Stick a South Fork in this guy — he’s done!
Long Islanders have a message for a Golf Channel commentator who trashed local fans as a “stain on the game” — saying he should book a one-way ticket back to the mainland on the Hampton Jitney.
“Maybe he should never come back here again,” said resident Holly Burton, whose son is an avid golfer. “If you can’t handle the heat in the kitchen, get out.”
Golf Channel analyst Eamon Lynch’s snide remark that local golf fans “do not deserve a major championship” irked more islanders than an LIE driver with no passengers hogging the HOV lane during the morning commute
The talking head, who is from Ireland, tore into Long Island fans Monday after Wyndham Clark’s wire-to-wire US Open victory at Shinnecock Hills — blasting fans for their ceaseless heckling and claiming they “do not deserve a major championship” as he called for the PGA to yank Bethpage Black’s 2033 PGA Championship.
“Long Island golf fans are a stain on the game of golf,” Lynch said. “That’s what we saw at Bethpage, it’s what we see every single time we go to Long Island.”
But locals like Burton said the golf snob should get over — because locals are not gonna fore-get the slight.
“It’s just the competitive nature in New Yorkers,” she said.
Others used some colorful, F-bomb-filled language to describe Lynch, who picked on Long Islanders and made sure to say his comments were not reflective of other golf fans in New York, including the northern suburbs of Westchester.
“Long Islanders are passionate — whether for good or bad,” avid golfer Carlos Cruz said, adding the TV analyst had no right to “talk s–t” about Long Island.
The on-air tirade came after fans were kicked out of Shinnecock Hills on Sunday for their brutal heckling of Clark, shouting at him, “don’t choke Wyndham” and “get in the bunker” during his title-clinching final round.
Some locals proudly owned the heckling and spiciness and said Lynch should remember who the Suffolk he is dealing with.
“We take our golf very seriously and tend to be a more obnoxious crowd,” Holbrook resident and golf fan Connor Sullivan acknowledged, but said it’s what comes with the territory and makes Long Island’s courses some of the hardest in the world.
“When I saw he said that Long Island fans are the worst, I hate to admit it, but I kind of agree,” 23-year-old Daniel said outside Dick’s Sporting Goods in Patchogue on Tuesday.
But Terrence Reid, who golfs regularly, said a lack of decorum and turning the sport into a real life “Happy Gilmore” goes well past the borders of Nassau and Suffolk.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a Long Island thing,” he said. “I believe that this social media era with these young kids wanting to come out here and film everything and don’t know the etiquette of the golf game, that’s what’s ruining golf.”
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