Team USA Comeback Falls Short, Europe Secures First Win on Road Since 2012 | 2025 Ryder Cup Recap

Patrick McDonald and Jason Sobel join CBS Sports HQ to recap Team Europe’s 2025 Ryder Cup victory.

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with the NFL on CBS and Paramount+. The beat down at Bethpage quickly became the battle at Bethpage, thanks to an impassioned effort by the American Sunday in Farmingdale. The U.S. entered the day trailing 11 to 5, 11.5 to 4 and a half. Excuse me, but a Viktor Hovland injury left him unable to compete by rule. That point split that, meaning 12 five entering the action, the American needing almost everything and everything’s almost what they got A61 in for single session, leaving the US just shy of the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history. Europe, now winners in nine of the last 12 Ryder Cups and the first road victory since 2012. An epic day Sunday at Bethpage. In for reaction on site, we say hello to CBS golf analyst Patrick McDonald and Jason Sobel. Gentlemen, the tent post of this event is in motion. So before we get into the details, Patrick, I’m interested in how you observe the emotion here of Sunday. Oh, gosh. I think the thing that sticks out to me before that final putt by Shane Lowry was we were on the 17th tee box down below. I know you know it well. And Cameron Young made the putt up above the hill on 18. It felt like the first time all week Jason something finally went right for America. And you think okay, it’s Sunday at the Ryder Cup. Things can get a little bit weird for 15, you know, 30, maybe an hour max. Especially with the hole the US side dug themselves. But then Justin Thomas got going and then the nerves kind of reversed course and they settled on the European side. A lot of guys were looking at the leaderboards, the big boards this afternoon, really cheering them on. Viktor Hovland was out on the course. Joe, like you mentioned, unable to play due to that neck injury and just seeing the nervousness shift back and forth and then ultimately settle on both teams as this thing somehow came down to the wire, is what really stuck with me. Well, Patrick, first things first. I pulled the envelope. Your name was in here. We’re going to let you continue to a hell of a run. It was a hell of a run. Give me my hat. And I’ve never talked as much about envelopes as we did today with Viktor Hovland. That said, for the first time in 13 years, we had a Ryder Cup that had some drama on Sunday. And I think that what changed today was the fact that going into today, we’re going to remember this Ryder Cup as the one where the US team got boat raced, where Europe outstrategized outmaneuvered, outplayed the US team in every single aspect. Instead, I think we’re going to recall this one years from now is the one that came so close to maybe the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history. The Americans really showed some heart on this Sunday in the singles session, and to their credit, they played well. They won six matches, came very close, but just didn’t quite get it done. And what this does now moving forward is opens up Keegan Bradley and the team and the PGA of America, the players themselves to all that micro analysis moving forward of what could have been done better over the first two days. We’ll get into a bit of that. But first, I want to stay on some some broad strokes here because you talk about the history that was made here on Sunday or the way that this will be remembered historically. It changed with the way that Sunday played out. Again, 1513 is our final following a six one in for single session. Jason. So we don’t, in the American ideal, lend to ties or moral victories all that often. But how does Sunday change the way that we do situate this historically? Perhaps we change this event. I’ve looked at changes over the years where I would love to see. Maybe we go back and forth with the captains matching up players, sort of like they do at the Presidents Cup, but I’m not so sure. Patrick. They might not have done that in the back room. We’ve got some very good matchups today, unlike we usually see in the Ryder Cup. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, of course the headliner. Maybe we see some changes though, to the envelope where if a player does withdraw going into the final day that they don’t get a half point for their team, maybe we see if it’s 14, 14 that like other sports, you go to overtime, you figure it out, let’s go to penalty kicks, whatever it takes. Presidents Cup also we’ve seen that in the past. Where you go each has a player that they pick and they go out and play a playoff, so to speak, to try to determine a champion as opposed to going 1414 and a team retains the cup. Again, I think everything is on the board moving forward. Some of these might be antiquated notions going back nearly 100 years here at the Ryder Cup. But Patrick, I think that moving forward, at least the US has some some momentum, so to speak, that they don’t go to Ireland two years from now saying, man, we just got bloodied and bruised. Yeah. I will be interested to see how many of these Americans are on that team in two years time. We do have two years to talk about that. Not that we will right now, but I think when we look go into the future and look back on this event, I think instead of this European team just absolutely dominating this competition, I think we’ll look back and see them really earning it right, getting down in the dirt, having the pressure finally applied to them on Sunday because Joe, they were coasting through this competition, coasting through Americans. Those first four sessions, everything came so easy to them. All the putts were falling. They were getting all the good