Big laughs and a birthday serenade as US beats Europe in Ryder Cup’s celebrity showdown

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (AP) — Eli Manning landed a fade within 5 feet but missed the putt, Bobby Flay cooked up a birdie, John McEnroe and José Andrés mugged for pictures with red, white and blue-clad fans and Catherine Zeta-Jones curtseyed on the tee box as the crowd serenaded her on the eve of her 56th birthday.

Those were some of the scenes Wednesday at the All-Star Celebrity Matches at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, a light-hearted, laugh-filled 11-hole event pitting U.S. and European stars from the stage, screen, sports and culinary worlds — even Hogwarts.

Teams of two per side squared off in a modified scramble format on the golf course’s opening and closing stretches. Winning a hole earned a point. A tie was worth a half-point per side.

The U.S. won 25 to 19, earning early bragging rights before the pros tee it up on Friday.

Manning, the ex-New York Giants quarterback, and “Saturday Night Live” star Colin Jost led the way with 7.5 points. Manning's former teammate, “Good Morning America” host Michael Strahan, teamed with country singer Miranda Lambert to put up 6 points, while singers Kane Brown and Noah Kahan accounted for 6.5 points for the U.S. side.

Andrés, the Spanish chef and humanitarian, and Finnish hockey great Teemu Selanne, were Europe’s only winning pair, 6-5 over TV chef Flay and tennis great McEnroe.

But the scoreboard didn't seem to matter much to fans who lined the ropes for a glimpse of their favorite celebrities, or to the stars, who were playing to the crowd as much as they were lining up putts and sizing up tee shots.

“It’s awesome,” said Brown as he signed autographs and posed for pictures on the way to tee off on the celebrities’ second-to-last hole, the par-3 17th.

After Manning’s birdie miss on 14, a fan shouted: “Peyton would’ve made it!"

A few groups later and still no birdies on the hole, Andrés turned to the crowd and guaranteed one would fall. Andrés left his putt short, but Flay curled his in from about 15 feet. The “Food Network” star leaped into the air and gestured like he'd just won the Masters. Fans roared.

With Strahan just off the green, a fan helpfully yelled: “All you got to do is chip it in.” Puffing on a cigar, the pro football hall of famer replied, “That's what I'm hoping for!” His shot came close, dancing to about two feet from the cup.

When Kahan was the only player in his group to land a shot on the green, he playfully pointed to himself and the ball, as if telling the crowd, “look what I did.”

Actors Tom Felton and Oliver Phelps from the “Harry Potter” films, playing in the same group for Europe, could've used some of their on-screen magic after they sent fans ducking with an errant tee shot. It hit a tree and fell harmlessly. Felton’s subsequent putt rattled around the cup but wouldn't go in.

Brian Murphy, of East Rockaway, New York, didn't mind the duffed shots or missed putts.

“It's been refreshing to see people who are so high up on the social ladder just kind of play and shank a ball every now and then,” said Murphy. “It's like, ‘Oh, my game isn’t that bad.'”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Europe's Catherine Zeta-Jones and Pau Gasol celebrate on the fifth hole during the celebrity Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

United States' Bobby Flay gets ready to play on the first hole during the celebrity Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Europe's Jose Andres waves on the first hole during the celebrity Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

United States' Michael Strahan smokes on the fifth hole during the celebrity Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Robert Bukaty)

Europe's Catherine Zeta-Jones watches her tee shot on the third hole during the celebrity Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

United States' Eli Manning watches his tee shot on the first hole during the celebrity Ryder Cup golf tournament, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, on the Bethpage Black golf course, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — An Iranian Kurdish separatist group in Iraq said it has launched attacks on Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days in retaliation for Tehran’s violent crackdown on protests.

Members of the National Army of Kurdistan, the armed wing of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, have “played a role in the protests through both financial support and armed operations to defend protesters when needed,” Jwansher Rafati, a PAK representative, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Iranian media has previously accused the group and other Kurdish factions of attacking security forces.

Iranian activists say more than 2,797 people were killed in the government’s crackdown on a recent wave of nationwide protests.

A handful of Iranian Kurdish dissident or separatist groups — some with armed wings — have long found a safe haven in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, where their presence has been a point of friction between the central government in Baghdad and Tehran.

Iran has occasionally launched strikes on the groups’ sites in Iraq but has not done so since the outbreak of the recent protests.

The PAK is the first of the groups to claim armed operations since the protests and crackdown began.

“When we found out that the IRGC was shooting protesters directly, our fighters in Ilam, Kermanshah, and Firuzkuh responded with armed operations and inflicted significant damage on the regime’s forces,” Rafati said in an interview in Irbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region.

The PAK has also claimed a number of attacks online and posted video of what it said were operations against IRGC targets, sometimes accompanied by grainy videos showing gunshots or explosions and buildings ablaze. The AP was not able to confirm the extent of the damages or the impact of the attacks.

Rafati said the attacks were launched by members of the group’s National Army of Kurdistan military wing based inside Iran. The group had not sent any forces from Iraq, but it anticipates that Iran may strike PAK bases in Iraq in retaliation for its operations, he added.

He said the PAK has been providing support to dozens of Iranians who fled to the Kurdish area in Iraq since the crackdown on protests began.

The PAK claims may put Iraqi authorities in a sensitive situation with Tehran — which wields significant influence over its neighbor — concerning the group's ongoing presence in northern Iraq.

Iraq in 2023 reached an agreement with Iran to disarm Kurdish Iranian dissident groups and move them from their bases near the border areas into camps designated by Baghdad. The bases were shut down and movement within Iraq was restricted, but the groups have remained active.

During the Israel-Iran war last year, the PAK and other Kurdish dissident groups began organizing politically in case the authorities in Tehran should lose their hold on power but did not launch armed operations.

A PAK spokesperson told the AP at the time that premature armed mobilization could endanger the Kurdish groups and the fragile security of Kurdish areas, both in Iraq and across the border in Iran.

A decade ago, PAK forces received training from the U.S. military when they were taking part in the fight against the Islamic State militant group after it swept across Iraq and Syria, seizing large swathes of territory.

Ironically, the PAK at the time found itself allied with Iran-backed Shiite Iraqi militias that were also fighting against IS.

At that time, the PAK received funding from Iraq's Kurdish regional government, but says now that most of its funding comes from its supporters in Iran and the diaspora.

During the recent protests, Iranian state media has repeatedly referred to the demonstrators as “terrorists” and alleged they received support from America and Israel, without offering evidence to support the claim.

Iranian state television aired what appeared to be surveillance video of a group of men wearing the baggy pants common among the Kurds, firing pistols, in Iran’s western Kurdish region. It has also published images of seized weapons in the area.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said Kurdish groups including the PAK “have played an active role in inciting these movements by issuing coordinated statements and messages.” It said that “groups based in northern Iraq have passed the stage of psychological warfare and media operations and have entered the field phase.”

The semiofficial Fars news agency, which is also close to the Revolutionary Guard, reported on Jan. 10 that another group — the Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK — had killed eight Guard members in Kermanshah and that a PJAK sniper killed a police officer in Ilam province. PJAK has not claimed any armed operations during the protests.

———

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. Sewell reported from Beirut.

This image made from video shows the representative of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, Jwansher Rafati, speaking during an interview with The Associated Press, in Irbil, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)