David Howell and Paul Casey strolled up the hill on the 11th on the South Course at Oakland Hills in 2004, the Europeans one up over their American counterparts, Jim Furyk and Chad Campbell. But then they started to hear a humming in the distance.
Luke Donald’s troops will experience something similar at Bethpage Black this week, when they attempt to win on US soil for the first time since “The Miracle of Medinah” in 2012. That innocuous noise should not be underestimated; it builds, whirring, and the blue and yellow will walk straight into the cauldron. A boisterous group of New Yorkers, with up to 50,000 spectators per day, are ready to leave a deafening noise, likely to that familiar and obnoxious tune of U-S-A, U-S-A, ringing in their ears.
