JT really opened up a can of Ryder Cup worms.
PublishedDecember 3, 2025 9:37 AM EST•UpdatedDecember 3, 2025 9:37 AM EST
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After Europe secured its sixth Ryder Cup victory in eight attempts at Bethpage Black this fall, it was difficult to imagine how things could get any worse for the U.S. team from the public’s perspective, but then Justin Thomas decided to reflect on the experience.
Thomas, who went 2–2–0 in his matches at Bethpage Black, recently joined the ‘No Laying Up’ podcast and claimed that course superintendents and U.S. captain Keegan Bradley could not get on the same page about green speeds throughout the week.
The captain of the host team typically has significant input on course setup, but based on JT’s remarks, things weren’t exactly meshing.
“I don’t know why they 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 stimp meter],” Thomas explained.
He went on to say that it was” just so frustrating that we were being fought with and argued with on the speed of the greens that we asked for.”
Justin Thomas looks on at an approach shot. (Getty Images)
Bethpage Staffer Pushes Back Against JT
After Thomas’ comments made the rounds, an anonymous staffer at Bethpage reached out to popular golf account Rick Golfs and pushed back, to put it mildly.
The staffer claimed “there was ZERO conversation between captains and the grounds crew during tournament week, and that is at the fault of Keegan.” They also stated that the grounds crew only spoke with Bradley once, “weeks before the event.”
Instead of letting the story fizzle out on its own, which is a fair option given that the Ryder Cup ended more than two months ago, Thomas dug the U.S. team into an even deeper hole during a later appearance on PGA Tour Radio.
Thomas claimed that he “never said it was the greens crew’s fault,” which isn’t exactly fair, seeing as how he told No Laying Up that the team was “being fought with and argued with on the speed of the greens.”
Then, after previously saying that Bradley had asked for certain green speeds and alleging the Bethpage staff couldn’t get the putting surfaces to the team’s liking, he said that the speed requests “never got relayed” to the grounds crew, which is even more embarrassing than his previous claims.
Based on JT’s latest rendition of the situation, the U.S. captain, his staff, or the PGA of America weren’t able to relay information to the grounds crew of the golf course hosting the largest and arguably the most important Ryder Cup ever held on American soil.
It’s highly unlikely that green speeds would have flipped the result — Europe led 11.5–4.5 heading into Sunday before winning 15-13 — but all of these claims make the U.S. team look even more disjointed than the whole world already thought it was.
