{"id":510814,"date":"2026-03-08T08:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T08:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510814\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T08:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T08:30:12","slug":"the-ryder-cup-is-more-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510814\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Ryder Cup is more important!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tWhile Team Europe is once again putting down the marker when it comes to the Ryder Cup captaincy, the PGA of America is still wondering what to do if Tiger Woods turns them down. And that, Bernard Gallacher tells TG, is unacceptable\u2026 <\/p>\n

Over to you, Tiger Woods.<\/p>\n

The reappointment of Luke Donald<\/a> as European Ryder Cup captain on Wednesday has sharpened the focus on Woods, who is still contemplating an offer to lead the US team at Adare Manor in 2027.<\/p>\n

Woods is the PGA of America\u2019s first choice to succeed Keegan Bradley, but is yet to decide whether he wants the job<\/a>. The 50-year-old has a close relationship with JP McManus, the host venue\u2019s owner in County Limerick, and was always destined to become a captain one day in spite of his dismal record in the contests as a player.<\/p>\n

But Woods is now a figurehead in the PGA Tour\u2019s boardroom and is weighing up whether he can juggle that responsibility with the daunting task of denying Donald a third win in a row on away soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have asked me for my input on it and I haven\u2019t made my \u00addecision yet,\u201d Woods revealed last month at the Genesis Invitational<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m \u00adtrying to \u00adfigure out what we\u2019re trying to do with our Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been driving me hours upon hours every day and \u00adtrying to figure out if, [for] Team USA and our players and everyone that\u2019s going to be involved in the\u00a0Ryder Cup<\/a>, I can do it justice with my time. Serving on two boards and what I\u2019m doing for the PGA Tour, I\u2019m \u00adtrying to figure out if I can actually do this and serve the people that are involved and serve them at an honorable level.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re getting an eery sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu here with Woods, you\u2019re probably not alone. The PGA of America only made the left-field Bradley appointment for Bethpage in the summer of 2024 after Woods stalled and then eventually turned down the captaincy.<\/p>\n

There is now the possibility that Woods could once again say thanks but no thanks and put his energy into a more favorable home match in 2029. Outside Woods, there is no obvious Plan B. The bookmakers\u2019 second favorite is this year\u2019s Presidents Cup captain, Brandt Snedeker, who was one of Bradley\u2019s five assistants at Bethpage.<\/p>\n

Europe, meanwhile, are already planning ahead. <\/p>\n

Bernard Gallacher, who was the last man before Donald to lead Europe into three successive Ryder Cups, cannot fathom why Woods even needs time to consider a role he viewed as the ultimate privilege.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be good for the Ryder Cup\u00a0if Tiger takes it,\u201d Gallacher tells TG. \u201cBut he\u2019s prevaricating quite a lot. Usually when people are asked to be captains\u00a0they say yes please right away,\u00a0no matter who you are, whether you\u2019re Tiger Woods or not,\u201d he says. \u201cBut he\u2019s not saying that.\u00a0I don\u2019t know why he\u2019s not saying that. If ever Tiger was going to be captain\u00a0I thought New York\u00a0would have been the perfect place. But he had other ideas. <\/p>\n

Like this article? See more TG content in your feed! Click here to add Today\u2019s Golfer as a preferred source on Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe now that all the players\u00a0are getting paid\u00a0he\u2019ll feel more comfortable\u00a0captaining his side of players\u00a0who are getting paid money.\u00a0There was a suspicion\u00a0way back when Mark O\u2019Meara\u00a0was mooting the fact that\u00a0the players should get paid to play\u00a0and Tiger was friendly with Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods was indeed leading the calls for players to be compensated as far back as the matches at Brookline in 1999 \u2013 but argued that was only so they divert the money to chosen charities. \u201cIt\u2019s never really been about getting paid,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s how can we allocate funds to help our sport or help things that we believe in back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bernard<\/p>\n

The main concern Woods has now is the time he commits to two PGA Tour boards, shaping the tournament schedule for the 2027 season and beyond. The first plans for a drastic revamp of the calendar are expected to be announced next week and Woods has given plenty of his input.<\/p>\n

But for others who have had an intense love affair with the Ryder Cup, Woods\u2019 priorities are curious.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ryder Cup\u2019s bigger than that,\u201d Gallacher explains. \u201cWhen Jack Nicklaus was asked to be captain [in 1983 and 1987]\u00a0he did it right away.\u00a0When Arnold Palmer was asked\u00a0if he would be captain [in 1963]\u00a0he said, \u2018But I\u2019m still playing.\u2019 When Ben Hogan said\u00a0would you be captain\u00a0[in 1949] he hadn\u2019t played\u00a0and he was still recovering from his injury\u00a0but he still said, \u2018Yes,\u00a0OK, I\u2019ll be captain.\u2019\u00a0It was a big shock to me\u00a0that Tiger said that he felt\u00a0he couldn\u2019t do it\u00a0because he was working hard\u00a0on a players side of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTiger\u2019s input is important, yes,\u00a0but\u00a0the Ryder Cup is more important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Team Europe is once again putting down the marker when it comes to the Ryder Cup captaincy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-510814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}