Sports
The hecklers are targeting Rory McIlroy. His challenge is to resist golf’s unruly spectators
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Two thick, beefy strong boys with snug polos and holstered pistols walked, chests out, up to the area behind TPC Sawgrass’ 12th green Sunday. As they approached the hill, another security officer smiled at two of the day’s main characters.
“It’s the Bash Brothers!” the man joked.
The three of them waited behind the green in the moments before play restarted at the final round of the Players Championship after a four-hour weather delay halted what appeared to be Rory McIlroy’s runaway moment. By then, roughly two-thirds of the massive crowd understandably left, but the ones who decided to stay all day? They were there for Rory. His gallery remained full. As the van dropped off McIlroy to continue his round, the fans loudly chanted “Ro-ry! Ro-ry! Ro-ry!” They applauded as he birdied the hole to take a three-shot lead. Most of Ponte Vedra seemed to be pulling for McIlroy.
But that support was not why the Bash Brothers were there.
That nickname was earned, for all the hecklers the two police officers kicked out of the Players Championship that day. One or two officers follow every PGA Tour group all year to act as security for the game’s stars. It’s normal, making sure no unauthorized people get inside the ropes and the crowd doesn’t do anything out of line. Most days they won’t have a single issue.
But by the time McIlroy hit his approach from the 18th fairway, one of the Bash Brothers claimed to have kicked out 15 people at least. Because, for a very minuscule, annoying, yet loud minority, McIlroy is becoming a target for heckling right now. How he handles it will tell us so much.
As McIlroy approached the 18th tee Sunday, tied for the lead trying to win the tour’s marquee event, he looked around at the crowd. He scanned his head as if trying to take it all in. And that crowd rose up and roared for him.
Until one man shouted, “Hit it in the water, Rory!” The crowd groaned. It was isolated enough that McIlroy certainly heard it. No problem, as he launched an absolutely beautiful draw around the bended fairway along the water. By the end of the day, McIlroy was headed to a three-hole Monday playoff with J.J. Spaun, one he would win going away to claim his second Players.
But is it a challenge for McIlroy to tune those heckles out?
“Yeah, absolutely,” he admitted.
“But I think when you’re in business mode you’re just trying to keep your head down and stay in your own little world for the most part.”
McIlroy is not new to fame. And he’s not new to criticism. He’s one of the bigger lightning rods for discussion in the sport, and he’s heard (and historically laughed along with) every crack about his deflating losses in majors like the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
Until a week ago.
McIlroy was playing a Tuesday practice round when he hit his tee shot on 18 into the water and a young-ish fan shouted, “Just like 2011 at Augusta!” while his buddy filmed. McIlroy hit another tee shot, and before going to his ball he walked over to the fan, grabbed the friend’s phone that was filming and walked away. It turned out the guy who yelled this was Texas golfer Luke Potter, who won the amateur tournament in town just days earlier. That only added to the bizarre nature of the incident. Security kicked Potter and his friend out, but a third party filmed the incident, posted it online and it went viral.
Seeing McIlroy react that way was surprising, and perhaps it shed light on a deeper insecurity of McIlroy. He can joke and laugh about Pinehurst. Maybe even the 2022 Open Championship or the 2023 U.S. Open. But that 2011 Masters when he led by four shots and shot a Sunday 80 to finish 10 back? That’s the big one.
That reaction is human. It is relatable.
There’s just one problem. The reaction encouraged the masses. Or at least a particular segment of it. It’s why the Bash Brothers had such a busy day. Perhaps even more interestingly, it’s why there was such a short leash to kick those people out.
Caddy Harry Diamond, left, advised a pair of security guards to throw out multiple hecklers during McIlroy’s round Sunday. (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
As McIlroy walked to Sawgrass’ famous island 17th green, one fan yelled “2011 Augusta, Rory!” McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond, called the Bash Brothers over and the fan was taken away.
We don’t know what led to each anecdotal example, so we can’t be sure how bad each one was. We just know a good deal of them happened. The PGA Tour has in its code of conduct specific rules related to fan behavior, and it takes a firm zero-tolerance policy when it comes to things like heckling. Specifically, it makes clear you are at risk of expulsion, for “rude, vulgar or other inappropriate comments or gestures or any words or actions,” including “verbal or physical harassment of players, caddies, volunteers, officials, staff, guests and/or spectators.”
