Chris “Mad Dog” Russo went on ESPN’s First Take this week and delivered one of the most absurd hot takes of 2026. After Scottie Scheffler’s playoff duel with Matt Fitzpatrick at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, Russo inexplicably objected to American fans chanting “U-S-A.” Russo thought the American fans backing an American over an Englishman was problematic.
Um, what?
Russo started by saying, “This is not the Ryder Cup.”
Did anyone think it was? And since when do fans need an officially sanctioned red-white-and-blue event before they are allowed to root for an American player over a foreign player? Scheffler is American. Fitzpatrick is English. The tournament was in South Carolina. I can’t believe I have to explain this to a man who has spent his entire life living in America and more than two-thirds of it pontificating into a microphone.
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But he wasn’t done. Not even close.
“We’re not fighting Britain in a war.”
Honestly, I can’t believe Russo said this on ESPN. Firstly, no one thinks we’re in a war with Britain. Secondly, and this is basically the same response I had to the Ryder Cup argument, why does the USA have to be in a war with a country to root for our athletes against that country? The more I write about this, the more I think I should have just ignored it because his arguments are almost too dumb to deserve a response. But we’re already in it, so let’s keep going.
“Fitzpatrick is as American as [Stephen A.] Smith is… he freaking lives in Miami!”
Yeah, I really don’t want to dignify this with a response, but unfortunately that’s what they pay me to do. Fitzpatrick living in Florida does not make him an American. He’s from England. He has a thick English accent. He competes for Europe in the Ryder Cup and for Great Britain in the Olympics. He lives in America because it’s convenient for his job as a PGA Tour player. He is not “as American” as a U.S. citizen. This is a ridiculous comment from Russo.
“This is not the ’80 Olympics.”
Not only is Russo’s argument incoherent, it also belongs in the “non sequitur” Hall of Fame (that doesn’t actually exist, but I think it should). This has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. It’s also the same argument as the “This is not the Ryder Cup” comment. It’s as if Russo knows his position is nonsensical and he has no good evidence to support it so he just starts repackaging the same take in different ways. Actually, it’s not “as if” anything; that’s exactly what’s happening here.
So, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo had a major problem with American fans rooting for Scottie Scheffler over Matt Fitzpatrick at the RBC Heritage and chanting “U-S-A”. But you know who didn’t have a problem with it? Matt Fitzpatrick.
After beating Scheffler in a playoff, the Englishman said Americans are “incredibly patriotic” and called the atmosphere “amazing” during his winner’s press conference. He said the crowd “didn’t get out of line” and added, “I’m all for it.” He even slipped in a little dig, joking that Americans have “shorter memories” because Europe won the Ryder Cup last September. In other words, Fitzpatrick understood the moment perfectly well. He saw it as competitive, national and fun. Essentially, Fitzpatrick appreciated American patriotism more than Russo. That should create a moment of self-reflection for Russo, but I suspect it won’t.
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Russo joined the ever-growing list of so-called sports media people who act as if any display of American loyalty must be explained away or require an apology. It doesn’t. Russo should go work for Huffington Post with that kind of take, given what they wrote during the Olympics.
The bigger issue is that Russo missed what makes sports so important to societies, communities, and nations. People sort athletes by side before they sort them by anything else. Team. School. City. Country.
This is also why so many race-first sports arguments are off-base. The crowd at Hilton Head wasn’t making a complicated statement or workshopping a sociological or philosophical thesis. It saw Scheffler as the American and Fitzpatrick as the Englishman, and it reacted accordingly.
We’ve recently seen certain sections of sports media making claims that the NBA “wants more Europeans because they want more white stars.” This is as absurd as Russo’s claims, perhaps more so. Sports fans care about who represents them. Nationality ranks far above skin color. It’s not even close, quite frankly. The identity-obsessed media class believes the opposite. They are categorically incorrect. If it were Tiger Woods in a playoff with Fitzpatrick, you can bet the “U-S-A” chants still would have rung out. No one would have thought, “we should root for the white guy over the American because he’s black.” That even sounded dumb as I was typing it.
In a culture that tries to divide everyone into smaller and smaller ideological and demographic factions, sports still creates the opposite effect. It’s part of the reason that the race-obsessed media often appears to hate sports. They know it proves the opposite of their Critical Race Theory machinations.
Scottie Scheffler is an American. Matt Fitzpatrick is not. The crowd responded by rooting for Scheffler and serenading him with “U-S-A” chants.
American fans root for American athletes over foreign athletes. Period.
They always have. They always will.
And that’s exactly the way that it should be.
