Eight-time PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel is playing the 2025 Bank of Utah Championship this week. There, the veteran pro, who won the 2014 FedEx Cup title, hopes to improve his FedEx Cup position after a disappointing season on the course. But ahead of the first round at Black Desert Resort, Horschel had a different golf event on his mind: the Ryder Cup.
And live on TV, he suggested a major shake-up to the Ryder Cup that would prove controversial: having the PGA Tour take over the U.S. team.
Who runs the Ryder Cup? PGA of America vs. PGA Tour
Since the very first Ryder Cup, the PGA of America has controlled the U.S. side of the event. And because it’s so confusing, it bears reminding the PGA of America is not the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour, which splintered from the PGA of America in the 1960s, is where your favorite pros play most of the time, operating over 40 tournaments every year including the flagship Players Championship. (They also own and operate the PGA Tour Champions, Korn Ferry and PGA Tour Americas tours, among other things.)
‘This effing event’: Keegan Bradley questions Ryder Cup future in first comments since Bethpage
The PGA of America is primarily a teaching organization, with thousands of certified PGA teaching professionals spread out across the country. But, crucially, the PGA of America also runs the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup for the Americans.
Conversely, the European Ryder Cup team is run by the DP World Tour, the European counterpart to the PGA Tour. This has given the European team distinct advantages in the Ryder Cup. The same staff, trainers and organizational leaders that work with the European players all year long also work with them at the Ryder Cup.
That consistency differs from the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Given that the PGA of America isn’t embedded with the U.S. players all year on the PGA Tour, the organization doesn’t have the same familiarity with the U.S. players as the DP World Tour does with the Europeans.
He isn’t alone, but Horschel sees this as a major problem for the U.S. team.
Billy Horschel says PGA Tour should ‘run’ U.S. Ryder Cup team
Horschel has never played in a Ryder Cup, but he was a part of the winning U.S. team at the 2022 Presidents Cup, which is run by the PGA Tour. He also regularly plays on the DP World Tour, so he has some credibility on the topic.
On Wednesday, Horschel joined Golf Channel’s “Golf Today” show, and when prompted by co-host Damon Hack, the veteran pro offered up his controversial solution to the U.S. team’s Ryder Cup problems.
Horschel suggested that the European team’s Ryder Cup dominance in recent years is in part due to their DP World Tour advantages. And he revealed that he’s talked to other players and “bigger names” who agree.
“I had some conversations with some people, some other players, players that are bigger names and have been part of Ryder Cups, after this Ryder Cup, and the thing that I shared with them is that over the last five or six years being on the European Tour, understanding that the European Tour runs their Ryder Cup, so they see these people, they know the backroom staff, they can have conversations when over their playing about the Ryder Cup,” Horschel told Golf Channel.
The Bethpage Ryder Cup has lingered for all the wrong reasons
He continued with some specific examples: “Even if it’s a couple of years in advance, about hotels or anything that you know comes across their mind about how to make things better. They have that ability to talk to these people that they have a relationship with on a regular basis.”
And then Horschel dropped his controversial take.
“In my opinion we don’t have that with the PGA of America,” he said. “They do come around, and they do a great job. I’m not going to say they don’t do a good job.”
To fix this issue, Horschel sees a simple solution. Let the PGA Tour take over the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
“I believe that it’s time that the PGA Tour, or people that we believe, should take over Team USA. They should run Team USA,” Horschel declared.
Horschel said he envisions a complicated future partnership where the PGA of America still owns and operates the Ryder Cup, but the PGA Tour runs the U.S. team.
“PGA of America can still run the Ryder Cup, they can still sell all the corporate stuff, but I think we need to take more ownership of our team and have people there who work on that Ryder Cup on a yearly basis, and are out at our tournaments that we can have a relationship with and talk through things about so we don’t miss things, and things don’t slip through the cracks,” Horschel said.
With their 15-13 loss at Bethpage Black last month, the U.S. team has now lost six of the last eight, and nine of the last 12 Ryder Cups.
