‘I disagree’: Tom Watson has a problem with 2 Ryder Cup rule changes

With the 2025 Ryder Cup in just a few days, historical figures from the past of the event offer their insights into the competition. Tom Watson is one of them.

A double American Ryder Cup captain, Watson has a wealth of experience with the biennial event, and in a recent TV appearance the eight-time big winner revealed his problems with two recent changes in Ryder Cup rules. One includes payment for players, while the other has to do with Captain’s choices.

This is what you need to know.

Watson says that the American Ryder Cup players should not be paid ‘

A big change for this year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, at least for the American team, has to do with money. For the first time, American players are paid for participation in the event.

The change had its origins in the greatest controversy of the 2023 Ryder Cup. That year in Rome, a European journalist reported that the American player Patrick Cantlay refused to wear a hat in the competition in protest because he was not paid. Teammate Xander Schauffele and his father Stefan Schauffele would also have complained about compensation during the tournament.

This led European fans in Rome to play Cantlay during his competitions, to which Cantlay reacted by repeatedly pretending he waved with an imaginary hat at important moments.

The act preceded a heated moment on the 18th Green, when Cantlay almost led a match-winning putt and some classic match play antics to a physical confrontation with European players Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry.

For the record, Cantlay and Schauffele have strongly refused the claims, with Cantlay added: “This tournament is about representing our country and being together with my teammates and representing the US. And I am extremely proud to be here.”

In December 2024, the PGA of America announced that they would indeed pay the American Ryder Cup players. In 2025, every American player receives $ 500,000: $ 300,000 for charity and $ 200.00 for himself.

In one Golf Canal Interview with Eamon Lynch This week Watson was asked what he thought of the Ryder Cup paying change, of which Lynch noted, has become a “rally cry” for the European team.

Watson revealed that he agrees with the Europeans: US Ryder Cuppers may not be paid.

“Personally, I don’t agree,” said Watson on Golf Channel. ‘[In the past] They gave us some money for favorite charities. And I think that was the right thing to do for the players. ‘

As Watson noted, American players have always received money from America’s PGA to give charities of their choice. In 2023, every American player received $ 200,000 for a good cause.

But Watson believes that the Americans should play for something bigger than money.

“But again, I just don’t think the players should be paid. They should play for their country and their teammates,” Watson said explicitly.

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Watson: ‘Far too many’ Ryder Cup Captain’s Picks

That is not the only problem that Watson has with the Modern Ryder Cup. He also had the problems with the increasing number of picks from the captain who each formed Ryder Cup team.

When COVID-19 postponed the 2020 Ryder Cup until 2021, a change of rule was made to accommodate the shortened season forens in 2020. Earlier there were eight automatic qualifications and four Captain’s Picks for the American team. Before 2021, the picks of the captain were raised to six. That change has since remained in force, with the European team ultimately adopting the same number of Captain’s Picks.

Watson is also not a fan of that control change.

“Personally, I think six is ​​way too much. I think when you are a player on the PGA Tour or the European Tour … I think they should take 10 players who automatically qualify and then add two picks,” said Watson on Golf Channel.

He continued: “If you played so well and you are on the point list, I don’t think you should be eliminated if you are the seventh or eighth or ninth player. I don’t think that’s the right way to do it.”

Among the players who suffered from the pick change of the captain is 2025 the American captain Keegan Bradley. He was familiarly omitted from the 2023 team despite his High Ryder Cup ranking.

For the 2025 team, Bradley chose to skip Maverick McNealy for the choice of a captain. McNealy was arranged in 10th place on the list of US Ryder Cup points. Bradley, in 11th place, also left himself from the team of the team, next to Brian Harman, who was in 12th place.

Watson pointed to the original rule when he first qualified in 1977, when all 12 players had to automatically qualify for the American team, as a different example of a better system.

“When I came to the Tour, I wanted to sit in the Ryder Cup team, and the only way to do it was in the top 12 in points,” said Watson. “There were no choices. You had to qualify that way.”

Interesting is that if the top 12 players in the American rankings automatically qualified for the Ryder Cup team of 2025, Bradley would have been a play captain at Bethpage Black.

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Tom Watson and 2014 Ryder Cup ‘mistakes’

Watson was the American team twice in the Ryder Cup. The first, an American victory from 1993, was no surprise. But his selection as the Ryder Cup captain 2014 at the age of 65 was also a shock as Bradley’s selection for the Captainincy this year.

The choice of the fat captain did not work out well.

The American team 2014 lost poorly, with Europe retaining the cup with the score of 16.5-11.5. After the event, the American player Phil Mickelson claimed that the Americans were ‘strayed from a winning formula’, comments that were taken as a public wipe in Watson.

When asked for the Ryder Cup 2014 and any mistakes he felt, Watson said: “You do the things that are needed at the time, and sometimes you make mistakes – you will make some mistakes.”

He continued: “You walk through many different scenarios with whom to combine with whom. And sometimes that just doesn’t work. You have to fly past the chair of your pants. You have to look at the players in their eyes when they play in their matches and see how they are the pressure to play the pressure.

In general, he argued that every decision he made that was afterwards was seen as an error was the best decision at the moment.

“If you look back on it and say:” Did I make mistakes? “” Watson asked rhetorically. “Well, maybe. But at that moment you didn’t think it was a mistake, you made the best possible decision you could do at the time.”

The 2025 Ryder Cup in Bethpage Black starts on Friday 6 September.