The tour doesn’t appear to have an overall fan problem. There was concern when gambling was legalized that it would lead to severe issues with spectators attempting to shout during backswings or otherwise affect results. The tour hasn’t seen that happen, other than some pleading with a player to win their bet or complaining that they lost it (which is indeed a problem but not too dramatic of one).
Most events go on with no issue, but we also live in a new era of social media where it’s common for some to revel in the chance to get a reaction and gain some attention by posting it online. That reaction is everything. And while maybe 40 years ago nobody would know it even happened, it now has the chance to go viral and be seen by the world.
That’s why Tuesday’s practice round incident was so consequential. For that minuscule minority, McIlroy provided a target. The 2011 Masters at Augusta. It’s now his exhaust port in the Death Star — hecklers know they can hit it and watch it go boom. Diamond being the one to call security over for a dumb but generally innocuous comment (“2011 Augusta, Rory!”) only confirmed it.
Because yes, the tour has its code of conduct, but it’s generally the players or their caddies who act on it. Many players ignore any stupidity, and then it goes away. McIlroy generally always had.
We’re seeing what happens when you flinch. At Torrey Pines last month, a fan told McIlroy to blame his caddie, Diamond, for a missed put. McIlroy, always quick to defend Diamond, told the fan to “shut the f—k up.”
Former U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson got heckled by rowdy spectators at the 2024 WM Phoenix Open for the U.S. loss in Rome, and he went over and argued with them. That went viral, of course. So two months later at the Masters — the one place “patrons” are supposedly so well behaved — Johnson made a mess of the 12th hole and heard sarcastic cheers. A hot mic caught Johnson turning and yelling, “Oh, f—k off.” He’s now perhaps the most consistent target for heckling in golf.
Before that it was Bryson DeChambeau, a top target during his feud with Brooks Koepka. After a painful playoff loss to Patrick Cantlay at the 2021 BMW Championship, a fan yelled the taunt, “Great job, Brooksie!” and DeChambeau lost it. “You know what? Get the f–k out!” DeChambeau yelled.
Things were so bad once for Colin Montgomerie that Golf Digest made buttons. (Stuart Franklin / Getty Images)
It’s not all recent. Take Colin Montgomerie. Back in the early 2000s, he had become such a target for heckling in the U.S. that it got to him. They called him “Mrs. Doubtfire” and made fun of his figure. And he reacted. It bothered him so much he threatened to boycott U.S. events. So at the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, Golf Digest made 25,000 buttons to handout reading “Be Nice To Monty.”
The point for McIlroy is that these kinds of comments will now continue. The through line on all of this is that spectators pile on when they know they can make you mad. Immaturity, alcohol and/or comedic laziness lead to a lot of generic dudes thinking they’re clever when repeating the same lines. That stinks, the same way somebody yelling “Mashed potatoes!” after a tee shot or “Get in the hole” on an approach gets old fast.
The vast majority of fans sincerely love McIlroy. Maybe that’s difficult to remember when the negativity stands out. McIlroy is playing the best overall golf in the world. He won his sixth DP World Tour championship in December. He won at Pebble Beach last month. Add in a huge Players win Sunday. This could be McIlroy’s moment.
Yet people aren’t going to suddenly change. And each ejected fan or viral video of an angry reaction only provides more fuel to the fire, and the comments will continue. The Ryder Cup is coming, in New York of all places. All the power to him if that’s how he wants to react, but the test will be how he plays in response.
Sunday, he did let Spaun come back from a three-shot deficit to force a playoff. Then again, as the fan yelled “Hit it in the water” on 18, McIlroy hit one of the prettier shots you can hit. Which response he channels more will tell us everything about his 2025.
(Top photo: Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
Sports
Ed Orgeron on who should be out of College Football Playoff, Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU and his coaching plans
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The College Football Playoff begins Friday, and emotions are running high for several fan bases.
Notre Dame was ranked 10th in the penultimate CFP rankings but missed the playoffs to both Alabama, which lost a third game, and Miami, which were ranked lower going into championship weekend but beat Notre Dame during the season, which apparently took precedence.
Ed Orgeron did not have to worry about his playoff status while he was coaching LSU to a title amid a perfect season in 2019, but he has an idea of who should be in and out this year.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron runs off the field with his team before an NCAA college football game against Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Clubb)
“I don’t think a team with three losses ought to be playing for the national championship. Notre Dame should have got in ahead of Alabama,” Orgeron told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
Bama getting in prompted calls of bias and/or collusion, considering the playoff is broadcast on ESPN and ABC, the same network that the SEC has a major media rights deal with.
