Below is an exceprt from an article on The Irish Independent Website, Unison.ie. The majority of the article was about Goosen's caddie that hails from Dublin.
Beginning of excerpt:
"In every other respect, however, they discovered they were on the same wavelength.
Goosen and Byrne certainly needed ice in the veins as they walked a gauntlet of hostile fans on a Shinnecock course that would have tried the patience of a saint.
While Phil Mickelson is a thorough gentleman, more than a few among the tens of thousands of New Yorkers noisily urging him on last Sunday, were patently unfamiliar with the etiquette of golf.
It's a measure of the general disappointment at their hero's two-stroke defeat that the huge grandstand at the 18th green was already empty when Goosen was presented with the US Open trophy for the second time in three years.
"Obviously the fans were with him," Byrne confirmed. "There was some pretty bad etiquette, you might say, from the crowd. Appalling.
"On Saturday I heard some guy yell out 'it's yours to lose, Goose'. Stuff like that," said the man from Howth, adding that fans were wasting their breath if they thought they might put the South African off his stride.
"He doesn't hear it," continued Byrne, a member of Royal Dublin. "He's not emotional. He doesn't react to stuff. It doesn't faze him at all.
"I think Ernie (Els) reacted on the 14th hole to some guy, though I don't know what he said to him. Yet that's what you expect over here and you face it with resignation. What can you do. They don't like to be beaten."
Like his caddie, Goosen dismissed the effect of the roaring galleries. "In a way, I think it was probably a bit easier playing with Ernie in the final round and not with Phil. I think if I had played with him, there'd have been a lot more going on around us.
"I was really doing my hardest to stay focussed and not get carried away with what's going on in front of me and just play one shot at a time," explained the South African, whose concentration was seen to greatest effect on Shinnecock's marbelled greens.
The United States Golf Association have quite rightly been pilloried by many of the game's leading players for the way in which they allowed this fine links to dry up at the weekend, ..."
End of excerpt.
I attended on Thursday and Friday and the crowds were more subdued than I expected. However my expections were pretty low after Bethpage. After attending both Augusta and Shinnecock this year, the high level of play exhibited by international players was not recognized by the patrons at either venue. I really think that the majority of people in the United States consider it somehow unpatriotic to cheer for an excellent performance regardless of where the contestant is from. Many feel that it is even necessary to try to actively cheer against international players and somehow insert their behaviors into the outcome.