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Tiger Woods formally turned down the opportunity to captain the United States Ryder Cup team in 2025 at Bethpage Black. Instead, the gig went to six-time PGA Tour winner Keegan Bradley.
“With my new responsibilities to the Tour and time commitments involved, I felt like I would not be able to commit the time to Team USA and the players required as a captain,” Tiger wrote in a statement. “That does not mean I wouldn’t want to captain a team in the future. If and when I feel it is the right time, I will put my hat in the ring for this committee to decide.”
The 15-time major champion is a vice president of PGA Tour Enterprises and serves on the PGA Tour policy board and on a special subcommittee tasked with negotiating with LIV Golf's backer, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
“We're still working on what that might look like, also whether or not I have the time to do it,” Tiger said at the PGA Championship in May. “I'm dedicating so much time to what we're doing with the PGA Tour, I don't want to not fulfill the role of the captaincy if I can't do it.”
“What that all entails, representing Team USA and the commitments to the PGA of America, the players and the fans, I need to feel that I can give the amount of time that it deserves.’”
Also at Valhalla, recently departed PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh confirmed Tiger had been at the center of “months” of conversations surrounding the next captain.
“Tiger has been pretty clear,” said Waugh. “I think we all know that he can be pretty focused, and that's one of his many superpowers — that ability to tunnel and decide. And he doesn't do anything that he's not fully committed to, and we totally respect that. And he's got a lot on his plate right now. He's very active, obviously, on the PGA Tour side of things.'
Bradley, 38, is a passionate Ryder Cup competitor with a 4-2 career record in the event. Last year, despite a strong summer of golf jumpstarted by a win at the Travelers Championship, Bradley was passed over by captain Zach Johnson in favor of past-their-prime stars Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler.
Team USA lost by 5 1/2 points to Team Europe at Marco Simone Golf Course in Rome. (Former World No. 1 Luke Donald will be returning as Team Europe captain in 2025.)
“The thing is, those guys are close. They’re not just PGA Tour-close, they’re close friends,” Bradley said about Johnson's picks. “If you take golf out of the equation, they’re legit close friends. You have your close friends as a golfer and then you have your close PGA Tour friends, and a lot of the time your close friends aren’t on the tour.”
This is my suitcase from 2012 Ryder Cup that I haven’t opened since that Sunday. I promised myself I wouldn’t open it till I won a Ryder Cup.
That week changed my prospective on golf forever. The Ryder Cup suddenly became very important to me. pic.twitter.com/RFN6mqeiWH— Keegan Bradley (@Keegan_Bradley) August 30, 2023
“I really was rooting for those guys,” Bradley told me about the snub. “That was real. My wife and I — we both wanted them to win and do well. But, it was important, someday, for my kids to also realize, like, sometimes if you don't get your way or what you want, you still have to do the right thing. And that's what we wanted to do.”
Bradley — who will become the youngest captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963 — said he was in “complete shock” to learn of the offer.
New York is going to love you, Keegan. pic.twitter.com/pdFiXkcK6G
— Ryder Cup USA (@RyderCupUSA) July 8, 2024
“Yeah, it's surprising,” Xander Schauffele said Tuesday at Genesis Scottish Open. “You typically expect someone that's a little bit older to get selected as a captain. I think a lot of people expected Tiger to do it. He obviously has a lot on his plate. Keegan expressed his love for the Ryder Cup publicly, which we all saw.”
Tiger has competed in eight Ryder Cups, spanning from 1997 t0 2018. He was a vice captain at Hazeltine in 2016. He captained America to a win at the 2019 Presidents Cup.
