Keegan Bradley told by Rory McIlroy: You should have done more to stop Ryder Cup abuse

Rory McIlroy says Keegan Bradley missed an opportunity to lower the temperature at the Ryder Cup. 

McIlroy and his European teammates completed a sensational 15-13 away victory over the stars and stripes last September. 

The visitors' win was all the more impressive given they faced relentless heckling from some members of the crowd at Bethpage Black. 

Watch: Roy Keane's explosive golf rant was so bad Ian Wright had to leave the room before Rory McIlroy interview

It represented a first win in hostile territory for the European team since the "Miracle at Medinah" in 2012. 

McIlroy was the primary target of verbal abuse and even the golfer's wife was struck by a drinks cup thrown from outside the gallery ropes. 

He told the most recent edition of The Overlap it was "by far" the worst crowd he has ever experienced. 

And he believes that Bradley missed an opportunity to urge the spectators to allow the contest to be played in the right spirit. 

McIlroy said Bradley could've stepped in after his Saturday afternoon match with Shane Lowry against Justin Thomas and Cameron Young. 

Thomas was even spotted trying to calm the crowd down and McIlroy, at one stage, refused to putt until the noise subsided. 

Extra state troopers were subsequently called in to chuck out abusive crowd members. 

"Keegan and I have talked about this," McIlroy said. "You have to play into the home field advantage, absolutely.

"But during the competition on Friday night and Saturday night, after the stuff that we heard on the course, there was an opportunity for either Keegan or some of the teammates to be like: 'Let's just calm down here. Let's try to play this match in the right spirit.'

"Some of them did that, but obviously Keegan had the biggest platform of the week in being the captain. 

"I feel like he could have said something on that Friday or Saturday night, and he didn't.

"But in fairness, Sunday was a little bit better. It seemed like the rhetoric was sort of calmed down a bit."

McIlroy continued: "In the Ryder Cup for the first two days, there's 50,000 people on four holes. It's so tight and so packed in and so condensed. 

"Then on Sunday there's 12 matches, so the crowd is a little more dispersed around the golf course. It doesn't really get into that mob mentality as much.

"It's a great event for golf to have, because it's the only time you have that real partisan feel. What we feel or what I feel as a football fan or what you felt when you were playing.

"That's a rivalry and people really get into that. It's the reason it's probably the biggest tournament in golf.

"I would say winning as a team has a very different feeling to winning as an individual. You can celebrate it more.

"I've always said individual wins in my career are always going to be the proudest things that I've achieved or what I'm proudest of, but I've never had as much fun in my career as I've had at the Ryder Cup.

"That was my eighth Ryder Cup and it was definitely the best one by far."

Erica McIlroy loved Roy Keane's rant

Former Premier League footballer and Manchested United captain Roy Keane criticised the European players for not urging their significant others to stay in the hotel at Bethpage Black to avoid the abuse. 

Keane said he had "no sympathy" for the players given they knew what to expect. 

McIlroy said the wives and girlfriends wanted to support the team. 

And Erica "loved" watching Keane's rant, McIlroy said. 

He said: "Erica, my wife, would say she's a grown woman, she's strong, she can handle that, but then when it starts to get into your family, I heard stuff about my daughter that I couldn't even repeat here. It's horrific.

"But I think it's sort of society and culture at the minute as well. It's that mob mentality where people see other people doing something and then they think it's okay. And then it sort of builds up.

"There's 50,000 people there, and all it takes is 500 of those to be bad eggs and then it skews the atmosphere."

Elsewhere in the podcast, McIlroy said he was open to the prospect of LIV Golf players returning to the PGA Tour.