‘Just bizarre’: Justin Thomas says greens crew ‘fought with’ US Ryder Cup team

Justin Thomas is currently recovering from back surgery he underwent last month. But one tournament from September still has Thomas in its grip: the disastrous 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.

Thomas may not be able to play golf right now, but he can still talk. And in a performance at the No Lay-Up podcastopined the two-time major champion about the USA’s devastating loss at the Ryder Cup.

And in the most interesting moment, Thomas confirmed a suspicion about a factor that contributed to the Americans’ lopsided defeat: that the greens were much slower than captain Keegan Bradley wanted. But he went even further, revealing that the US team ‘fought’ with the tournament’s greens crew to make the greens faster.

Bethpage’s slow greens play a role in the U.S. Ryder Cup loss

One of the many variables that played a role in the European Ryder Cup team’s utter dominance on Friday and Saturday at Bethpage Black was the course design.

Firstly, Bethpage Black’s infamously raucous performance was cut short, shocking many on site that week. The rough was Captain Bradley’s choice. He and his team were determined that a shorter rough would benefit the long-serving American team.

The opposite turned out to be true, and in the aftermath Bradley admitted it was a mistake.

The green speeds at Bethpage Black that week are a different story. Bradley and the American team wanted the greens to be fast at PGA Tour level, which would have given the experienced Americans a clear putting advantage.

But when play started Friday at Bethpage, Bradley and everyone else realized the greens weren’t nearly as fast as they wanted.

The American captain announced this on Saturday evening during Ryder Cup week, after the Europeans defeated the American team for the second day in a row.

“I’ve never seen Bethpage Greens play so softly,” Bradley said that night. “Even when we’ve played here and it’s rained, this is something I’ve never seen. Chip shots are spinning backwards.”

On Sunday, the maintenance crew finally got the greens working quickly, and the American team flipped the script on the course, dominating the game and almost coming all the way back to win.

Thanks to Thomas’ appearance on No Laying Up, we now have insight into what exactly was going on with the putting surfaces during the Ryder Cup.

Thomas: The U.S. Ryder Cup team argued with Bethpage staff over green speeds

About an hour in his interview with No ImpositionThomas was asked about the slow-green controversy at the Ryder Cup, and he didn’t hold back.

The sixteen-time PGA Tour winner expressed his confusion and frustration about the situation for the first time.

“I don’t really understand that, I don’t know why [the greens] were not at all what Keegan was [Bradley] had asked for. I mean, he had been pretty clear about asking for a certain speed and wanting it fast enough,” Thomas began.

According to Thomas’ comments, the problem was not that Bethpage crew members could not speed up the greens, but that they denied that the greens were playing slowly.

That led to an argument in the back room as the American team begged them to speed up the putting surfaces.

“I saw them arguing with us that they were thirteen [on the Stimpmeter]. It’s like, ‘Guys, we play golf every week, look on TV to see how many guys are short on putts. Nobody gets… You can’t putt, roll, a yard, a yard past the hole. Like these greens are slow, speed them up.”

He went on to explain the real impact of the dust on the greens: it turned a clear advantage for the home team into a disadvantage.

“It was just bizarre because that’s not something you would expect at a home Ryder Cup. And again, that’s no excuse. [the European players] had to adapt to it as well as we did. That’s a nice advantage you have overall [as a home Ryder Cup team] is that we can do that a little bit, and it was so frustrating having to fight and argue about the speed of the greens that we asked for. So that was crazy,” Thomas told No Laying Up.

Thomas confirmed that the greens were faster on Sunday. But that was a day too late. The Americans’ furious charge in singles on Sunday could not make up for the first two days, and the Europeans regained the Ryder Cup 15-13.

You can watch Thomas’ full appearance on the No Laying Up podcast here.

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