“The SEC was dominant. But now, the Big Ten, Big 12 are catching up. They’ve had the national champ a couple of years now. I don’t know what’s happened with the SEC and bias, all that stuff. Is there a chance that they have it? I’m not going to get into that. But I do know this — they’re very strong,” Orgeron added.
The SEC figures to remain strong, as Lane Kiffin went from Ole Miss to Orgeron’s former LSU in a controversial move. Orgeron, though, said Kiffin, his former colleague at Tennessee and USC, made the right move, given he hardly had a choice.
Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin (left) and LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron (right) shake hands after a game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. (Petre Thomas/USA TODAY Sports)
ED ORGERON GIVES ADVICE TO SHERRONE MOORE AFTER SAGA THAT LEFT HIM FIRED, ARRESTED
“Look, the timing of it, when he did it, that’s his choice. But he had to do it at that time to get the job he wanted. The calendar is wrong in college football. I wish they had the rule like the NFL, that you cannot talk to a coach until their season is over,” Orgeron said.
As for advice to get LSU back to the promised land?
“Keep on doing what you’re doing. He knows what he’s doing. Recruit, evaluate like he’s doing. He’s the king of the transfer portal. He’ll be able to dominate the SEC like he’s been doing. Keep on doing what you’re doing.”
Orgeron last coached in 2021, but his career is certainly not over. In fact, he expects to be somewhere soon, potentially even facing Kiffin.
Then-LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron talks with quarterback Joe Burrow after a victory against the Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff national championship game at Mercedes-Benz Superdome. (Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports)
“We’ve been in touch with people. I would take a head coaching job, doesn’t have to be a head coaching job. I’ll take a D-line coach or a recruiting coordinator, but the right situation hasn’t been coming up. I’m in a good position where I could take a job, I don’t have to take a job, but if the right situation comes up, I’m definitely taking it and going to coach. I do believe within the next month something may open, and I’ll be coaching again.”
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SEATTLE — In a matter of minutes, the home of the Seattle Seahawks went from a painfully quiet Lumen “Library” to a rollicking madhouse that sent seismologists scrambling for their ground-motion sensors.
Call it the Sheesh-Quake Game.
In a historic comeback, the Seahawks dug their way out of a 16-point, fourth-quarter ditch to beat the Rams in overtime, 38-37.
Oh, the visitors will agonize over some of the bizarre calls, some deserving of further explanation from the NFL. An ineligible-man-downfield call that wiped out a Rams touchdown when they were a yard away from the end zone? That had people scratching their heads. Then there was that do-or-die two-point conversion that seemingly fell incomplete… but later was reversed. More on that in a moment.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went wrong for the Rams in their 38-37 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on Thursday night.
When the Rams wincingly rewind the video of the collapse, they’ll be peering through the cracks in their fingers.
You’ve heard of a no-look pass? This was a no-look finish.
As soothing wins go, this was a warm bubble bath for the Seahawks, who secured a playoff berth and assumed the driver’s seat in the race for the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
“You hear people late in the year have losses, and you hear people come up here and say, like, ‘Man, this is going to be a good thing for us,’” said Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp, a onetime Rams hero. “It’s much better to be up here right now saying this is going to be a good thing for us.”
Kupp atoned for his first-half fumble with a successful two-point conversion in the fourth quarter — the first of three in a row for the Seahawks — and a 21-yard reception on the winning drive in overtime.
“If you find a way to get a win when you do turn the ball over three times, you do end up down 16 points, or whatever it was, in the fourth quarter, just finding ways to win games when the odds are against you and things aren’t going right — finding a way to fight back — it’s going to be a good thing for us,” Kupp said. “A good thing for us to draw on.”
The Rams are sifting through the debris of a different lesson. It was a reminder that this charmed season, with Matthew Stafford in line to win his first Most Valuable Player honor, can come crashing down at any moment. There’s no more smooth glide path to Santa Clara for the Super Bowl.
As good as it was for most of the game, picking off Sam Darnold twice and sacking him four times, the Rams defense failed to hold up when it counted most. Shades of the three-point loss at Carolina.
Darnold will have a story to tell. He exorcised a lot of demons. The Rams sacked him nine times in the playoffs last season when Darnold was playing for Minnesota, and intercepted six of his passes in two games this season.