breaks. Everything was going the European way. And then finally on Sunday, you had the chip in from young late. You had Justin Thomas win a point. You had a lot of momentum from the American side and the Europeans being able to withstand that and stand tall, I think adds to the value of this Ryder Cup for them. Sunday, maybe taking a bit of the vitriol out of the way that this performance will be met for Captain Bradley and for the American Ryder Cup team. But, Patrick, we’ve alluded to the man in the envelope twice. That was Harris English, who doesn’t get to play Sunday singles because Viktor Hovland is out with the neck injury. They split that point. We were very close. A couple putts, the difference between a lot of vitriol in the rules and the way that they’re adjudicated here at the Ryder Cup. Did you see Victor’s absence impact play at all on Sunday, or the way that maybe we would have met the result? Well, I think some of the U.S. players were definitely disappointed that they had to give up half a point. I will say here on the ground, some of the Americans were a little bit confused where they were just happy early in the afternoon to get half a point, considering they only had four and a half to begin the day. The fans that is in. But from the European side it really made it much easier, much more attainable coming into this Sunday singles session, only needing to get those two points to retain the cup and ultimately getting three. I think it might have taken a little bit of wind out of the sails initially for the Americans, but they definitely got back up for it and just put their best foot forward. It will be interesting to see if that’s changed in the future. I can’t imagine it will be Jason just because the result is 15 to 13. I think that was big. Like Joe mentioned, we’re not going to have any of that discourse, I hope, in the coming weeks, but we’ll see about that. We’ll see about that. Indeed. And this goes back to the roots of this competition, which started in 1927, nearly 100 years ago. And this was always a goodwill competition. This was, hey, let’s get together with our friends on the other side of the pond and play a little match and see what happens. And for years it was that way. It was us against Great Britain and Ireland, and they changed the rule back in the late 70s to include all of continental Europe. And what we’ve seen now is that this is a big time event. This isn’t just, hey, let’s see who plays better. And we all shake hands at the end and have a beer together in the team room. This is a big time competition where fans and supporters on both sides of the pond both want to win. And so look, if we’ve changed rules in the past, maybe this rule gets changed as well. Moving forward, we’ll see what the next captains have to say about it. We’re not going to speculate on that yet, are we? Yeah, we can give it a week. We can all say from experience this week that goodwill is only a store down the street in Long Island. There wasn’t much goodwill out there on course throughout this one. Let’s dive into some of the ripple effects of this result, because my eyes immediately go to Luke Donald, who is now captain. The last two European Ryder Cup teams. And it’s it’s really empires only Rome and then New York. How does the last four years or so of preparation and performance, Jason, affect the way that we say the name Luke Donald? Look, I think continuity and stability was the number one priority for Team Europe. Of course. Luke Donald, like you said, was the winning captain two years ago. And in that press conference right after they won in Rome, every single player on that team said, we want him back. And he decided to do it again. And he had 11 of those same players, 12 players back. And if you look back on it, it was always going to be an uphill climb for the Americans, even though they were favored coming into this competition. There was so much experience on the side of the Europeans and Luke, Luke, Donald is maybe bound for knighthood at some point. He’s never going to have to pay for a meal on the other side of the pond when he goes back home to England, even though he lives here in the States, and he’s going to be remembered as one of the greatest captains ever. And yes, we will wait a week until we start speculating on who the next captains might be. But I wouldn’t be surprised if, when the Europeans sit down in that press conference, once again, they say, Luke Donald did a terrific job. Once again, why not keep him there in perpetuity until it’s not working anymore? Sir, Luke does have a nice little ring to it, I think. And I think with this result, Musso Donald is pushed into the top European Ryder Cup players captains ever. Just overall top Europeans in this event. Think about his playing years. Also he never lost a Ryder Cup. He was the world number one, the leader of that European team in 2012 when they came back in Medinah. Then you go to his captaincy as well. The one time he has lost as a vice captain was 2021, in Whistling Straits. He avenges that one with this victory also. And so you just add that all together. And I know they asked him right after if he was interested in leading the charge there in Ireland. I think he’s going to give it quite, quite some time to think about it. But with this win, Donald does go down as possibly the greatest European captain ever in the Ryder Cup. Knighthood may have to wait, but an emperor already again. Rome and New York. Luke Donald leading the Europeans to another victory. Flip side of that coin is Keegan Bradley, and much of that speculation was already done on Saturday night after a lackluster performance through the first four sessions. Patrick, when you point to what went wrong for the United States, what do you think