It may have ended in Sepetmber, but this week the fallout from the U.S Ryder Cup defeat at Bethpage Black continued with Justin Thomas and an anonymous turf staffer at Bethpage Black starring in central roles.
Thomas appeared on the No Laying Up podcast, where he claimed that the greens that week in New York were not at the requested speed:
“I don’t know why they [the greens] weren’t at all what Keegan had asked for. I mean, he had been pretty clear of asking for a certain speed and wanting it fast enough. I watched them argue with us that they were 13s [on the Stimpmeter].
That prompted a passionate response from a Ryder Cup turf staffer, who revealed to RickGolfs that the green speed numbers were correct, that there was zero conversation between captains and the grounds crew during tournament week, and that the U.S. need to “learn to practice and compete as a team, or JT will continue to scrap together excuses in 2026.”
In an attempt to clarify his original comments, JT took to PGA Tour’s Sirius XM radio where the 32-year-old stated in response:
“It’s unfortunate things get lost in translation or the context is not there. I don’t feel that I ever said anything about this being the greens crew’s fault.
This is all obviously to my knowledge, the captain doesn’t have communication with, say, the superintendent or the greens crew.
Obviously (Keegan] knows them, but Keegan is not going to the superintendent at Bethpage asking what he’s done because – I would assume – for certain reasons that could probably get out of hand a little bit. And the PGA of America is still setting up the golf course and doing things, so they need to know what’s going on.”
Thomas added:
“It was more so with whoever the communication (was) with Keegan. And, honestly, I think the point that the greens crew made is exactly my point.
I know for a fact that Keegan was asking for a certain thing or a certain speed and the fact that never got relayed to them kind of proves the point I was trying to make.”
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