Shane Lowry: European Ryder Cupper reveals how Rory McIlroy dealt with abuse from Bethpage fans

Shane Lowry recently revealed how his fellow European Ryder Cup teammate, Rory McIlroy, dealt with the abuse from local fans at Bethpage. The Irishman said the abuse was pretty bad, but they were quite ready for it and used it as fuel to get motivated and win again.

Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy have been teammates at the Ryder Cup for many years. Besides, the duo is quite close and often hang out during the off-season. The duo played a significant role in Europe's successful title defence, and the win became more valuable after the hostile treatment by fans, who crossed the line many times at Bethpage.

Recently, Lowry was a guest on The Late Late Toy Show, where he discussed his Ryder Cup experience with host Patrick Kielty. During the conversation, he also talked about the fans' behaviour toward him and Rory McIlroy at Bethpage.

"It was pretty bad," he said. "I think we were very ready for what was going to happen. I think we were as ready as we could be. People in that situation don’t actually realize what it’s going to be like, and being out there… yeah, some of the stuff that was said was not very nice. But I think Rory and I definitely used it as fuel, and it motivated us to go ahead and win."

"I said it after that week, I don’t think it helped the Americans much at all. I think it actually made it harder for them to play in that environment than it probably was for us at times. So we tried to use as much of it to our advantage as we could. But yeah, it was quite difficult."

The former Open Championship winner said that, having played with Rory for the first two days, he noticed that the Northern Irishman had to deal with it far more.

Eventually, Team Europe posted a 15-13 win over the US, and, barring the final day, the hosts could hardly put up any fight.