A potential scenario, one which may be necessary to preserve some of the lofty status already bestowed on the 2025 Ryder Cup. Early noises around the event are so chaotic that Coco the Clown feels like an appropriate mascot for Bethpage as the US host Europe.
Via this theoretic plan, Keegan Bradley continues his ascent back towards the summit of professional golf. He qualifies for the team of which he is, for the time being, the captain. Because it is supposedly impossible to combine playing for a modern-day Ryder Cup team with captaining one, Bradley has to pass on his duties.
Enter Tiger Woods, who by this time will have handily skipped a level of media and other external commitments he could well do without, to lead the US. Woods guides his country to victory – hardly a bold concept, because home teams win Ryder Cups just as Tuesday follows Monday – thereby penning a new and necessary chapter in a career that for now is tumbling towards oblivion. He can remain in position for Adare Manor in 2027, where it has always been assumed Woods will become the Ryder Cup captain due to his long-term alliance with Irish gazillionaires.
The likelihood or otherwise of this situation coming to pass is for others to assess. Woods was in elongated talks about taking the 2025 captaincy before the PGA of America turned surprisingly to Bradley. The shock also applied to Bradley himself, who admitted he held no discussion with officials before they offered him the role. Bizarre, yes, but also a precursor for the early road ahead. Bradley wasn’t so much a left-field pick as a panicked one, after Woods somewhat unimpressively dragged the process out for far longer than needed. Any sense of US Ryder Cup strategy went out of the window when the 38-year-old Bradley received the call.
It has emerged that it will cost $750 a day for anyone “lucky” enough to receive tournament day tickets for Bethpage via a public ballot. You can do the maths for a family of four. A volunteer package – where the clue is most definitely not in the title – costs $350. Both prices represent a public relations disaster zone. It is a great sporting anomaly that golf federation types recoil in horror when the notion of players being paid for Ryder Cup participation is floated, given the increasingly outrageous cash-grab the event represents. Amid formulaic touch points of the Ryder Cup – PRIDE, PASSION, NOTHING BEATS TEAM GOLF – it is worth remembering this tournament became the domain of the corporate classes long ago. This was why Rory McIlroy’s car-park outburst in Rome was so significant, as a rare display of authenticity.
Bradley spoke at the recent Ryder Cup one-year-to-go press conference, while remaining completely opaque on what will transpire if he qualifies for the US team. Bradley is the 12th-ranked golfer in the world and No 7 of Americans on the same list. Even when LIV-related qualifying conundrums are factored in, it is highly likely Bradley will be one of the dozen names the US want to face McIlroy and co. Bradley’s desperation to play in another Ryder Cup was only intensified by him being overlooked for Rome in 2023. The notion that he would give that up to give speeches and make pairings is fanciful.
Yet this all comes as an apparent shock to the US Ryder Cup contingent. Rather than state unequivocally what will happen if Bradley makes the team, the key subject has been left to float. Bradley himself should have made it an absolute priority to set out a plan. “It’s so far off now that I’m not going to worry about it,” Bradley said. “Once we get closer to the tournament and [if] I’m up there on the points list, then we’ll start to think about it.”
Is that two months from showtime? Two weeks? This is hilariously disorganised, a far cry from anything the European captain Luke Donald would ever attach himself to. Bradley was asked about tweaks that have been implemented at the Ryder Cup venue. “I haven’t been out to Bethpage in a long time so I’m not totally sure of the changes,” was his response. Flying by the seat of his plus fours.
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Woods’s last bulletin was, typically, a medical one. It remains to be seen whether he will be fit to tee up in December at the Hero World Challenge or PNC Championship. The 15-time major winner has supposedly immersed himself in talks aimed at realigning elite golf after LIV rocked the status quo.
Woods has an obvious horse in that race; his legacy is intrinsically linked to the PGA Tour, which in turn had to form some kind of alliance with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund before it ran out of money trying to fight the same organisation. We can only hope Woods is more impressive around a boardroom table than on the umpteen opportunities he has had to publicly spell out the direction in which his sport should travel. Woods has been hopelessly vague on that front. There have been none of the statesmanlike addresses many had expected.
A Ryder Cup position would be commercially useful for Woods, keeping him at the forefront of golf. The chances of the US winning in New York are considerably higher than in Ireland, which should appeal to him. This is the very reason Bradley could be heralded as a fine appointment if he continues as captain. It is the “if” that makes this situation so obscure. If the US was nearly as serious about the Ryder Cup as they want those paying punters to believe, they should have set Bradley’s position in stone long ago.