Keegan Bradley’s greatest regret might be in the lead up? I would say not put in Cameron Young and J.J. Spaun out there in the morning. We heard it in the lead up. How much Keegan Bradley wanted the rookies to almost earn it. Right. They want he almost wanted to ease them into the competition. But in this event, you don’t have the time for easing themselves into the competition. You have to be ready from the first tee shot. And I look at the way Cameron Young played this week. Obviously it doesn’t help that he played unbelievable, probably the best American on the team and seeing that he could have been a real asset in that foursome session early. And when you juxtapose that with the Collin Morikawa and Harris English pairing one sending them off once and then sending them out again because he wanted to stick to the game plan. I think those two decisions, Joe, are probably what Keegan Bradley might be thinking about. When he looks back at this week, I will go more big picture. Look at this from a macro level here. The fact that not just JJ Spaun and Cameron Young not playing more matches, not just Collin Morikawa and Harris English going out for a second foursome session on Saturday morning after they got boat raced on Friday morning. But just as a bigger picture, Keegan sort of vaguely said, hey, we’re looking at the stats and the data and the analytics without actually diving into all of those things. I know Luke Donald, who has Edoardo Molinari as a vice captain for the second time, who’s a stats maven and is looking at all of these numbers and has figured out how to best strategize which players work with whom around the golf course, who should tee off the odd number holes, who should tee off the even number holes in those alternate shot matches? It just feels like they got a little bit outsmarted in those areas. And again, this comes down to stability. It comes down to continuity. Europe’s captains and vice captains have done it before. And Keegan Bradley was doing this for the first time. And I think that Patrick, they just didn’t look at necessarily what the analytics said, because if they did, we would have seen some different pairings over the first two days. And I will say one thing, Joe, you look at Keegan Bradley at the introductory press conference. He wanted a whole new regime, and you saw a lot of new guys in that leadership room with Kisner, Woodland, Snedeker, Webb, Simpson as well. Jim Furyk, only the only guy in there with some experience. And then you juxtapose that with what’s on the European side a lot of former captains too. And I think that could have added a little bit of value to the US team. Two clicks on data Golf would have showed you 132 out of 132 for English, and Morikawa don’t have to delve too deep to find that. But that was the decision. Not once, but twice. Also a decision to cut down the rough at the Bethpage Black, known for the difficulty when you miss a fairway, it will all be picked apart, I’m sure, in detail, but we have a final thought here. The year belongs to Europe and the year belongs to Rory McIlroy. What a year it was. Pebble Beach Players Masters, and what he identified as one of the are the carrots dangling in front of him still in his career. A road Ryder Cup into. How many words can you put it here? Patrick McDonald the year that was for Rory McIlroy. Oh gosh, it really featured everything in vintage Rory McIlroy roller coaster fashion, right? So you go up to the top, you go down to the bottom with the drama at the PGA and the US open and some skirmishes with the media, and then he comes back up home at Royal Portrush to Northern Ireland, playing well at The Open Championship after missing the cut there in 2019 and then winning the Irish Open as well, and then calling his shot Olive, Babe Ruth and winning this Ryder Cup on US soil. I think it confirms that he is the greatest European golfer of all time. I know with Faldo with six major championships, there was maybe some contention there, but him being able to do this, this day and age with how difficult it is, it really just adds to Rory’s legend and his ability to focus and stay in the moment and stay in the process, but while also experiencing everything around him, I think is what this year is all about for. Rory got the two things that he most wanted. You got a green jacket and you got a Ryder Cup victory on home soil. But I will look at this on a bigger picture level. The fact that what golf fans get this year, we got Scottie Scheffler winning two of the four majors, number one player in the world, Rory McIlroy having a an historic year and claiming the career Grand Slam. And we’ve got a Ryder Cup that through two days looked like it would be devoid of any drama. And finally, for the first time in more than a decade, we got a Ryder Cup that was fun on a Sunday, had some drama, had us on the edge of our seats. After all that the game of professional golf has been through in the last 3 or 4 years, with all the division, all the separation going on right now, the fact that we finally got a year that like this is a great year for golf, for the two best players in the world and for all the fans who care so deeply about it. I think that we’ve got some momentum for the professional game and hopefully it keeps going moving forward. You recounting it as making the hair stand up on the back of my neck, what a year it was. And I think it’s safe to say that the golf fellas is good. Jason Sobel, Patrick McDonald. Many thanks. And don’t forget for all your golf needs. Be sure to download, subscribe and enjoy the early wedge. Our team led by Rick Gammon bringing you all the latest week in and week out. I’m sure some assessment in the offseason also an order. It’s the early wedge anywhere you get your podcasts