Tom Watson takes issue with 2 Ryder Cup rule changes

With the 2025 Ryder Cup just days away, historic figures from the event’s past are offering their insights into the competition. Tom Watson is among them.

A two-time U.S. Ryder Cup captain, Watson has a wealth of experience with the biennial event, and in a recent TV appearance, the eight-time major winner revealed his problems with two recent Ryder Cup rules changes. One involves payment for players, while the other has to do with captain’s picks.

Here’s what you need to know.

Watson says U.S. Ryder Cup players ‘shouldn’t be paid’

One big change for this year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, at least for the U.S. team, has to do with money. For the first time, American players will get paid for participating in the event.

The change had its origins in the biggest controversy of the 2023 Ryder Cup. That year in Rome, a European journalist reported that American player Patrick Cantlay refused to wear a hat in the competition in protest for not getting paid. Teammate Xander Schauffele and his father Stefan Schauffele were also alleged to have complained about compensation at the tournament.

This led European fans in Rome to lambast Cantlay during his matches, which Cantlay responded to by repeatedly pretending to wave an imaginary hat at key moments.

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

For the record, Cantlay and Schauffele forcefully denied the claims, with Cantlay adding, “This tournament is all about representing our country and being together with my teammates and representing the USA. And I’m extremely proud to be here.”

Then in December 2024, the PGA of America announced they would indeed start paying U.S. Ryder Cup players. In 2025, each American player will receive $500,000: $300,000 for charity and $200,00 for themselves.

In a Golf Channel interview with Eamon Lynch this week, Watson was asked what he thought of the Ryder Cup payment change, which Lynch noted has become a “rallying cry” for the European team.

Watson revealed that he agrees with the Europeans: U.S. Ryder Cuppers shouldn’t be paid.

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

As Watson noted, U.S. players have always been given money from the PGA of America to give to charities of their choice. In 2023, each U.S. player received $200,000 for charity.

But Watson thinks the Americans should be playing for something bigger than money.

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

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Watson: ‘Way too many’ Ryder Cup captain’s picks

That’s not the only problem Watson has with the modern Ryder Cup. He also took issue with the ever-increasing number of captain’s picks that make up each Ryder Cup team.

When Covid-19 postponed the 2020 Ryder Cup to 2021, a rule change was made to accommodate the abbreviated season pros played in 2020. Previously, there were eight automatic qualifiers and four captain’s picks for the American team. For 2021, the captain’s picks were increased to six. That change has remained in place ever since, with the European team eventually adopting the same number of captain’s picks.

Watson is not a fan of that rule change, either.

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

He continued: “If you have played that well and you are on the points list right there, I don’t think you should be eliminated when 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 have suffered from the captain’s pick change is 2025 U.S. captain Keegan Bradley. He was famously left off the 2023 team despite his high Ryder Cup ranking.

For the 2025 team, Bradley chose to skip over Maverick McNealy for a captain’s pick. McNealy was ranked 10th on the U.S. Ryder Cup points list. Bradley, ranked 11th, also left himself off the team, in addition to Brian Harman, who was ranked 12th.

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

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

Interestingly, if the top 12 players in the U.S. rankings automatically qualified for the 2025 Ryder Cup team, Bradley would have been a playing captain at Bethpage Black.

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Tom Watson and 2014 Ryder Cup ‘mistakes’

Watson captained the U.S. team twice in the Ryder Cup. The first, a 1993 U.S. victory, was not a surprise. But his selection as the 2014 Ryder Cup captain at the age of 65 was as much of a shock as Bradley’s selection for the captaincy this year.

The bold captain’s choice did not pan out well.

The 2014 American team lost badly, with Europe retaining the Cup by the score of 16.5-11.5. Following the event, U.S. player Phil Mickelson claimed the Americans had “strayed from a winning formula,” comments taken as a public swipe at Watson.

When asked about the 2014 Ryder Cup and any mistakes he felt he made, Watson said, “You do the things that are necessary at that time, and sometimes you make mistakes — you will make some mistakes.”

He continued: “You go through a lot of different scenarios on who to pair whom with. And sometimes that just doesn’t work. You have to fly by the seat of your pants. You have to look at the players in their eyes when they’re playing out there in their matches and see how they’re handling the pressure. Because I guarantee the pressure is greater playing in the Ryder Cup than it is individually. I don’t think any player would disagree with me there. I felt more pressure playing as a player, and I felt tremendous pressure being captain those two times.”

Overall, he argued that any decision he made that was seen as a mistake in hindsight was the best decision in the moment.

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

The 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black begins Friday, September 6.