Eight-time PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel will compete in the 2025 Bank of Utah Championship this week. The veteran pro, who won the 2014 FedEx Cup title, is hoping to improve his standings in the FedEx Cup after a disappointing season on the track. But before the first round at Black Desert Resort, Horschel had another golf event in mind: the Ryder Cup.
And on live television, he proposed a major overhaul of the Ryder Cup that would be controversial: bringing the U.S. team onto the PGA Tour.
Who hosts the Ryder Cup? PGA of America vs. PGA Tour
Since the first Ryder Cup, the PGA of America has managed the U.S. side of the event. And it’s so confusing that the American PGA do not have PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour, which spun off from the PGA of America in the 1960s, is where your favorite pros play most of the time and hosts more than 40 tournaments each year, including the flagship Players Championship. (They also own and operate the PGA Tour Champions, Korn Ferry, and the PGA Tour of America, among others.)
‘This lifeless event’: Keegan Bradley questions Ryder Cup future in first comments since Bethpage
The PGA of America is primarily an educational organization with thousands of certified PGA teaching professionals across the United States. But importantly, the PGA of America also runs the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup for Americans.
Conversely, European Ryder Cup teams are run by the DP World Tour, the European version of the PGA Tour. This gave European teams a clear advantage in the Ryder Cup. The same staff, trainers and organizational leaders who work with European players throughout the year will work with them at the Ryder Cup.
That consistency is different than America’s Ryder Cup teams. Given that the PGA of America does not field American players on the PGA Tour throughout the year, the organization is not as familiar with American players as the DP World Tour is with European players.
Although he’s not alone, Horschel thinks this is a big problem for the U.S. team.
Billy Horschel says PGA Tour should ‘run’ US Ryder Cup team
Horschel has never competed in a Ryder Cup, but was part of the U.S. team that won the 2022 Presidents Cup. teeth Operated by the PGA Tour. He also regularly participates in the DP World Tour, so there is some credibility on the subject.
On Wednesday, Horschel appeared on the Golf Channel’s “Golf Today” show, and at the urging of co-host Damon Huck, the veteran pro proposed a controversial solution to the U.S. team’s Ryder Cup problems.
Horschel suggested that European teams’ dominance in the Ryder Cup in recent years was due in part to their dominance on the DP World Tour. And he revealed that he has spoken to other players and “big names” who agree with this.
“After this Ryder Cup, I had some conversations with some people, other players, players who are more well-known and are in the Ryder Cup. And what I shared with them is that they’ve been on the European Tour for the last five or six years and understand that the European Tour runs the Ryder Cup, so they see these people, they know the backroom staff, and they can have conversations about the Ryder Cup while they’re playing,” Horschel told Golf Channel.
The Bethpage Ryder Cup is dragging on for the wrong reasons.
He went on to give some specific examples, saying, “Even if it’s years down the line, it’s going to be in their mind about how to improve the situation, with hotels and everything you know. They have the ability to talk to people that they have relationships with on a regular basis.”
Horschel then retracted his controversial views.
“In my opinion, there is nothing like that at the PGA of America,” he said. “They certainly come back and do a great job. I’m not going to say they don’t do a good job.”
To solve this problem, Horschel came up with a simple solution. Let the PGA Tour take over the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
“We believe it’s time for the PGA Tour, or the people we believe in, to take over Team USA. They should run Team USA,” Horschel declared.
Horschel said he envisions a complex future partnership in which the PGA of America still owns and operates the Ryder Cup, but the PGA Tour runs the U.S. team.
“The PGA of America can still run the Ryder Cup and still sell all the corporate merchandise, but I think we need to have more ownership of the team and have people on the team who work on the Ryder Cup every year, who have relationships with the people who participate in the tournament, who can build relationships and talk things through so that things don’t fall through the cracks and things don’t slip through the cracks,” Horschel said.
With last month’s 15-13 loss to Bethpage Black, the U.S. team has lost six of its last eight Ryder Cups and nine of its last 12 Ryder Cups.
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