Swearing, booing and spitting: is crowd behaviour out of control?

There was dismay after Rory McIlroy's wife was hit by a beer at the Ryder Cup. But have crowds always been badly behaved, or is antisocial behaviour getting worse?

The abuse hurled at Europe's golfers in the Ryder Cup elicited gasps and dismay on both sides of the Atlantic. The crowd at the Bethpage Black course in New York graduated from boos and heckles to homophobic slurs and insults aimed at players' wives. The first-tee master of ceremonies set the tone by leading a chant of fuck you, Rory!", putting Rory McIlroy firmly in the crosshairs - along with his wife, who was hit with a beer cup.

After initially playing it down, American golf officials apologised and said some fan behaviour had crossed the line", but the affair has left a nagging sense of unease. What if the line has in fact moved? What if accepted codes of crowd behaviour have changed?