Signs the 2025 Ryder Cup Needs to Start Now

The Ryder Cup is 10 days away. The first foursomes match will tee off at 7:10 a.m. ET on Friday, September 26, at Bethpage Black. These are details we know. What comes next are 10 days of pomp, hot air, over-analysis, speculation, and Schauffele-agitating dinners. It will be a lot, dear reader. We are 10 days away and it’s already been a lot. Here are a few signs from this week that the Ryder Cup needs to get here, fast.

1. Farting-on-the-tee videos. What does it mean? That the European team is so loose and has such a great culture of camaraderie. Look at them having a laff! Unburdened. Or maybe they’re too unserious, clearly unfocused, and not preparing properly. A fart debate ensues.

2. We have European pearl-clutching about pre-crimes that haven’t yet been committed from the anticipated crowd. Incredible!‍

3. Scouting round – not even practice round – uniform discourse. Mine is that they just need to add the suspenders and little hat with the propeller on top to these Janie & Jack tyke kits.

4. Ben Griffin’s three-putt to close out the Procore. Can he be trusted? What does it say for his Ryder Cup mettle?

5. A cycle of reaction on the celebrity Ryder Cup rosters. A couple waifish fellas from Harry Potter movies, a Beckham child, and Eli — always Eli.

6. A proclamation from Justin Thomas that it will be the “biggest golf event ever.” I hope the actual golf doesn’t suck.

7. VR headset hype. Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, and others dropped this Sunday at Wentworth, and the content sprang forth. Luke Donald has the Euro boys fitted with VR headsets loaded with crowd noise and adjustable vile levels (“You can get them to say whatever you want them to say, so you can go as close to the bone as you like”) for simulated crowd taunts and heckles.

8. An early “the closest team I’ve ever seen” reference from Captain Keegan Bradley out in Napa. A biennial declaration. This is the free middle space on the Ryder Cup Bingo board.

9. Gamesmanship?!?! Or just sound subjective insight? Justin Rose, who said New Yorkers “become sort of caricatures of themselves,” offered his view on the mystical nature of brotherhood. “I think America have tried too hard to become a team, whereas Europe is a bit more natural and organic, and I think it comes from deeper roots in a way,” Rose told Sky Sports. Just some free-range, natural, grass-fed, organic team bonds. This subject is not unimportant, but it’s also undefinable and gray. Which will lead to much discussion of the team dynamics over the next…still 10 days!

10. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but sports can only be consumed now through a gambling lens. And the odds, they are a shifting. Europe's value is high right now! There’s also an insane “without Scottie” market that’s been created.