Issue No. 255 | September 25, 2025 | Read Online

A thank you to Meridian for sending us to New York for boots on the ground coverage and for giving away two putters that you can win right here!

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Greetings from Bethpage, where it’s extremely wet and I am sitting a few rows behind Ken Griffey Junior, who is photographing the Ryder Cup this week. He is currently wandering around the media center with his USA Ryder Cup hat on backward like he’s about to step to the plate at Camden Yards and bang a few batting practice balls off the warehouse in right field.

My pre-teen self is in disbelief about pretty much every single word in that first paragraph. Notes and thoughts from Thursday at the Ryder Cup forthcoming.

But first!

TODAY’S SPONSOR

Thank you to Meridian Putters for sponsoring today’s newsletter and the entirety of our trip to New York. If you aren’t following Meridian on Instagram, you can do so right here. We will also be posting a Meridian Minute from the golf course this week on our own Instagram.

We’ve been using the their Charleston putter heads as our microphones which has resulted in many interviewees saying some version of “What kind of putter is that? [holds putter microphone] Ohhhh this is nice.” Quality that you have to feel to believe.

As always, you can make your Meridian with various head styles, multiple milled face options, unique finishes and grips and custom engraving. It would be difficult (I would say probably impossible) to find a higher quality stainless steel putter made in the USA at a price you can feel this good about.

OK, now onto the news.

12 Thoughts on Ryder Cup Thursday

And most of them are even about golf.

1. I have found myself of two minds this week. On one hand, I am a sucker for the European culture. I think it rules. I have lauded it and the buy in they all have and lamented that the Americans don’t have the same. On the other hand, the way in which all of this is talked about has become preposterous.

2. The love for the Europeans has gone way, way too far. We have reached regional college football levels of fanaticism where everything your team does is the right and good thing and everything the other team does is wrong and bad.

Not that dissimilar from the current U.S. political climate, to be honest.

The whole thing is completely out of control, and it was driven home for me in Luke Donald’s speech at the opening ceremonies where he mentioned that Europe doesn’t play for money twice in front of the Americans.

Listen … we get it. Truly we do. But all the questions to the American players about where the money is going, all the scoffing about how much purer of heart the Europeans are.

The U.S. players are being critiqued for something — how they give away $500K to charity — that the Euros would be getting so much adulation and praise for that you would have to hold the press conference in a hotel room!

If Bryson played for the Europeans, he would be considered a wily personality that Luke Donald has tamed and brought into the fold. Look at that European team culture at work! Because he’s on the American team, though, he’s considered a “captain’s nightmare.”

3. Another example: If the U.S. took this photo, you would hear about it for the next three decades.

But it’s been praised of course because the Europeans can do no wrong.

This is mostly just an elongated rant about how I think the hate for the U.S. team — a team that is several miracle putts in 2012 away from having split the last eight Ryder Cups — has gone way, way too far. Are the Americans sometimes tone-deaf and not very self-aware, and has their culture lacked at times over the years? Yes, of course. I have spent a lot of time (too much time!) discussing all of this.

But my brethren in the European media (as well as a lot of fans on the Euro side) have taken a position beyond aggrieved. The rhetoric has swung too far the other way, and that has, perhaps improbably, made the Americans seem like the incompetent underdogs this week in New York.

[Jason here] Talking about praise (and the inspiration for this illustration), I have to shout out DJ Piehowski’s mash up of Team Europe’s Our Time. Our Place. video with the opening scene of Super Troopers. “We can't pull over. We've already honored him so much. I don't know if we could keep honoring these guys.” absolutely knocked me over. Perfection. It might be my quote of the Ryder Cup.

4. I think Bryson is going to have a monstrous week (throw Ben Griffin and Patrick Cantlay in that bucket as well). It’s not inconceivable that the big boy will go all five and be the emotional ballast for this U.S. side. This is extremely his scene, very much his arena. And he should thrive with an energy that will match Rory’s on the European side. Rory, by the way, has that look in his eye. That “time for the shot caller to become a legend this week in a place that has made more than a few of them.”

His legacy is secure, but if there is any question at all about whether he’s the greatest European golfer in history, a victory this week in which he punishes the U.S. side physically and emotionally would leave absolutely zero doubt.

