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Matt Fitzpatrick joined the growing chorus of players concerned about the impact gambling is having on crowd behaviour.
Wyndham Clark’s treatment on Sunday at Shinnecock, where the eventual U.S. Open champion faced repeated issues of jeers and heckling, has been the latest flashback regarding the deterioration of fan etiquette. There were a number of issues last year, underlined in the fall by the hostile gallery at the Bethpage Black during the Ryder Cup, with the Europeans and particularly Rory McIlroy being harassed throughout three days outside New York City. Though nothing has risen to those heights (or lows) in 2026, crowd behaviour continues to be a common theme throughout the calendar. Fitzpatrick knows this better than most, receiving “USA!” cheers in his face at both the Players Championship and RBC Heritage.
While in Fitzpatrick’s case it may be tribal, others in golf have observed what’s been happening outside the ropes and developed their own compelling theory: The growth of sports betting has only intensified this trajectory, creating financial incentives for disruptive behaviour that were previously absent from the game. Jordan Spieth recently echoed these worries at the John Deere Classic last month, noting “Betting in golf is something that’s going to have to be tackled here soon.” Speaking to the media this week at the Open Championship, Fitzpatrick expressed worry about gambling’s upshot in professional golf.
“You just look at all the messages people get — footballers, tennis players, you name it, everyone’s getting messages of, oh, you missed that penalty; you cost me this. Oh, you didn’t make a birdie; it cost me this. I’ve had my fair share,” Fitzpatrick said at Royal Birkdale. “I would say every golfer that’s played a professional tournament has had a message of abuse from someone that is related to gambling. I mean, you could see it this week. You go and type in a player’s name who maybe isn’t playing well, maybe someone who’s favoured to play well, you type the name into Twitter, and you’ll just see their name followed by abuse after abuse after abuse.”
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Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t abstain from betting and that he has some low-stakes bets on England to win the World Cup. But, as he noted, that wouldn’t cause him to go after English players if they played poorly.
“There are obviously individuals who have that problem. I don’t know, obviously, I don’t condone gambling in the slightest,” Fitzpatrick said. “For me, it’s definitely becoming a problem, and the issue is, particularly in golf, it would be very easy to influence a bet, whether it’s you’re shouting on someone’s backswing, shouting on a putting stroke. It’s really easy. Obviously, that is really hard to monitor, but it is definitely an issue.”
Speaking later in the afternoon, Clark also asserted that gambling has a role in crowd behaviour. “I think it’s definitely one of the factors,” Clark said. “The amount of times we hear guys in tournaments saying, oh, Wyndham, I have you 30-to-1 to win this week or 100-to-1, I’m betting on you. That happens all the time. So I do think in some instances that is definitely one of the culprits.”
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