It's sometimes said that the Ryder Cup isn't a great betting event and there are elements of truth to this. A large part of golf's appeal as a betting medium is surely the opportunity to land a winner at odds any other sport would consider enormous, whereas in pure outcome terms the underdog here will be no bigger than 2/1. Unless you're betting the draw, prices are naturally short.
However, what it does allow for is intuition, guesswork even, and the idea that you might interpret things better or at least differently than a bookmaker. As I see it, there are several opportunities to speculate, to try to arrange pieces of the puzzle as a captain might, and therein lies a unique challenge. There's also some comfort in regarding this as an event where the betting is supplementary to the action, rather than key to it.
Since Sutton's botched attempt, Zach Johnson has been the worst US captain. From the run-up to selection to selection itself, onwards to the way he allowed his team to prepare and the pairings he made for the very first session, it's hard to think of a single thing he got right. In fact, I would even argue that the decision to select a badly out of form Justin Thomas was in the end the easiest to justify.
That performance should have no bearing on expectations here at Bethpage and, in mandating appearance in the Fortinet Championship two weeks ago, won by his star man ahead of one of his rookies, Bradley has already surpassed Johnson's leadership. This squad is better prepared, it has upgraded its sole LIV Golf player without any controversy, and its star man Scottie Scheffler is better than ever.
More on Scheffler later, but it's also worth saying that there are some nagging concerns over the best European players versus two years ago.
McIlroy was a brilliant winner of the Irish Open and remains the second-best player in the sport, but Jon Rahm has definitely been a notch below where he was in 2023, when he arrived in Italy as the Masters champion, and so has his LIV teammate Tyrrell Hatton. Back then, Viktor Hovland had just won the FedExCup and was arguably the best if not second-best player in the world, a level he's yet to return to.
While Robert MacIntyre is a more qualified version of the rookie who went unbeaten, his approach play lately has been very poor. Justin Rose, Ludvig Aberg, Hovland, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry all underwhelmed at Wentworth, where sole rookie Rasmus Hojgaard was exceptionally bad. Sepp Straka, last seen finishing 30th of 30 at East Lake, did not take part in the event.
Some of these questions could also be levelled at some US stalwarts, the likes of Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas, but my sense is that most if not all of the things that were in Europe's favour in Rome no longer apply.
There they had prepared perfectly; their opponents had not. They had home advantage; their opponents didn't know the course. They faced a hopeless captain whose misery was compounded by a bug which hit the side midweek. Despite this, for a time on Sunday the Ryder Cup got somewhat close. And while the winning margin was wide, all of the damage was done on Friday. Thereafter, the scores were tied.
In each of the last five renewals, the home side has delivered a winning front-running performance in this market. It will be very difficult for Europe to play catch-up in New York, but I'd also wonder if the crowd could turn on the hosts if they start poorly. In other words, if the USA do win, it's likely on the shoulders of a strong first day. This is the best way to get the favourites on-side at a nice price.
The more I look at this market, the stronger the case for SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER becomes.
First and foremost, he is of course the world number one, the best and most prolific player in the sport. The best golfer we have seen since Tiger Woods, and that includes career grand slam-winning Rory McIlroy. Scheffler continues to defy belief and as someone put it on social media recently, if we're not allowed to draw comparisons with Woods yet, when exactly will we be?
Now, some will point to Woods as the cautionary note here and it's undeniably true that his Ryder Cup record was poor: just 39.2% of potential points won, 21 losses to 13 wins and, perhaps most remarkably, only one victory to his name. That came in 1999 which means he spent the best part of the next 20 years on losing sides, latterly in Paris, but also in humiliating defeats at Medinah and Oakland Hills.
I think things are different now, though. Those US crisis years are over and they are strong and worthy favourites. While I feel they've arrived at the wrong captain for the wrong reasons, they do appear to be a more cohesive, balanced unit, one with a bit of a point to prove after defeat in Rome. New York should represent the very essence of home advantage and they'll be hard to beat.
Scheffler, who has faced a standout European player in Rahm in both singles matches without yet suffering defeat, is going to be key to their chances and as I look at this strong US team, what's striking is that the question marks that exist relate more to the other established players within it. I find it hard to nominate any other obvious candidate to play all five sessions.
Posted at 1200 BST on 22/09/25
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