The next Ryder Cup, the one at Bethpage Black that will feature three teams – the United States, the Europeans and the most unfiltered fans in the event’s history – is still more than 22 speculative months away.
That’s nearly two more years for the Europeans to revel in their recent Roman romp and further gild their Ryder Cup legend, which can hardly stand more gilding. They are proud of themselves, and rightly so.
For the Americans, who have quietly moved on to football season, the debriefings should be complete, and the next big decision is likely to come early next year.
That means persuading Tiger Woods to be the 2025 Ryder Cup captain.
Maybe it won’t take persuasion. Maybe he’s just waiting for the call. Maybe it’s already in the works.
It’s time for Tiger, if he’s ready to say, ‘Yes.’
Perhaps, with all that’s going on in professional golf, he’s too busy with his new duties as a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, and maybe he wants to focus on his rehab for a while longer, and maybe he sees going to Ireland in 2027 and leading the Americans to what would be their first overseas victory in 34 years as the true catnip.
There’s also being Charlie’s plus-one in tournaments.
But if Tiger is ready, it’s time.
Woods captained a victorious Presidents Cup team in Australia in 2019, going 3-0-0 as a player between pairings meetings, and he seemed to love the role. The Presidents Cup is different than the Ryder Cup, but Tiger is Tiger.
And before anyone suggests Woods doesn’t care enough about the Ryder Cup because his personal record of 13-21-3 in the event is underwhelming, they’re wrong.
The role of Ryder Cup captain has taken on an outsized importance, evolving from a largely symbolic duty into keeper of the flame or, at the moment, re-ignitor of the flame.
Ask any of the recent captains and vice captains about the phone calls and text messages that came in at all hours from Woods during the past few years.
“We've got to call Tiger Woods and ask him … Obviously Tiger's into a lot of stuff right now, but it's kind of his call, I would say,” said Davis Love III, who as a player, a captain or a vice captain has been part of almost as many Ryder Cups as the trophy itself. “I hate to put pressure on him, but it's kind of his call. Obviously with some guys out, he's the next logical choice.”
If not Tiger, then whom?
Fred Couples warrants a captaincy based on his years of service and the shared devotion between him and the players of multiple generations, but, for whatever reason, the PGA of America has been reluctant to pick him.
Steve Stricker would be the obvious ask if Woods says no and Couples doesn’t get the call. All he did was do everything right as captain in a 19-9 American victory two years ago in his Wisconsin backyard.
Stewart Cink is new blood, having been a vice captain in Rome, but he seems unlikely to be the next captain.
It probably would have been Phil Mickelson’s turn at Bethpage, where the fans loved him through all those U.S. Open near-misses, but he is in Ryder Cup Siberia these days as a LIV Golf player.
Maybe Tiger again takes what seemed to be Phil’s.
“He’s the first guy you call,” Webb Simpson, a three-time Ryder Cup player, said about Woods.
Think the Americans relied too much on the buddy system this year?
Woods believes in camaraderie and trust (it’s part of his late father’s military credo that he takes so personally), but he also understands the idea of playing for a purpose, something the Europeans have done brilliantly over the years.
Tiger would make his own decisions toward that end. If he thought outfitting his team in black pants and a red shirt on Sunday at Bethpage would help, don’t put it past him.
Was it Zach Johnson’s fault that the Americans got blitzed in Rome?
He no doubt would like some do-overs, and maybe he leaned too far into letting the players decide what they wanted, but if anyone is to blame for the Americans’ loss, point to Europe’s Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm.
Johnson followed a good bit of what Stricker did at Whistling Straits, where the Americans posted the most lopsided win since Great Britain and Ireland added the continent of Europe to the match in 1979. But it was a different team on both sides, and now European captain Luke Donald is likely to be asked back for ’25 because he’s seen as the greatest thing since Paul McGinley and Thomas Bjørn captained winning squads in 2014 and 2018, respectively.
This isn’t a time for the Americans to reinvent the wheel. They did that – at least they tried to – with a task force a few years ago.
This doesn’t have to be granular. Make sure the American team members don’t take five weeks off before the ’25 Ryder Cup. Tell them that if they are going to play at Bethpage, they are going to play the Fortinet Championship beforehand.
The Americans already have a built-in advantage at Bethpage: Winning a Ryder Cup on the road has become exceedingly difficult.
The last five matches have been won by the home side by an average of 6.6 points, effectively a three-touchdown margin.
No golfer knows how to win better than Woods.
It feels like his time.
E-MAIL RON
Top: With Phil Mickelson abdicating his slot, Tiger Woods is the right U.S. fit for Bethpage.
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