Heading into the New Year, anxiety about the future health and security of the DP World Tour lingers, but the fact that 2025 is a Ryder Cup year will – as so often before – be a welcome distraction because European golf, its tour and the Ryder Cup team have always been as one in a way that American golf, the PGA Tour and Team USA has not.
Since the 1980s, that unity has been Europe’s greatest strength in the biennial contest, one that has been subtly redefined every decade and always by necessity. It is an undesirable dynamic and yet it has also fuelled the underdog spirit, allowing the continent’s golfers to consistently punch above their weight.
This year will be no different and the task for Europe’s captain Luke Donald is a significant one. In fact, even in the immediate aftermath of victory in Rome in 2023, Rory McIlroy was already thinking of the enormity of the challenge in the next bout in New York.
“I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup, and that’s what we’re going to do at Bethpage.”
Luke Donald
History vindicates the Northern Irishman’s notion because no less than 11 of the last 13 matches have been won by the home team.
To the long-standing advantage of gallery support has been added the growing relevance of course conditioning by the host team. What in the past were anecdotal notions of strengths and weaknesses are now data-driven truths that essentially handicap the opposition.
McIlroy is also well aware that New York’s infamously raucous sports fans will create an intimidating atmosphere that will test the visitors’ composure like never before.
Form adds further concerns. The Scandinavian youngsters Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Åberg were stars before, during and after the 2023 match but neither performed at similar levels in 2024. It is crucial that they rediscover their mojo.
There is also the thorny issue of LIV Golf. In the 2023 match there was a clear sense that the team used the loss of so many Ryder Cup heroes to the rebel circuit as an opportunity to end one era and begin another.
The strategy worked, but Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have now joined LIV while Donald has also reached out to Sergio García. The possibility of any awkwardness between teammates demands smart management.
It is also potentially unsettling that a host of potential debutants will be rookies in America this season. With the modern PGA Tour so skewed towards the elite, the likes of the Højgaard twins (Nicolai and Rasmus), Niklas Norgaard Moller, Matteo Manassero, Antoine Rozner and Jesper Svensson will have to fight and scrap to retain form and confidence, never mind their cards.
There is, of course, a very clear flip side to this dilemma, because what better way to determine if those youngsters are good enough to play for Europe than to prove themselves up against the best in the world?
To that upside can be added faith in Donald as a captain. It is highly unusual in modern times for Europe to ask a leader to stick around for an encore, but it was apparent in Rome that he deserved to stay put.
He will be encouraged that while only two of those last 13 visiting teams have been successful, four of the last nine European teams have overwhelmed the odds. There is also a touch of Bernhard Langer about his leadership and the German oversaw victory at Oakland Hills in 2004.
Moreover, it is perhaps the first time since then that Europe has one of its finer captains in place for an away match (the Englishman ranks alongside Langer, Thomas Björn and Paul McGinley in the 21st century and the latter two led on home soil).
McIlroy also offers hope for Europe. While it is wearying (for him more so than anyone else) to wonder again whether he will break his major championship drought, there is absolutely no doubt that 2025 has career-defining potential.
The weight of expectation may well stymie him yet again at Augusta National, but the return of the PGA Championship to Quail Hollow – a course he has won on four times including twice in his last three visits – offers a glorious chance of getting his major tally moving again.
Two months later the Open returns to his homeland and Royal Portrush, scene of his remarkable missed cut in 2019. It was a week when his first-round 79 reminded us of his Harold Lloyd-like capacity to locate, and slip up on, banana skins, while his second-round 65 was a glorious example of his outrageous quality. He can also recall carding a 61 there as a 16-year old to break the course record by three strokes. If he wins at Quail Hollow, the Open will be electric.
Throw in the chance to build on his leadership of the European team in Rome – when he not only top-scored for the first time but evidently felt freed by the past and able to fully play the part of elder statesman – and McIlroy has the opportunity to take a step towards European greatness this year.
In that sense, McIlroy, Donald and the European team are alike in that the tasks ahead of them are formidable. But though the risks are high, the rewards would be life-changing.
Matt Cooper