5. Trump being at the Ryder Cup on Friday could be a mess. Politics aside, whenever a dignitary visits a very public, very open event like this one, it’s a logistical nightmare. Throw in the current political climate, and it seems as if the PGA of America is, at least behind the scenes, looking forward to just getting the event to Saturday.

This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …

• Five reasons I love this event.

• Thoughts on Viktor’s wild presser.

• A pick for the 45th Ryder Cup.

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6. We sat in on the European pressers this morning, and Hovland’s was memorable. He’s a treasure. He’s funny without trying and as self-deprecating as professional athletes get. He talked about UFOs (“what’s up with that? What is up with that?”), said he didn’t want to get too deep on the golf swing before using words like, “counterintuitive. paradoxical and 3D data.” Would love to see him actually get deep.

7. [whispers] You can convince yourself that any reason is the reason your team wins (or loses): The sample sizes are just small enough and golf has just enough variance that the harsh truth is that there are probably no exact right answers about why your team wins (or doesn’t).

You want to pin it on team culture? Gonna be tough for me to argue. You think it’s familiarity with the golf ball or the statistical prowess of the other side? Sure. Captaincy? Why not. Vice captaincy? Might as well. Motivational videos? OK. Better players? Better seasons? More friendships? Golf course fit? All of those and more.

This was highlighted for me in this Shane Ryan video where he explored why the home team has dominated alternate shot in recent years. It’s a good video and hits on exactly why the last five of these have been blowouts (the home team has won foursomes 36.5-11.5!). But after exploring why the home team has won foursomes with two statistical savants and multiple other people, Shane’s ultimate answer is a big fat 🤷‍♂️.

This perfectly sums up why I love talking about this event. Because if you’re good at formulating a thesis and an argument to back that thesis up, then it’s difficult to be wrong because you might possibly be exactly right.

8. It’s close until it’s not: I have talked about this one a lot, but Ryder Cups are always close until they’re not. Always.

Well maybe not Whistling Straits, but almost always. Where else does an event feel like it’s mega competitive for 29 consecutive hours, and then you spend that final hour wondering about the 115 things that went wrong? There’s an energy to the rhythm of this three-day event that is special and remains almost unfathomably high until the end.

9. Every shot matters: To repeat a line I’ve used repeatedly in the LIV era, we don’t desire more golf, we desire more consequential golf. We don’t want more tournaments. We want more tournaments that matter from the very first shot. Some events — I’m thinking most of the fall swing on the PGA Tour — feel like they don’t matter until the last hour or two. The Ryder Cup? Every single shot. Every single one.

This from Hovland was, like, the sixth shot of the event, and it set the tone for the next 4,000 shots. There is nothing even remotely like it.

10. It’s the most intimate, most human event: I’m going to expand on this before the matches on Friday, but no other sporting event that I can think of moves athletes away from playing against nature (literal land) to into the intimate arena where they are very much playing each other.

That is jarring because humans are extremely emotional, and golfers are unaccustomed to facing one another like this, in match play in up close and very personal ways. It is often a trigger for most of the wild stuff we see at Ryder Cups.

11. The swings are emotionally violent: Come Monday, and everyone participating in, attending, leading, helping with or even watching this event will be completely and totally spent. The reason? The hole-by-hole and match-by-match emotional swings are wild (and lead you to talking yourself into anything).

When a player is down four with 11 holes to go in a stroke play tournament, you rarely believe he’s still in it. Match play? He might be leading with four holes to go.

That dynamic just keeps everyone on edge all the time, which makes for a nervous energy that is the most electric thing in golf.

12. The pick: I’ve had this one in the holster for a while, but I think the matches end in a 14-14 tie and Europe retains. It certainly feels like it’s going to be the closest event since 2012, and while 14-14 might look unsatisfactory on paper, it will still bolster the legacy of this European team and their leader who called his shot from that dais in Rome. A Pebble-Players-Masters-Irish-Ryder Cup season for Rory would not be quite as good as Scottie’s year (or his 2024), but as far as Rory years go, it would be extraordinarily difficult to top.

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