The 2025 Ryder Cup won’t be a lopsided defeat for the U.S. thanks to a surge in singles numbers on Sunday. It was too late, considering Europe built up a massive lead in the first two days and became the first team to win an away Ryder Cup since 2012.
After Team USA fell behind at home, there was no shortage of blame-shifting, with captain Keegan Bradley bearing the brunt of the blame, especially when it came to complaints about the Bethpage Black course setting.
Known as one of the toughest tests in golf, Bethpage Black was castrated due to the decision to cut the rough. The Europeans dominated the Americans in the first two days thanks to red-hot putting on greens that were soft from rain earlier in the week and lacked the much-anticipated heat.
It was clearly a point of contention between the U.S. team and Bethpage Black’s green staff, and the greens were visibly faster when the U.S. team charged on Sunday. While Bradley was largely blamed for dictating how the greens ran, Justin Thomas admitted on a recent podcast, No Laying Up, that course staff and the U.S. team had been discussing the speed of the greens throughout the week.
“I don’t know why they were so different from what Keegan asked for,” Thomas said. “So it was clear that he wanted a certain speed and wanted it to be fast enough. I saw them arguing with us that it was 13 seconds (on the Stimpmeter). It was like, ‘Guys, we play golf every week, but how fast? Watch on TV how many players are shorting their putts. No one is winning…you can’t roll a putt beyond 3-4 feet of the hole. These greens are slow as well. Speed up.
“It was just weird because you don’t expect that in the Ryder Cup at home. And again, that’s no excuse. They had to adapt just like we did,” Thomas added. “But it’s generally kind of a fun benefit of being able to set up (the course) a little bit, and it was very frustrating to have the speed of the greens that we requested be contested and debated. So it was weird.”
As Thomas points out, this is no excuse for the Americans’ poor performance on Friday and Saturday. Still, it’s certainly not a situation the team would want to experience in choosing the course setting, which is one of the main advantages for the home team.
The PGA of America will likely have to address this issue ahead of the next Ryder Cup stage, as course staff will have to be willing to adapt if the greens are not where the teams want them to be. They probably had a 13 on the Stimpmeter, but if a team says we need to be faster, we have to try everything we can to speed up instead of pushing back.
At the same time, the U.S. side must be able to adjust and perform better, even if they don’t get the exact conditions they wanted. The soft greens made it difficult to build up speed, and with rain falling on the course during Ryder Cup week, the U.S. team had to play better in the conditions they faced.
It was Bradley’s own goal that cut the rough, but the play on the green may not have been his fault after all.
