As own goals go, Team USA appear to have scored a huge one with the reports recently claiming that their players will be paid for featuring at the 2025 Ryder Cup for the first time in the event’s history.
Team USA have so much going for them ahead of the 2025 Ryder Cup. Just one away side has won any of the last nine stagings of the event. And many are expecting Bethpage to provide one of the most hostile atmospheres Europe has faced since Brookline in 1999.
So what Keegan Bradley did not need was for reports to emerge stating that each American player is set to be paid around $400,000 for playing in the Ryder Cup. It comes after Patrick Cantlay denied rumours that he was not wearing a cap in Rome in 2023 in protest at the players not being paid.
It very quickly became clear that there were no plans for the European players to push for a similar change. Rory McIlroy even claimed that he would pay to play in the Ryder Cup.
Tiger Woods responds to the reaction of European players as Team USA stars look set to be paid at the 2025 Ryder Cup
Tiger Woods expressed his hope that the American players will give the money they receive to charity. And also while speaking in his press conference ahead of the Hero World Challenge, the 15-time major champion shared his reaction to the comments of some of the European players.
“That is their right to say that. I just think the event is so big that we can give so much money to different charities, I have said that since 1999 when we had the Brookline negotiations,” he said.
“If the European players want to pay to be in the Ryder Cup that is their decision, that’s their team. I know when it’s on European soil that subsidises most of their tour, so it’s a big event for the European Tour. If they want to pay to play in it, so be it.”
Controversy has handed Europe a big victory ahead of 2025
Where you can have a little sympathy for the American players is that there will be a number of wealthy figures who probably make a lot of money from the Ryder Cup. And the Ryder Cup would not be the success it is without the superstars on both sides who seem absolutely desperate to win.
However, Luke Donald‘s team talk has been done for him. Europe have the moral high ground, and there will be plenty of American fans who probably, deep down, would not mind seeing a few of their players taken down a peg or two.
It is a terrible look. And ultimately – when you consider the riches in sport – it feels like the start of a slippery slope. But European fans also cannot afford to be complacent in thinking that their players will always snub a piece of the financial pie.
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