It’s never long before the knives come out and the targets form on the backs of the captains who are beaten in a high-profile team golf event.
Mike Weir was beaten as International captain at this year’s Presidents Cup, unable to hold back an unstoppable tide of American success in the event which now spans 10 consecutive editions.
Team Europe lost the Solheim Cup for the first time since 2017 in Virginia this year, too, and it wasn’t long before fingers were pointing to Suzann Pettersen’s and Weir’s decisions in the Presidents Cup’s case.
Captains must feel helpless when the balls are in the air. Even in the current climate of team match play where statistics are analysed to their bones to form the perfect AI-generated pairings, numbers don’t stop players from making mistakes and can’t simulate pressure.
Teams often look to major champions and former players in positions of stature and respect to lead their sides. Luke Donald and Keegan Bradley are leading Team Europe and Team USA at the 2025 Ryder Cup and will no doubt be braced for pelters and prosecution when either of them loses.
We take a look below at some decisions that some golf captains might’ve take back, beginning with US captain Tom Watson who had a week to forget at Gleneagles in 2014.
ALSO: 2025 Ryder Cup standings
ALSO: David Feherty: Monty was like a ‘ruptured sofa’ at wild 1999 Ryder Cup
Worst Ryder Cup captains decisions
Tom Watson sitting Reed and Spieth in Friday foursomes (2014)
Both Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed made their Ryder Cup debuts in 2014 and they did an excellent job of both winding up and silencing the home crowd in Scotland by beating Ian Poulter and Stephen Gallacher 5&4 in the Friday morning fourballs.
Reed immediately earned the nickname ‘Captain America’. The young, US pair had a fear factor and seemed like a guaranteed point when they played – except they didn’t play in the following afternoon.
Advertisement
Team USA lost the afternoon session. Spieth and Reed headed out in the Saturday fourballs and won 5&3 in convincing fashion again, this time against Thomas Bjorn and Martin Kaymer.
“The players themselves are disappointed. I know the question is going to be asked about Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed, whether I should have played them in the afternoon, and I thought at the time it was the best decision not to play them,” Watson said.
“There were a variety of reasons, but I won’t go into those. It was a decision that my vice captains and I made. That was a decision that we felt very strongly for. I can tell you one comical thing, though. When I told Patrick that he wasn’t going to play in the afternoon, it was comical at the time, not so comical now maybe but it was comical at the time. I said, ‘How does that make you feel?’ He said, ‘Well, I’m all right with it’. He said, ‘Well, really, Captain, I’m not all right with it’. I said, ‘That’s the way I want you to be’.
Tom Watson benching Mickelson all day (2014)
Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley had forged a superb partnership at the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah. They won all three pairs matches they played leading up to the singles.
In 2014, they picked up from where they left off by beating Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia in the Friday morning fourballs. They might’ve been beaten in the afternoon foursomes, but their pairs record stood proudly with four wins in five matches.
On day two, Mickelson and Bradley didn’t step on the golf course and Team USA lost the day 5-3. After America’s defeat, Mickelson unloaded in passive-aggressive fashion on Watson in what is now an iconic and quite extraordinary press conference in which he stated where US captain Paul Azinger excelled in winning the 2008 Ryder Cup, and essentially where Watson didn’t.
Advertisement
You can read it here.
ALSO: Ryder Cup 2025 preview: A complete guide to the matches at Bethpage
ALSO: What is the Ryder Cup format?
Hal Sutton sending Tiger and Phil out together (2004)
On paper, it might seem a no-brainer to put Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson together. They are two of the best golfers to ever live, so how could this go wrong?
The pair were rivals on the PGA Tour and Sutton has since said “the world of golf would be better ” if Woods and Mickelson became friends, citing Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus’ rivalry during their careers.
Mickelson has since complained that he was forced to practise with a different ball at short notice after finding out he would be paired with Woods at Oakland Hills. They were beaten in both matches on day one in 2004, and didn’t play together again.
Faldo and his sandwiches (2008)
Sir Nick Faldo accidentally gave away his Friday foursome pairings for the 2008 Ryder Cup as his notes were spotted with his intended match-ups.
The notes had Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, then Padraig Harrington and Robert Karlsson and underneath were the initials of Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell and Paul Casey. But the six-time major champion tried to play it off.
