{"id":273112,"date":"2025-10-02T23:45:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/273112\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T23:45:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:45:13","slug":"what-pga-of-america-boss-told-rory-mcilroy-wife-erica-in-apology-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/273112\/","title":{"rendered":"What PGA of America boss told Rory McIlroy, wife Erica in apology letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

The PGA of America CEO apologized to Rory McIlroy and his wife, Erica, for how fans treated them<\/a> during last weekend\u2019s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.<\/p>\n

Derek Sprague told The Athletic<\/a> on Wednesday morning he had a long phone call with McIlroy\u2019s manager, Sean O\u2019Flaherty, and asked him to share a letter to the couple.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sent a long email to share with Rory and Erica and just told him that we will do better in the future,\u201d Sprague said. \u201cI\u2019m the CEO now. I don\u2019t condone this type of behavior. This is not good for the game of golf. It\u2019s not good for the Ryder Cup. It\u2019s not good for any of the professional athletes, and we will do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy (r.) and wife Erica (l.) celebrate Team Europe\u2019s Ryder Cup win at Bethpage Black on Sept. 28, 2025. James Marsh\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

PGA of America CEO Derek Sprague. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sprague, who has known Erica \u2014 who had a drink swatted at her<\/a> Saturday that left her stunned<\/a> \u2014 from her time working for the PGA of America, expressed further displeasure with the fans and Heather McMahan, the actress who quit her role as emcee Saturday after participating in a \u201cf\u2013k you Rory\u201d chant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed in fan behavior, disappointed in the first tee and the emcee that it\u2019s just that\u2019s not who we are,\u201d Sprague told The Athletic. \u201cAnd I was just really, really, really disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy at one point flipped off fans<\/a> and told others to \u201cshut the f\u2013k up\u201d<\/a> as he tried to navigate the verbal abuse.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy\u2019s wife Erica (circled) reacts in shock after a fan swatted a drink at her during the Ryder Cup on Sept. 27, 2025.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy reacts during the Ryder Cup on Sept. 27, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The stance taken by Sprague is in stark contrast to comment made by PGA of America president Don Rea, who downplayed fans\u2019 vile behavior during an interview with the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you\u2019ve got 50,000 people here that are really excited. Heck, you can go to a youth soccer game and get some people who say the wrong things,\u201d Rea said. \u201cWe tell the fans, booing somebody doesn\u2019t make them play worse. Typically it makes them play better. And when our American players have to control the crowd, that distracts them from playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Asked about the insults hurled toward McIlroy in particular, Rea said, \u201cI haven\u2019t heard some of that. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s happened. It happens when we\u2019re over in Rome on the other side, and Rory understands. I thought he handled the press conference (Sunday) amazingly. But yeah, things like that are gonna happen and I don\u2019t know what was said, but all I know is golf is the engine of good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The PGA of America CEO apologized to Rory McIlroy and his wife, Erica, for how fans treated them…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":273113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[29108,115620,1430,1445,1478,8656,62,67,132,68,2391],"class_list":{"0":"post-273112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-bethpage-black","9":"tag-erica-stoll","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-pga","12":"tag-rory-mcilroy","13":"tag-ryder-cup","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-wags"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115307238205190258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}