What does this year's incredibly fractious Ryder Cup mean for the extravaganza two years down the track at Adare Manor?
Before the first tee ball was struck on Sunday, it was a widespread sentiment among golf fans on this side of the Atlantic that they hoped America might build up a head of steam to at least give us a somewhat interesting Ryder Cup finale, of the type which were taken as standard back in the competition's golden age of the late 1980s and 1990s.
Team Europe is after all a fairly nebulous concept to get behind for many people. It is not a sports team that anyone habitually follows, like St Patrick's Athletic or Liverpool or the Cork hurlers. People do not carry their fortunes around with them in their heart.
Therefore, there has always been a premium on drama and closeness.
Indications are that the visiting contingent in New York - both those in the press tent and among the crowd - have deviated from the armchair fans back home on this point.
The reporters who were down among the galleries at Bethpage appear to have been radicalised by the experience.
A couple of hours listening to Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry being showered with the most personalised and moronic abuse was too much to bear.
Some of them probably returned to Dublin airport or Heathrow dressed like that anti-Brexit fanatic with the megaphone who was permanently stationed outside Westminster.
The traditional preference for a tight finale was abandoned, replaced by a sudden desire to "put 'em back on their a***s for 10 years."
They were infused with the spirit of the Kilkenny fan who sat behind me incessantly shouting "Give them nathin'!!" during the second half of one of those peak Cody era Leinster finals from years ago.
Despite promising signs early on, hopes of a historic humiliation were extinguished and Team Europe, with their measly one win in the singles, were relieved to just get over the line at all.
After a sluggish start on Sunday, the US finally perked up and gave us by far the most engrossing finale since Medinah.
In that respect, it was one of the most traditional of Ryder Cups, the US players, rugged individualists that they are, only coming into their own in the one-on-one format after stinking out the joint in the pairs matches. America have a clear winning record in singles going back to 1985 and have won six of 20 Ryder Cups in that time.
Their 8.5 to 3.5 margin equalled the widest in singles since the Ryder Cup adopted its current format, matching their comeback victory in 1999.
It was different from Brookline in that America were rocketing in birdies non-stop from the get-go on Sunday back in 1999. They were demolishing Europe in all of the top six singles matches that year. The momentum change towards the US occurred much later in the day in 2025, perhaps only properly becoming official when Cam Young and Justin Thomas won the top two matches on the 18th green.
In previous more lopsided Ryder Cups, players were lining up to hole the 'winning putt' in the serene knowledge that if they were to miss, someone was bound to seal the deal further down the order. There was no such certainty last Sunday. All the blue had vanished from the board. Had Lowry missed his birdie putt on 18, pressure would likely have ratcheted up on Tyrrell Hatton and Bob MacIntyre following behind.
After Lowry did his Darby-esque shuffle on the 18th green, the home crowd mercifully slunk away, the air no longer punctured by their witticisms.
"It'll be a little bit nicer than playing here, I know that," Lowry said, when asked about the prospect of Adare Manor in two years.
Many commentators have naturally sought to link the American fans' behaviour to the influence of Trumpism. While there may be a dollop of truth there, one wouldn't want to overstate it either. Prior to the weekend, the most poisonous atmosphere at a Ryder Cup was at the aforementioned 1999 event, when the politics of the United States were fairly well aligned with Europe - or with European centrists, at least.
For veteran US sportswriters, the standard explanation is less politicised and more straightforward - namely, this is just how New York - and Boston - sports fans are, and have always been.
As the European players have noted, the vibe around Adare is likely to be considerably more wholesome. Irish golf fans tend to be a pretty genial lot, on the whole, disinclined to roar out every scurrilous internet rumour in earshot of the targeted player.
Nonetheless, if any history is any guide, there could well be a concerted push for civility ahead of the 2027 Ryder Cup.
In the aftermath of Brookline, there was heavy emphasis on restoring old-style decorum to the game of golf. In the Belfry three years later - the Ryder Cup having been postponed by a year following 9/11 - the American players and their smattering of supporters made an ostentatious show of being respectful in order to banish the spectre of '99.
Whether there'll be a similar civility drive in the current climate remains to be seen
The competition lost some of its bite for a while, not helped by the fact that the US performed appallingly in the 2004 and 2006 events, losing heavily. The Woods and Mickelson cliques in the team room were akin to the Manchester United and Chelsea contingent in the England dressing room at the same time.
Whether there'll be a similar civility drive in the current climate remains to be seen. Tom Watson - a Republican of the Bush rather than Trump variety - berated his countrymen for their "rude and mean-spirited" conduct and said he was "ashamed" as an American. Against that, the PGA of America CEO Don Rea gave a nothing-to-see-here response to the questions about crowd behaviour, insisting that the rowdiness was no different than you'd get in Rome.
The prospect of Tiger Woods assuming the US captaincy for Adare is being heavily touted once again. Woods spurned the offer of the captaincy this time around on the strange grounds that his schedule wouldn't allow for it - leading the PGA of America to rashly offer the captaincy to the still competitive Keegan Bradley in an apparent fit of guilt following his exclusion from the team in Rome.
His friendship with JP McManus is being cited as an incentive for Woods to take on the captaincy for Limerick.
Whether this would be a good move is very debatable. Great players don't often make great captains - indeed, the skills required to be a great golfer and those that make a successful Ryder Cup captain seem to have very little crossover.
Based on the testimonies from Europe's winning press conference, Luke Donald's role seemed to be mainly in the area of logistics. The pairings are determined by a mixture of analytics and personal chemistry.
Jack Nicklaus was a decidedly average Ryder Cup captain, becoming the first American captain to lose at home in 1987. Watson seemed to alienate his entire team in 2014. Nick Faldo did likewise in 2008 and lost badly. In 1997, Europe seemed to win in spite of Seve's jitteriness rather than because of him.
Then there was Woods' own famous indifference to the Ryder Cup and his shockingly average personal record within it.
Woods' demeanour at Ryder Cups resembled a 13-year-old being dragged to Mass.
During his noughties peak, Tiger would regularly arrive at the Ryder Cup after a season in which he stacked major championships one on top of the other and then go out and lose 4&2 to the Linde German Masters winner.
Some have claimed much of America's present day struggles in the Ryder Cup started with Tiger, who is universally idolised by the present generation. (One thing that became apparent in Full Swing is that few of America's present generation of golfers know anything of the sport before 1997.)
Tiger's immediate predecessors in the '90s - the Payne Stewarts and the Paul Azingers - were much more motivated by the honour of the red, white and blue. They were central figures in America's victories over star-laden European teams in 1991 and 1993. That same spirit was notably absent during Woods' heyday in the 2000s.
Still, he was deemed to be a successful Presidents Cup captain - though it's hard not to be - which he combined with his playing duties in 2019. The organisers in Adare will be hoping his scheduling issues don't get in the way in 2027.
