Tiger Woods has a job waiting for him, should he want it.
Whether Woods will captain the U.S. team at the 2025 Ryder Cup remains uncertain. Does he have the time to commit to the Americans’ attempt to regain the cup at New York’s Bethpage Black?
“We’re still talking,” Woods said last week about his ongoing discussions with the PGA of America and its CEO, Seth Waugh. “There’s nothing that has been confirmed yet. We’re still working on what that might look like – also whether or not I have the time to do it.”
Said Waugh: “He doesn’t do anything that he’s not fully committed to, and we totally respect that.”
Woods, 48, has played very little tournament golf this year – seven rounds, including a missed cut last week in the PGA at Valhalla – but he still intends to compete in the major championships and a few other select events, and he has undertaken key roles off the course. In addition to his varied business interests, which include the developing TGL prime-time league, his course-design work and eponymous foundation, he has become a key figure in the tour’s negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“I need to feel that I can give the amount of time that it deserves,” he said of the 2025 Ryder Cup, which is set for September 26-28. Woods has some history at Bethpage Black, where he won the 2002 U.S. Open.
Phil Mickelson, a darling of New York-area sports fans, was the presumed 2025 U.S. captain until he defected to LIV Golf two years ago.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for a job that customarily has been announced about 1½ years ahead of the biennial match. Among the other candidates reportedly being vetted by the PGA of America: Stewart Cink, Webb Simpson and Matt Kuchar. Europe has retained Luke Donald, who led a five-point drubbing of the U.S. last year in Rome. READ MORE
Mark Flaherty resigned from the PGA Tour Policy Board, the tour disclosed Sunday night, marking the second defection from the influential panel in less than a week.
On May 13, Jimmy Dunne, the architect of the PGA Tour’s “framework agreement” with LIV Golf, resigned his position as an independent director on the Policy Board, adding to the apparent dysfunction in the professional game.
“Since the players now outnumber the Independent Directors on the Board, and no meaningful progress has been made towards a transaction with the PIF, I feel like my vote and my role is utterly superfluous,” Dunne wrote in his resignation letter.
Flaherty, who had served on the board for more than four years, said in a memo reported by the tour that his resignation was "effective immediately."
Dunne, an investment banker who is regarded as one of golf’s top dealmakers, spoke on behalf of the PGA Tour during a Senate subcommittee investigation into the negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Ron Green Jr., in a report for GGP+, wrote: “It feels as if the house is on fire and there’s an argument over whether to call the fire department or find a fire extinguisher.” READ MORE and MORE
david cannon, getty images
Rory McIlroy’s victory on May 12 at the Wells Fargo Championship attracted the largest TV audience for the PGA Tour’s annual stop in Charlotte, North Carolina, since 2021, according to Sports Media Watch.
The final round of the CBS telecast attracted 2.78 million viewers, a 34-percent bump from 2023 and the most-watched sportscast of the day other than the NBA playoffs.
It’s a rare slice of good news regarding viewership this season for the PGA Tour, which has experienced double-digit declines in TV audience amid the ongoing dispute with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and diluted fields because of player defections to rival LIV Golf. READ MORE
TAP-INS
The PGA Championship purse increased by $1 million from last year, to $18.5 million, with $3.33 million to the winner, the PGA of America announced. The prize fund for the season’s second men’s major championship has nearly doubled in 10 years, but it still falls behind the PGA Tour’s $20 million regular-season “signature events,” the Masters, U.S. Open and the LIV Golf tournaments. The Players, at $25 million, offers the richest prize fund in golf. READ MORE
Final qualifying begins today and continues June 3 at 10 U.S. sites and three in Canada, England and Japan to determine the rest of the field for the 124th U.S. Open next month at Pinehurst (North Carolina) Resort’s No. 2 course. The USGA provided some of the top stories among the 530 local qualifiers who advanced to final qualifying. READ MORE
Kipp Popert claimed his 10th title in three years on the G4D Tour when he edged defending champion Brendan Lawlor to win the G4D Open at Woburn Golf Club’s Duchess Course in England. READ MORE
Compiled by Steve Harmon