U.S. Ryder Cup Team Already Handed A Loss With Tiger Woods Reportedly Passing On Captaincy

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We are still over a year away from the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York, but the U.S. team has already suffered its first loss of the biennial event.  Tiger Woods has reportedly passing on being team captain.

The 2025 Ryder Cup has long been circled as a potentially perfect opportunity for Woods to make his debut as team captain, and the shouts for him to do so grew much louder after the U.S. was routed in Italy in 2023, but he doesn't appear to see it that way.

According to The Telegraph, Woods is believed to have turned down the opportunity to captain the American squad. The report points the blame at the PGA of America, which runs the U.S. side of things at the Ryder Cup, as a main culprit along with Woods' commitments to ongoing negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund.

"It is understood that Woods was prepared to take on the role if the PGA of America – which oversees the US arm of the biennial dust-up – reduced the normal captaincy commitments ahead of the match," the report reads. "But no deal was evidently reached and with the clock ticking, they were forced to look elsewhere."

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Tiger Woods reportedly turning down the U.S. Ryder Cup captain role is a bad look for American golf. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

If this is, in fact the case, that the PGA of America couldn't cut a corner or two to entice arguably the greatest golfer to ever live to captain the U.S. team on home soil, nearly every single finger needs to be pointed at the organization. This isn't to say Woods deserves blame for reportedly passing on the position as well, if he wanted to make time to captain the team, he could, in one form or another.

Meanwhile, the European squad is running it back with Luke Donald as team captain after he led the team to a dominant 16.5-11.5 win at Marco Simone in October 2023.

Keegan Bradley, Stewart Cink and Fred Couples are being tossed around as potential captains for the U.S. team after Woods reportedly telling the powers that be ‘no thanks.’ An announcement is expected to be made about the U.S. captaincy on July 9.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.