Much was made a week or so ago about Justin Thomas\u2019 comments on the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage, which caused a stir when they were interpreted as him criticizing the final decisions on course setup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As so often happens in our current information environment, his 85-minute conversation on the No Laying Up Podcast<\/a> was whittled down to just a few sentences, chopped up by others, chopped up again, disseminated out to the world and then debated online<\/a>.\u00a0(You can listen to the pod here<\/a>. It\u2019s worth your time!)<\/p>\n Does JT wish he could redo those particularly apparently viral comments? Perhaps. He went on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio to clarify them<\/a>. But that\u2019s not a point I\u2019d like to work through right now. (At risk of making a similar mistake.) I\u2019d rather dive into something just as narrow but far more intriguing than the past Ryder Cup: the structure of the next one!\u00a0<\/p>\n A few of Thomas\u2019 sentences from that podcast that got lost in the hullabaloo of last week\u2019s news cycle, and they revolve around synergy. While exploring what went wrong in 2025 and forecasting how it could possibly change for 2027, Thomas said that changes were necessary for Team USA success.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat those specific changes are, I\u2019m not sure entirely,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cBut something does [have to change]. There just seems to be more, I would say, synergy, and more just similarities maybe because \u2014 we have the Presidents Cup. I feel like we have the opportunity of, I don\u2019t want to say using that event, but something. There needs to be some kind of, like, partnership there. It doesn\u2019t make sense that they\u2019re so \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cConnective tissue,\u201d NLU host Chris Solomon said, jumping in. \u201cIt just needs to be more\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not related at all,\u201d Thomas continued. \u201cThey\u2019re run by two different organizations. It feels like there\u2019s just some things I feel like \u2014 we just, maybe if it\u2019s \u2026 put in a position to be more successful, or just something that\u2019s more organized to \u2014 to make sure that all the boxes are checked. Everything is \u2014 how it\u2019s run, how it should be done, how it should be, to where we are put in the best possible position to succeed and play well, I guess. Not sure if that\u2019s really answering.\u201d<\/p>\n You have to appreciate Thomas taking on the question and sharing his feelings, even if he has as much frustration as he does a concrete plan. But the reason he knows the approach could be more cohesive is because he looks around and sees the other side, Team Europe, with some undeniably successful strategies in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “><\/p>\n One of the major differences between the Ryder Cup teams is the structures that support them. On the American side, there is the PGA of America, which serves under the mission of growing interest and participation in golf via the massive network of golf professionals in America.<\/p>\n On the European side, there is the DP World Tour, formerly known as the European Tour, which operates for professional golfers \u2014 decidedly, if confusingly, different than golf professionals \u2014 by organizing tournaments across the world. The DP World Tour runs Ryder Cup Europe on a 12-months-a-year basis, knowing well that the latter\u2019s success underpins<\/a> the financial solvency of the former.<\/p>\n In other words, while the Ryder Cup is an integral part of the DP World Tour\u2019s big-picture strategy, it\u2019s more like an important one-off for the PGA of America. Which makes it much easier for leading European golfers to completely put aside any of their individual desires (and\/or differences) for a week or two. They\u2019re playing for the Tour that they grew up playing, the one that helped launch their careers, and they can help their Tour by staging and winning an entertaining Ryder Cup. (Their investment in the outcome is part of the reason that Americans earning a stipend for playing in the Cup<\/a> \u2014 while the Europeans don\u2019t \u2014 isn\u2019t quite apple to apples.)<\/p>\n The people running Ryder Cup Europe are the same people that meet with Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland at basically every non-U.S. tournament they play year-round. The media comms staffers who organize and moderate McIlroy\u2019s press conferences at, say, the Australian Open in December are the same staffers he embraced in a hug just off the 18th green following his Ryder Cup matches in New York. The competitions directors who oversee tournament green speeds at the Dubai Desert Classic in January were there sharing updates with Hovland on the putting green at Bethpage Black right before his matches. I had the good fortune to be there for both of the above, and chatted with David Garland, the director of Tour Operations at the DPWT between Saturday sessions at Bethpage. He rummaged about behind the scenes throughout Ryder Cup week, busy as ever, because that\u2019s his job and he\u2019s passionate for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n