I was booed by US fans at Ryder Cup - and I wasn't even playing!

Alan White, who is attending his fourth Ryder Cup as chairman of the PGA, has already had a taste of how American fans can turn the event into a totally different environment to a normal golf tournament.

“That was more than strange,” recalled White, the former PGA professional at Lanark, of the 2021 match at Whistling Straits having very few Europeans in attendance due to Covid restrictions that were in place at the time. “I remember getting booed - that’s how hostile it gets. And that’s despite me not being remotely close to being a player!

“I had the European waterproofs on as I was walking inside the ropes and they started to boo me (laughing). I actually turned around wondering who they were booing and then realised it was me and I burst out laughing.”

PGA chairman Alan White was among a small group of European fans at the 2021 Ryder Cup, which was delayed by a year due to the Covid pandemic | Andrew Redington/Getty Images

White was chairman of the PGA in Scotland when he was invited by Sandy Jones, the PGA chief executive at the time, to attend his first Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in 2010.

He then attended the 2014 match at Gleneagles, where he had been an assistant professional for nine years, as a PGA board member and has been at every one since then.

“Although you can be passive about it in the two-year period between the matches, once you get there, you get caught up in it and, all of a sudden, you become very partisan,” said White, who has been the chairman of The Belfry-based organisation since 2017.

“We are very close with the PGA of America and they actually made me a member last May, which was very good of them. I think I am the only full member of the PGA of America who hasn’t gone through their training programme.

Europeans fired by ‘passion’ rather than money in Ryder Cup

“But, when you get there, you definitely pick a side and it all becomes quite tribal. The Ryder Cup is great. It’s the atmosphere more than anything. You almost feel as though the golf course doesn’t matter.”

For the 45th edition, US captain Keegan Bradley and the 12 home players are receiving $500,000, part of which has to be donated to charity. The Europeans, meanwhile, are perfectly happy to be playing for nothing.

“It is just one word - passion,” said White. “They have such a passion for it. It doesn’t cross their mind. You will never see people try so hard to get a team in your life and they will absolutely be sweating it out on the golf course to try and get into the team for no monetary remuneration. It is just passion.

“We get caught up in that passion as well. At the end of it, everyone gets on well. During it, though, you try to stay apart because you might say something you regret (laughing).”

Alan White, second right in front row, pictured with the other members of the official European party at Whistling Straits in 2021 | Warren Little/Getty Images

Though the PGA of America runs the biennial event in the US, the PGA, having been the founding partner back in 1927, is now a managing partner with Ryder Cup Europe on this side of the Atlantic.

“It should never be lost,” declared White of the PGA’s role in the event. “When Sam Ryder commissioned the trophy and put Abe Mitchell, a PGA professional, on top of it, that’s how important that was to him.

“It should never be forgotten that the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland paid for our team to play in the Ryder Cup all the way to the 2000s. That cost us a fortune. We were putting them on the QE2 to play and then we were flying them over on Concorde.

“It’s not forgotten by the people from the DP World Tour, so that’s never an issue, but I do think the golfing public sometimes don’t realise the history and how hard some PGA members would have worked in the 50s, 60s and 70s just to keep the thing going.”