A bizarre scene unfolded over the weekend at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, as the U.S. Open crowd became openly antagonistic to eventual winner Wyndham Clark.

Clark’s history of letting his temper get the best of him during competition, coupled with Scottie Scheffler’s pursuit of a career Grand Slam, seemingly led New York fans to turn on him. After Clark noted the crowd’s weak energy on Friday and Saturday, the response he got on Sunday was surely not the supportive one he expected.

In a segment reacting to the situation on his radio show Monday morning, Dan Patrick joined many in the media to call the crowd’s behavior “kind of embarrassing,” particularly given that it occurred toward an American golfer during the U.S. Open.

“This is an American,” Patrick said. “I know he’s had some ugly behavior before, but still. You’re watching him perform at an unbelievably high level. He was playing, it felt like, at a different level, on a different course, than everybody else. And he went wire-to-wire.”

Patrick speculated that the majority of fans were simply frustrated that Scheffler was “ruining” Scheffler’s pursuit of the career slam, on his birthday no less, but argued that rooting against a fair winner in a tournament designed to represent the United States was a bad look.

“You could tell early that that crowd came out rooting for Scottie to complete the (career) Grand Slam, and probably didn’t view Wyndham Clark as user-friendly or somebody they wanted to root for,” he said. “Which is fine, you don’t have to root for him. But rooting against, in a U.S. Open, I thought it was kind of embarrassing.”

Despite the seemingly rough attendance and the fact that Scheffler will have to wait at least another year for his shining moment, the pushback against Clark made this year’s U.S. Open in northern New York a national sports story and potentially created a new, recognizable villain for the sport.

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