Dame Laura Davies grilled Patrick Cantlay and described Team USA’s pursuit of Ryder Cup pay as ‘disgraceful’.
Back in December 2024, the 12-time Solheim Cup star said she would’ve paid to compete for Europe in the women’s version and hopes Cantlay, an alleged ring leader in the move for Ryder Cup wages, doesn’t play for America at Bethpage in 2025.
Cantlay reportedly refused to wear a hat at the 2023 Ryder Cup to protest not being paid, leading to thousands of European fans taunting him throughout day two in Italy. He flat-out denied the report after play was finished.
Davies, who spoke before the official announcement that US players will be paid to face Europe at the next Ryder Cup for the first time ever, lambasted Cantlay and believes not every US player wants money to play for their country but they have all the more reason to feel embarrassed.
“I would’ve paid to play in those 12 Solheim Cups, I wouldn’t have needed to be paid,” Davies told NCG. “The fact that these guys in America want paying I understand it, I think it’s disgraceful. I don’t think it’s all of them, I think it’s a small core of players that have brought this to the attention.
“Obviously Cantlay and (Xander) Schauffele at the last Ryder Cup – Cantlay wouldn’t wear the hat because he wasn’t getting paid but being paid to play in the Ryder Cup, they should be embarrassed and if I was an American that didn’t want it, I would be embarrassed.
“Why would you worry about what other people are doing?” She added. “Get on with your own business, get in the team. I hope Cantlay doesn’t get in the team. I would laugh my socks off.”
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(Now in August 2025, Cantlay awaits to hear if he’ll receive a captain’s pick from US captain Keegan Bradley. Bradley announces his picks on August 27. The 2025 Ryder Cup is being played from September 26-28, and both the US and Europe teams are made up of six automatic points qualifiers and six captain’s picks)
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Dame Laura Davies on Ryder Cup pay: ‘Because they’re American’
Like Rory McIlroy and many other stalwarts of European golf, Davies would sooner take out her wallet to compete for the continent than the other way around. The first murmurings of Ryder Cup pay came at the 1999 matches between Europe and the USA in Brookline and they were furiously reignited in Rome.
Despite often being underdogs on paper, the camaraderie and bond between Europe’s team since then is often emphasised as a reason for their dominance in the Ryder Cup this century. They’ve won 10 of the last 14 renewals, and what the players from each year would probably tell you is that their cohesion carried them through.
The PGA of America announced on December 17, 2024 that US players will get a $200,000 stipend plus $300,000 to give to charity. Never in the tournament’s near 100-year history have players been paid, and this news will add fuel to what will be a raging fire of an atmosphere in Long Island in September.
US captain Keegan Bradley told Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press that his fees will go to charity. It’s understood that the assistant captains are also being compensated.
When asked why the ethos between the European and American teams is so different, Davies gave a short and sharp response.
“Because they’re American.”
Ryder Cup players being paid paints a picture of greed in the eyes of some, but the most eagle-eyed fans might’ve seen this coming a few months ago when a public debate raged around ticket prices to attend the 2025 Ryder Cup. A ticket to one of the three days was $750 and the PGA of America subsequently poked the bear when proudly revealing they’d sold out “as expected.”
With the ticket prices generating vast income for the PGA of America, adding to the 100-headed financial hydra that the Ryder Cup has become, the players who supposedly want to be compensated could ask where their piece of the pie is, as the performers on the stage.
But this school of thought should be ignored according to Davies, a four-time major champion, Hall of Famer and icon of European golf. She spoke about the friendship of the European dressing rooms in both the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup and the financial rewards these golfers have already earned in the current climate of over-inflated prize money.
“Obviously, the success we’ve had in the Solheim Cup and the Ryder Cup, we’ve always been the underdogs and we’ve won quite a lot of Ryder Cups in history and lots of Solheim Cups and it’s because of the team room more than the golf and the Americans have never quite cracked that,” she said.
“I think the closest they got was Whistling Straits when they really destroyed us, and that group of blokes had grown up together most of them. They were really good, the captain did a good job.
“But overall if we’re going back to the money side of it, they were worrying about how the PGA of America spend the money, because they get the money for the Ryder Cup, they’re helping at grassroots, I don’t know why they want money because they’re all – They wouldn’t even notice it.”
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