apologies

Rory McIlroy hadn’t even left the practice range last Friday morning when a small section of fans at the Ryder Cup started a profane chant aimed at his image on a video screen at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y.

The verbal abuse and other inappropriate behavior directed toward McIlroy and his European teammates worsened as the weekend went on. At one point Saturday a cup of beer sailed out of the crowd and hit the brim of a hat worn by McIlroy’s wife, Erica Stoll, who was walking next to her husband.

The poor treatment didn’t prevent Team Europe from claiming a 15-13 win over the U.S. Afterward, McIlroy told reporters, “What happened here this week is not acceptable” and “I think golf should be held to a higher standard than than what was was seen out there this week.”

Derek Sprague, chief executive of PGA of America, told the Athletic this week that he had apologized to McIlroy and Stoll in an email.

Comedian Heather McMahan, who served as a morning emcee on the first two days of the Ryder Cup, also apologized this week for participating in a profane chant toward McIlroy.

And on Thursday — several days after he had seemingly trivialized the boorish fan behavior at the Ryder Cup by likening it to that of attendees at youth soccer games — PGA of America president Don Rea Jr. finally apologized in an email to the organization’s 30,000-plus members.

PGA of America president Don Rea Jr. speaks during a news conference at the PGA Championship in May.

(Matt York / Associated Press)

“Let me begin with what we must own. While the competition was spirited — especially with the U.S. team’s rally on Sunday afternoon — some fan behavior clearly crossed the line,” Rea wrote in the email, which was viewed by the Associated Press. “It was disrespectful, inappropriate, and not representative of who we are as the PGA of America or as PGA of America golf professionals. We condemn that behavior unequivocally.”

It was a different tone from the one Rea took Sunday when the BBC asked him about the unruly behavior of fans.

“Well, you’ve got 50,000 people here that are really excited, and heck, you could go to a youth soccer game and get some people who say the wrong things,” Rea said. “We tell the fans, booing at somebody doesn’t make them play worse. Typically, it makes them play better. And when our American players have to control the crowds, that distracts them from playing. So our message today to everybody who’s out here is, cheer on the Americans like never before, because that’ll always get them to play better and get them out of crowd control and let them perform.”

Asked specifically about the verbal abuse directed toward McIlroy, Rea said: “You know, it happens when we’re over in Rome on the other side. And Rory understands. I thought he handled the press conference just amazingly. But yeah, things like that are going to happen. And I don’t know what was said, but all I know is golf is the engine of good.”

Sprague, who took over as PGA of America’s chief executive in January, told the Athletic on Wednesday that he had apologized to McIlroy’s manager that morning and asked him to pass along a message to the five-time major champion and his wife.

“I sent a long email to share with Rory and Erica and just told him that we will do better in the future,” Sprague said. “I’m the CEO now. I don’t condone this type of behavior. This is not good for the game of golf. It’s not good for the Ryder Cup. It’s not good for any of the professional athletes, and we will do better.”

Heather McMahan arrives at the 76th Emmy Awards on Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater.

(Jae C. Hong / Invision / Associated Press)

In video footage from the first tee Saturday morning, McMahan appeared to be taking part in a profane chant aimed at McIlroy. That night, the PGA of America released a statement saying McMahan had apologized to McIlroy and Team Europe and had stepped down from her first-tee hosting duties.

McMahan addressed the situation Wednesday on her “Absolutely Not” podcast, saying she did not start the chant, as some outlets have reported, and said it only once before realizing it wasn’t something she wanted to take part in.

“I will take full responsibility and sincerely apologize to Rory, Team Europe for saying that,” McMahan said. “It was so foolish of me. I did not start the chant. I would just like that narrative to get out there. I did not start it, but any way that I had participated in that, even just saying it once, was so foolish and silly of me.

“And as soon as it came out and they started chanting, I was just like, ‘Oh, the energy just shifted.’ It went from us trying to be fun and funny … to immediately just was negative and felt really kind of toxic. So as soon as I said that I was like, ‘I don’t want any part of this.’”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FX on Hulu has asked that a spoiler alert head any detailed reviews of the new, fourth season of “The Bear.” And while this review is not really detailed, everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a spoiler. So, read on, if you dare.

Most television series, and not just the best ones, are organic. You can plan in a vague way, but you learn as you go along — what the actors can do, what characters are going to demand more screen time, what unexpected opportunities present themselves, what the series is telling you about itself. This can make a show feel inconsistent across time, but often better in the end, as much as it may irritate viewers who liked how things were back at the beginning.

Early in the fourth season of “The Bear,” premiering Wednesday on FX on Hulu, the staff of the series’ eponymous restaurant finally sees the Chicago Tribune review they were anticipating throughout much of Season 3, and when it comes, it contains words like “confusing,” “show-offy” and “dissonant.” (It’s beautiful to see the review represented in a physical newspaper.) The show’s third season was accused by some fans and critics of similar things, and whether or not creator and showrunner Christopher Storer is drawing a comparison here, it’s true that “The Bear” doesn’t behave like most series — the recent shows it most resembles are “Atlanta” and “Reservation Dogs,” both from FX, and going back a little, HBO’s “Treme,” which, like “The Bear,” are less invested in plot than in character, place and feeling.

