Wednesday 22 April 2020 11:45, UK
Chris Wood agrees with Rory McIlroy that the Ryder Cup should be postponed until 2021 if it proves impossible to play it with fans this September.
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McIlroy said in an Instagram Live with TaylorMade on Tuesday that "a Ryder Cup without fans is not a Ryder Cup" and Wood, a team-mate of the world No 1 when Europe lost to the US at Hazeltine four years ago, says he couldn't agree more.
"I cannot see how the Ryder Cup can produce the same level of drama with nobody there," he told Sky Sports News. "It's an atmosphere like no other, it's absolutely a showcase for our sport and it would not be the same without fans."
"You walk onto the first tee and it's just rocking. You go back to that grandstand in Paris and it was up into the clouds, it felt like. I don't think you'll see quite the emotion from the players, because you get revved up by the crowd and that's all part of the drama."
Wood, who in 2016 won his foursomes match alongside Justin Rose but was narrowly beaten by then world No 1 Dustin Johnson in Sunday's singles, says the atmosphere did actually affect how he played.
"Certainly it terms of adrenaline, you can't help but feel like you're going to hit a driver an extra 20 yards or an 8-iron an extra 10 yards when you're in that environment," Wood added. "Then, on the other side of it, you've got a four or five-foot putt and you think 'blimey, if I miss this I'm going to get hammered when I walk off this green!' There's no doubt the crowd plays a huge part.
"They've started to develop some really good chants too. You turn on Sky at half six in the morning, an hour before the first tee time, and it's like a party."
At Hazeltine there were moments when the partisan American crowd occasionally crossed the line, with McIlroy, Sergio Garcia and Danny Willett bearing the brunt of the abuse; Willett, at the time the Masters champion, because of an article written by his brother earlier in the week describing the US golf fans as 'a baying mob of imbeciles'.
"It ramped up a bit after that and I felt for Dan. When I played with Justin on the Saturday there were shouts of 'Hey Justin, who's your partner?', which I just ignored. On the Sunday, playing Dustin Johnson, my wife was even getting some abuse, comparing her to Dustin's fiancée, but she's the type of character who can laugh it off."
Wood played in the PGA Championship on the last two occasions it was held at Whistling Straits - in 2010 and 2015 - and says the vast expanse of land over which the course is set, is also a factor.
"Like a lot of courses in the States, it's such a big place and it would feel so exposed without fans lining the fairways. It would just feel flat. It would probably be like going back to your amateur days - England against Scotland in a Home International where there's a bit of needle but only 20 or 30 of your support staff walking with you. It still means the same, but it wouldn't feel the same."
