Oh, brother: The trash-writing starts early at the Ryder Cup

A school teacher in England, Peter Willett, or P.J. Willett in his Twitter feed, is known both as the brother of Masters champion Danny Willett and a bit of satirist.

Also an antagonist, depending on one’s sense of humor.

If Peter gained a measure of fame for his tweets as Danny played the final holes at Augusta in April — “3 putt this and you might as well stay in America” — he now has gained more than a measure of infamy, at least in the United States.

As a prelude to the 41^st Ryder Cup matches starting Friday at Hazeltine National Golf Club between the United Stated and the Europe team on which Danny is a rookie member, Peter Willett wrote that the Americans are “fat, stupid, greedy, classless, bastards.”

In a publication called National Club Golfer, Willett, emphasizing that for the U.S. to have a chance — it has only two victories in the last 10 Cup matches, both of those on American soil — America needs boisterous support from the home fans.

“Team Europe needs to shut those groupies up,” Willett wrote. “They need to silence the pudgy, basement-dwelling irritants, stuffed on cookie dough and pissy beer, pausing between mouthfuls of hotdog so they can scream ‘Baba booey’ until their jelly faces turn red.”

Bulletin board material it is called in football, not that U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III would deign to post the material. “I heard about it on the golf course,” said Love, then referring to the New England Patriots head man, added, “I took Coach [Bill] Belichick’s advice, ignored the noise.”

Darren Clarke, the European captain, could not. “I spoke to Danny about it,” Clarke said. “I showed it to Danny, and he’s bitterly disappointed in his brother’s article. It is not what Danny thinks. It is not what I think. It is not what Team Europe stands for.”

The biennial Cup matches were genteel until the 1980s, when European fans began to hoot and cheer as if they were at a soccer match between Liverpool and Manchester United.

The U.S. responded in kind during the 1991 matches at Kiawah Island in South Carolina, the “War by the Shore,” when the American fans were obnoxiously partisan and loud. And the U.S. won.

It has been that way ever since, even though several European team members play the U.S. PGA Tour, reside at least some of the time in United States or played golf at American universities. Danny Willett spent two years at Jacksonville State. Even Clarke briefly attended Wake Forest.

So if there’s hostility between the spectators, there isn’t between the golfers. Danny Willett told The Golf Channel that being hounded by the media during his practice round was an unneeded distraction.

“It was obviously going crazy in the media and stuff,” the Masters champion said. “Yeah, it was tough to concentrate. As soon as I got done on the golf course I went to see Davis and had a chat for a few minutes, and he took it very well . . .So hopefully everyone else can do the same, and we can get on and have a great tournament.”

As for his brother, the expected rejection. “I said to Pete.” explained Danny Willett, “I was obviously disappointed in what was written about the American fans that obviously took me under their wing fantastically back in April.”

When he earned the Masters win.

“We’re 12 guys out here representing Europe and trying to do the best we can,” Willett said. “It’s not really affecting what we think or say. Obviously, everyone that plays in this team plays in America most weeks. “

“Like I said to Pete today, you kind of wanted to get off the course and as quick as possible, hopefully draw a line under it and get back to what we’re doing.”

Which is again trying to beat the U.S. team.

Peter Willett was trying to be funny. To paraphrase an English queen, the Americans were not amused.