“It’s not great when you have interceptions and turnovers, you want to limit that,” said Darnold, the former USC star. “But all you can do is fight back. For us, I was just going to continue to plug away.”
Darnold came through when it counted, completing five passes on the winning drive, then finding the obscure tight end Eric Saubert — his fourth option — wide open in the end zone on the triumphant conversion.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold looks to pass against the Rams in the first half Thursday.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
The second of the three conversions was the game’s most controversial moment. The Seahawks needed it to forge a 30-30 tie with a little more than six minutes remaining in regulation.
Darnold fired a quick screen pass to his left, trying to get the ball to Zach Charbonnet. Rams defender Jared Verse jumped the route and knocked down the pass. Everyone thought the play was dead, including Charbonnet, who casually jogged across the goal line and picked up the ball as it lay in the end zone.
That proved critical because officials — after what seemed like an eternity — ruled that Darnold had thrown a backward pass and the ball was live when Charbonnet picked it up. Therefore, a fumble recovery and successful conversion, tying the game.
Asked later if it felt like a backward pass, Darnold had a half-smile and said, “Um, yeah. It felt like I threw it kind of right on the side. I’m glad Charbs picked it up, and that turned out to be a game-changing play.”
Was that designed to be a backward pass?
“It just happened to be backwards,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily talked about. We were just trying to get it in down there on the goal line.”
The Seahawks were lined up to kick off when officials announced that, upon review, the previous play was successful. Suddenly, the most improbable of come-from-victories was within reach.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, when the home team was trailing, 30-14, the Amazon Prime crew had to do some vamping to keep viewers engaged. Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit told some Kurt Warner stories from the “Greatest Show on Turf” days. Hey, it had to be more interesting than this game.
Michaels delivered an obscure stat: When leading by 15 points or more in the fourth quarter, the Rams were 323-1.
Informed of that, Seahawks running back Cam Akers — once shown the door by the Rams — had a wry response.
“Now, they’ve lost two,” he said.
Celebration in one locker room. Silence in another.
Do you believe in meltdowns?
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Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was released about a week after the former Michigan Wolverines football coach was fired from his job and arrested on several charges.
Fox News Digital obtained the booking photo of Moore on Thursday. The picture showed a red-eyed Moore appearing downcast in the Washtenaw County Jail in Michigan.
Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was obtained by Fox News Digital on Dec. 18, 2025. (Washtenaw County Jail)
The photo’s release came as new details emerged in the Moore scandal, including allegations that he “had a long history of domestic violence” against the staffer with whom he allegedly maintained an inappropriate, yearslong relationship.
Court documents obtained by Fox News Digital revealed allegations made by the staffer’s attorney, Heidi Sharp, on the day that Moore allegedly entered her home without permission, which later resulted in his arrest.
Moore appeared in a Washtenaw County court on Friday, where his bond was set at $25,000 and included several conditions, including no contact with the alleged victim in the case. A not guilty plea was entered for him.
Prosecutors detailed the alleged events that led up to Moore’s arrest, including that Moore had engaged in an “intimate relationship” with the Michigan staffer for “a number of years” and that the woman had broken up with him two days before his arrest.
Former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore appears via video in court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Dec. 12, 2025. (Ryan Sun/AP Photo)
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL RECRUITS DE-COMMIT FROM PROGRAM AMID SHERRONE MOORE SCANDAL
Prosecutors accused Moore of contacting the staffer via phone calls and texts after the breakup, prompting the victim to contact the University of Michigan and cooperate in its investigation. Moore was subsequently fired from his position as head football coach, which prosecutors said prompted him to show up at the woman’s home.
Moore then allegedly “barged” his way into the residence, grabbed a butter knife and a pair of scissors and then began threatening his own life. According to prosecutors, Moore allegedly told the staffer, “My blood is on your hands” and “You ruined my life.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Moore’s attorney for comment.
Moore faces a felony charge of home invasion in the third degree and two misdemeanor charges of stalking and breaking and entering without the owner’s permission. He was released on bond and is due back in court on Jan. 22.
Sherrone Moore, then-of the Michigan Wolverines, looks on during the second half against the Maryland Terrapins at SECU Stadium on November 22, 2025 in College Park, Maryland. (Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
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Moore took over as head coach for Jim Harbaugh when he left to take the Los Angeles Chargers’ job.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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