“Fortunately my son is watching my back, and he says, ‘Dad, they can see you’. So it just had the lunch list. It had sandwich requests for the guys, just making sure who wants the tuna, what wants the beef, who wants the ham. So that’s all it was, sandwich list (grinning).
He later admitted to what the notes actually said: “No, it’s tomorrow’s pairings, okay, I’ve been caught. I learned a lesson. You know the pairings and we are going to play foursomes on the front nine.”
Advertisement
ALSO: Green Jacket or Ryder Cup? Jose Maria Olazabal knows what he’d choose…
ALSO: Who was Samuel Ryder?
Mark James benched three players until the Sunday singles (1999)
Mark James will unfortunately be remembered as the European captain who lost the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline, despite leading 10-6 heading into the final day.
In the first two days of play, James left out Jarmo Sandelin, Andrew Coltart and Jean van de Velde and their only matches were in the Sunday singles when they respectively played Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Davis Love III in three of the opening five matches. They all lost.
US captain Ben Crenshaw later said: “I just could not believe Mark James sent them out three in a row.”
Bryson’s foursomes exploits (2018)
US captain Jim Furyk paired Bryson DeChambeau with Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods in both foursomes sessions in 2018 at Le Golf National in France. But it was particularly the pairing with Phil that left us scratching our heads.
In a format where accuracy is vital given you don’t have the dovetailing luxury of fourballs, Mickelson was ranked 189th in driving accuracy on the PGA Tour and 137th in greens in regulation. DeChambeau was also ranked 92nd in driving accuracy.
DeChambeau and Mickelson were 7 down after nine holes against Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren and lost 5&4. He and Woods were also beaten by the same margin by Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari.
ALSO: An ideal Presidents Cup would look like this…
The waterproof debacle of Wales (2010)
Team USA acquired the services of Sun Mountain to create their waterproof clothes for what was a waterlogged Ryder Cup in Wales in 2010. Lisa Pavin, wife of US captain Corey Pavin, subsequently came under pressure as she was involved in desiging the suits which didn’t have Gore-Tex material.
Advertisement
“We were disappointed with the performance of them, and you know, we just fixed it,” Pavin said. “They were not doing what we wanted them to do, so we went out and bought some more waterproofs. A couple of guys liked them and didn’t want any other stuff, and other guys were not satisfied with the way they performed, so we switched them out.”
So the US team felt compelled to buy their own waterproof clothing, a bad start to a week where they narrowly lost to Colin Montgomerie’s Europe at Celtic Manor.
What about golf captains from other team events?
Suzann Pettersen under-using Leona Maguire (2024)
Leona Maguire had a fairly outstanding Solheim Cup record heading to the 2024 matches at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. She’d won seven of 10 matches and only lost twice.
But European captain Suzann Pettersen only chose Maguire in one session before the Sunday singles where she beat Ally Ewing 4&3.
“She didn’t give much reason, to be honest,” Maguire said after Europe lost the Solheim Cup. “The feeling I got was that I was a little bit too short and didn’t make enough birdies, but I think proved today there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I think I made plenty of birdies today.
“Captain’s decision. I’m a team player, and all I could do today was come out and win my point, and that’s what I did.”
ALSO: Exclusive with Francesco Molinari: I’d love to be Ryder Cup captain
Mike Weir sending the same pairs in both sessions on one day (2024)
Given the Internationals constant failure in the Presidents Cup, there was only so much Mike Weir could do to beat Team USA, but he raised some eyebrows in session three on Saturday at Royal Montreal Golf Club.
After the Internationals were beaten in the morning fourballs 3-1, the same four pairings were sent out in the afternoon foursomes where they lost 3-1 again. This meant that Jason Day and Min Woo Lee sat and watched all day.
Advertisement
It also led to Taylor Pendrith playing in all five sessions for the Internationals, having lost all four matches on his Presidents Cup debut at Quail Hollow in 2022.
“We went 5-0 yesterday and had a lot of momentum,” Weir said afterwards. “We talked it through, and that was it. We had a plan. We had a plan for some other things too. That’s why we meet and go through these things. But nothing health-related that left any of the other guys out.”
NOW READ: Who were the best repeat Ryder Cup captains?
NOW READ: Does it actually matter who the Ryder Cup captains are?
NOW READ: Who are the vice-captains at this year’s Ryder Cup in New York?
How hard is it to be one of these golf captains? How much influence can golf captains have at an event? Can you remember any other mishaps from golf captains? Tell NCG on X!