{"id":147454,"date":"2025-09-19T13:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/147454\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T13:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:42:12","slug":"former-ryder-cup-captain-makes-stunning-tiger-woods-claim-bigger-fish-to-fry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/147454\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Ryder Cup captain makes stunning Tiger Woods claim: “Bigger fish to fry”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former United States Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger says he believes Tiger Woods<\/a> would sooner be the commissioner of the PGA Tour than lead Team USA in the biennial contest.<\/p>\n

One storyline sure to develop after the 2025 matches conclude next week at Bethpage Black is who will replace Keegan Bradley<\/a> at the helm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

European skipper Luke Donald is almost certain to hand over the captaincy to England’s Justin Rose<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it has long been thought that Woods will finally become a Ryder Cup<\/a> captain when the contest heads to Adare Manor in Ireland in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would also make perfect sense for Woods given his close ties to the Irish billionaire J.P. McManus, who owns the County Limerick course.<\/p>\n

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\"Tiger <\/p>\n

Tiger Woods<\/p>\n

Woods turned down the captaincy for the 2025 matches, citing his commitments on the PGA Tour’s policy board amid the threat of LIV Golf<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Azinger, who was captain of the United States at Valhalla in 2008, told the Straight Facts Homie podcast he believes Woods is “bigger than the Ryder Cup captaincy”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t know, I think he’d more like to be the commissioner before maybe than the Ryder Cup captain,” he said. “Tiger’s bigger than Ryder Cup captaincy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“I said a couple of years back he should be the permanent captain, all-time captain, because who better?\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But that’s not right. Other guys deserve to be captain, so I kind of take that back. But I think he has bigger fish to fry.<\/p>\n

“Tiger, he’s involved with this game monetarily now and maybe he’ll end up running it, who knows?”<\/p>\n

Azinger was referring to the fact Woods is on the PGA Tour’s policy board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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He was added as a player director in August 2023, months after the PGA Tour<\/a> announced a stunning ‘framework agreement’ with LIV Golf’s Saudi financiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is not known yet if Woods will attend the Ryder Cup matches next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The aforementioned Bradley told reporters he leaned on Woods for advice as he decided whether to take on a playing role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bradley then made the ultimate sacrifice by electing not to pick himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The US skipper also told GOLF that Woods is part of the decision-making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“He’s [Woods] being consulted [by Bradley],” a source told the publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And I know he feels like he’s a part of Keegan’s decisions and how he’s thinking about it, and Keegan has been hugely respectful of that.<\/p>\n

“Without giving [Woods] an outsized role, I think it’s been balanced and kind of appropriate. He\u2019s been sort of an informal advisor or Dutch uncle.”<\/p>\n

The 2025 Ryder Cup will be played over 26-28 September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Keep checking GolfMagic for the latest news.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Subscribe to our Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former United States Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger says he believes Tiger Woods would sooner be the commissioner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-147454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}