Billy Horschel: “It’s time to get Tiger in as Ryder Cup captain”

It’s time Tiger Woods stepped-up to accept the 2025 USA Ryder Cup captaincy.

That’s the view of fellow American and good friend Billy Horschel, adding to a growing chorus that Woods would be the ideal candidate for the captaincy for the American side in two years time at Bethpage Park on New York’s Long Island.

Woods may have a poor Ryder Cup record in terms of competitive appearances, playing in just one winning Stars and Stripes team, that win coming in 1999 at Brookline, but there’s no denying his importance and presence as one of the greatest-ever figures in the game of golf.

Woods, who’ll be 49 for the 45th Ryder Cup in 2025, was named by Davis Love III as a vice-captain in the eventual six-point victorious 2016 USA team, and two years later Jim Furyk selected Woods as one of his vice-captains for the 2018 Ryder Cup, though Woods ended up playing on the team that was beaten on the outskirts of Versaille in France.

A year later Woods showed off his captaincy skills leading the USA to a two-point win at the 2019 Presidents Cup in Melbourne, Australia.

It was former 2008 USA Ryder Cup winning captain Paul Azinger who lead the calls for Woods to be handed the Bethpage Park captaincy reins and now Horschel, speaking with Irish Golfer Magazine, also supports the move.

“You look at the Ryder Cup history and the US has not had a back-to-back Ryder Cup captain. not since Ben Hogan in the late 1940s, so going off history I don’t think Zach will be asked to captain the side in two years time,” said Horschel during this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland.

“Who will that be? I don’t know. The strategy was to have an assistant captain or a captain-to-be to step-up to take over after each Ryder Cup.

“Tiger is the obvious choice, in my opinion. It’s time to get Tiger in as Ryder Cup captain, and then after Tiger it’s time to get some younger captains in there.

“Davis (Love III), (Steve) Stricker and (Jim) Furyk have each done a great job, and I’m friends with each of them, but it’s time to turn the wheel over a little bit. Let’s just maybe shake-up a few things and see if it works as what we’ve done the last six years or so has been pretty successful.

“We really don’t want to do too much different but I do think we need a little fresher blood into the US team and Tiger as captain couldn’t hurt”.

Of course, the 45th hosting of the Ryder Cup could not be heading to a noisier spectator cauldron than Bethpage Park Black.  This writer attended the Long Island course for Tiger’s 2002 US Open triumph and I played the course in 2019 in a PGA Championship media outing ahead of the championship won for a second year running by Brooks Koepka.

Horschel finished just outside the top-20 in the 2019 PGA Championship.

“Bethpage Park Black is going to be a great test of golf, as that course rewards a lot of quality golf shots but one worry, as an American, and knowing that the New York fans are great golfing supporters, but they are also unbelievable,” said Horschel breaking into a smile.

“They have a lot of passion and it’s exciting to see the passion they have for the New York area sports teams that they support.

“I am a little worried that knowing what the New York fans are like that it could get a little embarrassing, as an American. We don’t want to see anything happen that may disrupt the competition in two years time or put off a player, but we need their support as always in the nicest of ways.

“Bethpage Park Black is just not a place for the faint-hearted. I do feel sorry for the European boys as they are going to heat it up but hopefully the New York fans will get behind us, support us and they are also respectful to the Europeans in a way that everyone can be happy that everyone got a fair shake and nothing crazy happened”.

Horschel, who is yet to make it onto a Ryder Cup team, said he enjoyed watching all three days’ coverage of the events in Rome, including singling out what he thought were the pluses and minuses on both teams.

“I watched all three days of the Ryder Cup and thought ahead of the events, our guys would have a really strong chance of finally winning on European soil for the first time in a long while, as they were playing well at the close of the PGA Tour season,” said Horschel.

“Our boys had taken a lot of time off, they had prepped and they were fresh but my worry was what kind of competition or playing form they were in, and that clearly showed the first two days.  That first day was a big turning point. When you don’t win a match in the opening session and then you’re  6.5 to 1.5 at the end of the first day that’s a big, tall task to overcome.

“We needed to come out on Saturday morning and play really well but we didn’t do it, so it made it a tough few days watching it all unfold.

“The US has to look at a few things and while I don’t think it is anything drastic, we do need to make some harder decisions going forward. Saying that, it was a great Ryder Cup and it is exactly what I would have wanted as a golf fan. I wanted to watch a great competition, and in the Sunday Singles I thought the US had a chance. We just needed a chance and our guys just needed a few more things to go their way”.

Horschel is no stranger to DP World Tour members, fans and the media. He’s won seven times on the PGA Tour including success last year at the Memorial, while two years ago, just before the 2021 Ryder Cup, Horschel captured the BMW PGA Championship at Tour HQ at Wentworth.

He returned last year to finish T9th and the soon-to-be 37-year-old finished T18th last month, so despite being American born, Horschel’s popular with European fans and even more so this week with his wife, Brittany as his amateur playing partner.

And Horschel’s many visits across ‘The Pond’ has led to an understanding of the strong bonding that you find among all the Europeans and that is very much reflected in the Ryder Cup.

“The chemistry between the guys over here is a little bit different than over in the States, and while the chemistry on the American team that competed in Rome was very strong, and I was on the winning USA Presidents Cup side last year, we want to win, we come together but but the chemistry over here in Europe is just another level,” he said.

“I can ramble on about this and that but it just seems like they do a little better job of maybe putting their egos aside, really trying to help the younger guys to the Tour or the Ryder Cup team.

“They just do a heap of  better job than maybe we do on the American side.  Like I said, I feel the chemistry on the USA side is really strong and I can see it being really strong going forward.”