badges. “I remember the ‘Be Nice To Monty’ campaign,” the Scotsman joked recently. “I’ve still got 24,999 badges out of the 25,000 that were produced.”
Seven years ago, though, one heckler in particular left Monty in an anything but jovial mood.
“I was playing with him the day he was heckled in the practice round,” Harrington said, recalling the moment he and Montgomerie walked between holes. As they walked, a thick New York accent could be yelling “Hey, Monty!” over and over without so much as a blink from the Scotsman.
“Eventually the guy said ‘Mr Montgomerie’, and he did turn around,” Harrington continued. Montgomerie replied with a curt “yes?” and was immediately made to rue the decision.
The fan cupped his hand under his chest and shouted: “Nice tits.”
Sergio Garcia was another European to take some flak from the New York crowd, as much for daring to challenge Tiger and Phil as his foreign background, but Harrington would never be forced to bear that kind of cruel wit and he has returned to Bethpage this week looking forward to some warm support.
“It’s a great Irish crowd. There’s a lot of Irish people there. I’m the sort of guy, as well, that somebody comes up with something original, I’ll laugh. I like the idea of it. Some weeks it’s great to have a big crowd like that.”
Ryder Cup team-mate Luke Donald also has fond memories of his 2002 appearance at Bethpage which was his first time in the US Open.
“Big crowds and rowdy crowds too,” he recalled on Monday. “You get shouted out a few times here and if you make some bad shots they let you know. I whiffed one shot back in ‘02 and they told me to pick it up, so they tell you how they feel. But if you play good shots and play well they kind of endear to you.”
What struck American veteran Kenny Perry was the sense of ownership the locals have for the New York State-run golf complex where fans park up in the dark of night in the hope of getting a walk-on tee time for $40 when the sun rises.
“Definitely everybody I saw on the course during practice said: ‘This is my home course, I play here all the time, I’ll tell you how the greens go, let me help you read the greens,’ or whatever. It was kind of funny, the guys that were out there yesterday.
“I was here (in 2002); Scott Hoch was in front of me when he made the hole-in-one on 17 and then I was close to Phil’s group, and the fans really love, were in connection with Phil.”
“I think it’s a two-way street, though. If they don’t like you, they can really get on to you and drive you crazy.
“They are definitely very boisterous up here.”
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