For all the series’ specific detail and naturalistic production, the eponymous Bear is a fairy-tale restaurant, staffed by people who not long before were hustling to get beef sandwiches out the door but, encouraged by Jeremy Allen White’s brilliant chef Carmen, have revealed individual superpowers in relatively short time. (Carmy asks Marcus, a genius of dessert played by Lionel Boyce, how he achieved a certain effect in a new sweet; “Legerdemain,” Marcus replies.) If you want to see real restaurants in operation, there are plenty of options, from Netflix’s “Chef’s Table,” to Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” a four-hour film about a Michelin three-star restaurant in central France. (It streams from PBS.org; you have until March 2027 to catch it there, and should.) But this invented place, which is real enough for its purposes, is primarily a stage for human striving, failure and success — and love. Come for the food, stay for the people.

After the first two seasons, which involved transforming the Beef, the sandwich shop Carmy inherited from his late brother Mikey, and creating the Bear, the third looked around and over its shoulder, flashing back and stretching out and developing themes that are taken up again in Season 4, which begins so hot on the heels of three they might as well be one. (They were filmed back-to-back.) The chaos and expense created by Carmy’s “nonnegotiable” decision to change the menu every night; the prospect of the Tribune review; and a participation agreement for sous-chef-turned-creative partner Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are still working their way through the story. It begins more prosaically, certainly when compared with the impressionistic montage that occupied the whole of last season’s opening episode. And, apart from an opening flashback in which Carmy tells Mikey (Jon Bernthal) of his vision for a restaurant (“We could make it calm, we could make it delicious, we could play good music, people would want to come in there and celebrate … we could make people happy”), it stays in the present, facing forward.

Once again, we get a ticking clock to create pressure; installed by the “uncle” they call Computer (Brian Koppelman), it’s timed not as before to the opening of the restaurant but to the point at which backer Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) will pull out and the Bear will “cease operations.” (It’s set to 1,440 hours, or 60 days.) But deadlines come and go on this show, and though we’re treated to repeated shots of the countdown clock, it doesn’t create much actual tension. There is always something more immediately concerning, in the kitchen or out in the world.

Ticking clocks remain a motif in Season 4 of “The Bear.” Ayo Edebiri, left, with Liza Colón-Zayas in a scene from this season.

(FX)

For all his messing with the menu in search of a Michelin star, Carmy is stuck in a rut — cue clip from “Groundhog Day” — and has also become maddeningly inarticulate, almost beyond speech; much of what White does this year is listen and react, doing subtle work with his face and fingers, interjecting an occasional “Yeah,” while family or colleagues unburden themselves or take him to task. “Is this performative?” Richie asks a moping Carmy. “You waiting for me to ask if you’re OK?”

Some of his self-flagellation feels unearned — which I suppose is often the case with self-flagellation. (“You would be just as good … without this need for, like, mess,” says Syd.) Carmy can be a handful, but he’s led his team into this land of milk and honey, and if the Bear is dysfunctional, it nevertheless manages to put food on the table, create delight and pay its people. Still, this is a season of apologies — even Uncle Jimmy is saying he’s sorry, through a closed door, to his teenage son — and reconciliations. (You didn’t suppose you’d seen the last of Claire, Carmy’s on-again, off-again romantic interest, played by Molly Gordon?)

Some developments can seem abrupt, possibly because so many of these characters are bad at communicating or lie about how they’re feeling, saying that everything is OK when everything is not OK. But in the long view, the view that extends even beyond the end of the series, whether it comes sooner or later, everything will be OK. Whatever Emmy nitpickers might have to say about its category, “The Bear” is most definitely a comedy; there’ll be obstacles, but everyone’s on a road to happiness. A double-wide episode, set at the wedding of Richie’s ex-wife, Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), mirrors the calamitous “Fishes” Christmas-dinner episode from Season 2, with most of that extended cast present again. But here, there is dancing.

Richie, running the front of the house, continues on his journey of self-improvement, crafting inspirational addresses to the staff, meditating on a photo of a Japanese Zen garden and dealing in an adult way with his soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife and daughter; the Bear has become his lifeline. Gary (Corey Hendrix, getting some deserved screen time) is being educated as a sommelier; Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) is working to put pasta on the plate in under three minutes; Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) is killing it at the sandwich window and looking to “create opportunity” with a new delivery app, a robot called Chuckie and a business mentor (Rob Reiner). Come for the food, stay for the people.

Above all, this is Syd’s year, which is, of course, also to say Edebiri’s. She’s got decisions to make and has been given long, often intense, two-person scenes, not only with Carmy but with Jimmy and Claire and an 11-year-old girl she suddenly finds herself babysitting, and with whom she spends most of an episode; Syd describes her dilemma in terms an 11-year-old might understand and receives the blunt advice an 11-year-old might give.

Carmy, for his part, thinks he knows how to fix things, which he will finally get around to sharing. Is it a good idea? Will it work? Will we ever know, and do we need to know? Is this the final season? (No one has said.) It closes on what is not quite an end — that not everything ties up feels very on brand for the series, and like life, which doesn’t run on schedule — and a sort of beginning. (I would just point out that R.E.M.’s “Strange Currencies,” or as I have called it, “Love Theme From ‘The Bear,’” playing very quietly in a scene behind Richie and highly evolved Chef Jessica [Sarah Ramos] may be a gentle nod to their unseen future.)

It can be corny, it can be obvious. It indulges in gestures as grand and unlikely as creating snow for a guest, and as small as a sandwich being cut to make it a little more friendly, a little more fancy. Both are moving.

Good restaurants serve a reliable version of familiar food, food anyone can like. Great ones do something peculiar that won’t be to everyone’s taste, won’t even make sense, but might inspire love. So it is with television shows.