Ryder Cup 2025: Luke Donald in frame to remain as Team Europe captain
he headaches from an after-party that finished at 4am had barely healed in Rome when talk began to shift to the next Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York.
In contrast to Whistling Straits, where Europe suffered a record defeat in 2021, the team are riding a crest of a wave, to the extent that Rory McIlroy declared they would win on American soil in two years’ time.
With the bus sing-songs and drinking champagne out of the famous old trophy at an end, in the cold light of day McIlroy will know all too well just how hard an ask that is.
Planning has already begun for New York. Even before the action started at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, there had been talk behind closed doors about Luke Donald staying on as captain, such had been the strong impression he had made since being parachuted in for LIV rebel Henrik Stenson 14 months ago.
Luke Donald replaced LIV Gold rebel Henrik Stenson
/ Getty ImagesHis stock has further risen: his cool, calm exterior throughout the week; his captain’s picks being exonerated; and his foursomes and fourball pairings virtually spot on.
It would appear European golf bosses are ready to rip up their slightly convoluted interview process to essentially offer the job to Donald, who would be the first man since Bernard Gallacher in the 1990s to be a repeat skipper. Donald has made no secret that he is at least open to the conversation about carrying on for the two more years McIlroy chanted about with his fellow players in the immediate aftermath.
“I’ll obviously consider it,” he said. “I want to enjoy right now. It’s not an easy job. I could walk away, we won and that’s my legacy, but to win in America is special. It’s an extra feather in the cap if you can win away.”
Donald has a perfect record in the Ryder Cup: played four, won four, captained one, won one.
Spoiling that is no small consideration; so, too, his wife Diane and the couple’s three girls. On the other side is the mouth-watering prospect of pitting himself against Tiger Woods, who is tipped to lead the Americans on home soil.
Previous suggestions that the door might be opened now to the LIV rebels have since been given short shrift. If anything, past would-be captains in Stenson, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are as far from the conversation as possible.
Realistic successors to Donald include Justin Rose, but the way the ‘old man’ of the team played over three days will give him the belief, at 45, he can make the team again. Francesco Molinari would be a popular choice, potentially in conjunction with brother Edoardo, on whom Donald relied so heavily.
And what of the players who will be under the captain’s charge, whoever that might end up being? Ryder Cup line-ups forever change, but it is hard to look much beyond the Rome team for New York.
The core is again likely to consist of McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton. One suspects, considering the trajectory he is on, Ludvig Aberg will also be a dead cert and, while Matt Fitzpatrick has never entirely shone in the event, his game looks unlikely to fall away. One or both of the Hojgaard twins — Nicolai, who played in Rome, and Rasmus, who mostly watched from a buggy, will be in contention. The rest of the Rome line-up are all possible candidates, too.
It is unlikely the row over pay will go away. It appears to be a much bigger issue within the American camp, and players have an argument that they should be remunerated in an event that makes so much money and in which they toil so hard.
For his part, Donald was unequivocal in his position that players should not be paid. In the midst of the celebrations, it was clear his players could not care less they had not earned a penny.
