The Ryder Cup recently concluded on September 28, 2025. For those who are not familiar with the professional golf world, The Ryder Cup is a biannual golf tournament that is hosted by the PGA Tour, and this year it was played in Farmingdale, New York. One should note that not all Ryder Cups are played in the United States; it alternates from Europe and the U.S. The Ryder Cup is no ordinary tournament; it is unique because it is the only golf championship played as a team. Unlike standard stroke play golf, the Ryder Cup uses a match play format. So, if your team wins more holes than the opposing side, your team receives a point. If the match happens to end in a draw, then each team receives half a point. The first team to score 14 points wins the tournament.
For every year’s Ryder Cup there are two teams, which are the United States and Europe. And each group consists of twelve golfers, as well as one team captain. This year’s team captains were Kagen Bradley for the U.S.A and Luke Donald for Europe. The team captain gets to decide which 6 players get to play on the team, and the other six are automatically qualified based on performance during that year’s tournaments. This year the European team consisted of: Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Robert Macintyre, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose, Ludvig Åberg, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Vicktor Hovland, Shane Lowry, Rasmus Højgaard, and Sepp Straka. The United States of America’s team consists of: Sam Burns, Patrick Cantlay, Bryson DeChambeau, Harris English, Ben Griffin, Russell Henley, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele, J.J. Spaun, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, and Cameron Young.
Now on to the results, the Ryder Cup is played out through three days, one day shorter than a normal golf tournament. The first day is called “Friday Foursomes,” this is played as a duo alternate shot. There are four matches played in the morning and then four matches played in the afternoon with a different format called four-ball. So, each person plays all their own shots and the player on your team with the better score uses those points and tries to beat the other team’s highest score. Friday’s Morning matchups were the following: Bryson DeChambeau & Justin Thomas (USA) vs. Jon Rahm & Tyrrell Hatton (EUR), Scottie Scheffler & Russell Henley (USA) vs. Ludvig Åberg & Matt Fitzpatrick (EUR), Collin Morikawa & Harrish English (USA) vs. Rory McIlroy & Tommy Fleetwood (EUR), and Xander Schauffele & Patrick Cantlay (USA) vs. Robert MacIntyre & Viktor Hovland (EUR). Out of those four matches the European team won 3 out of 4. The only match they did not win was Xander Schauffele & Patrick Cantlay (USA) vs. Robert MacIntyre & Viktor Hovland (EUR), which the U.S won. After that morning, the score was 3 to 1. In the afternoon the U.S. lost two matches, tied one, and were victorious; bringing the score to 2.5 (USA) to 5.5 (EUR). Saturday was the same format as Friday morning and afternoon; foursomes and four-ball.
The match ups for Saturday morning are: Bryson DeChambeau & Cameron Young (USA) vs. Matt Fitzpatrick & Ludvig Åberg, Harris English & Collin Morikawa (USA) vs. Rory McIlroy & Tommy Fleetwood (EUR), Xander Schauffele & Patrick Cantlay (USA) vs. Jon Rahm & Tyrrell Hatton (EUR), Russell Henley & Scottie Scheffler (USA) vs. Robert MacIntyre & Viktor Hovland (EUR). From those matches Europe won 3, but lost one to Bryson DeChambeau & Cameron Young bringing the score to 8.5 (EUR) to 3.5 (USA). Later, in the afternoon, Europe won 3 more match ups, lost 1 again making the score at the end of the day 11.5 (EUR) to 4.5 (USA). The match ups for Saturday afternoon were: Justin Thomas & Cameron Young (USA) vs. Rory McIlroy & Shane Lowry (EUR), Scottie Scheffler & Bryson DeChambeau (USA) vs. Tommy Fleetwood & Justin Rose (EUR), Xander Schauffele & JJ Spaun (USA) vs. Jon Rahm & Sepp Straka (EUR). This was the only matchup the U.S won in the afternoon, and Sam Burns & Patrick Cantlay (USA) vs. Viktor Hovland & Matt Fitzpatrick (EUR).
To conclude the weekend and tournament, Sunday is special because the format is different from Friday and Saturday. Sunday is called “Sunday Singles”, this means all the players on each team face off in a standard match and play head to head. In this year’s championship something occurred that has not happened since 1933. A player on the European team came out, Vicktor Hovland, with an injury and the player that was supposed to play him was Harris English. Meaning that match counted as a split point, so now the score is 12 (EUR) to 5 (USA). The U.S. needs to make a historic comeback, to be able to win they need to finish first in 10 out of 11 matches. Also, the last time the U.S. lost in America was in 2012. Sunday’s Single match ups were: Cameron Young (USA) vs. Justin Rose (EUR), Justin Thomas (USA) vs. Tommy Fleetwood (EUR), Bryson DeChambeau (USA) vs. Matt Fitzpatrick (EUR), Scottie Scheffler (USA) vs. Rory McIlroy (EUR), Patrick Cantlay (USA) vs. Ludvig Åberg (EUR), Xander Schauffele (USA) vs. Jon Rahm (EUR), J.J. Spaun (USA) vs. Sepp Straka (EUR), Russell Henley (USA) vs. Shane Lowry (EUR), Ben Griffin (USA) vs. Rasmus Højgaard (EUR), Collin Morikawa (USA) vs. Tyrrell Hatton (EUR), and Sam Burns (USA) vs. Robert MacIntyre (EUR), On Sunday, Europe started off in the lead of more than half the matches, but USA made a quick turn around towards the end, leaving Europe with only one win on the board. Although the U.S. ended up winning six matches they tied four matches, which made Europe victorious with a score of 15 to 13, and this was Europe’s 13th win since 1979.
