Ryder Cup 2025 Series Part 4 – Money: that’s what some US Ryder Cup players want

The Americans want pay-to-play; the Europeans are happy to play for pride

Patrick Cantlay’s ‘no-hat’ controversy in the 2023 Ryder Cup was the latest in a long line of controversies about money at the bi-annual event. Back as far as 1927, the cash questions have included: was there enough to stage the match at all; who would provide the funds to cover all the expenses in the early days; then, when funds became plentiful in the mid-1990s, where do the modern-day go and, crucially, should the players receive payment?

Some argue that the attitude regarding player payments reflects fundamental cultural differences between Britain/Europe and the USA. The American team has never been short of money, starting with well-heeled patrons or high-quality golf clubs coming forward as golf’s popularity in the US surged right from the time of the inaugural match. By contrast, the British PGA had to beg clubs and golf societies to donate cash to send the team over to America in 1927 and then Samuel Ryder had to chip in to meet the final bill. My own club, Hampstead GC in London, sent a cheque for £10. This state of poverty remained for decades. For example, the 1933 match at Southport & Ainsdale in Lancashire left the PGA with a £1,200 bill.

British players also missed out. Representing their country meant no lucrative lesson income or exhibition match winnings for a week. A few expenses were covered (in 1929, the British players received £20, but they also paid for their own travel to and from Moortown in Yorkshire), but receipts were required for other expenditures. The system of a small daily stipend for players was the alternative to match fees, but larger payments were moot because the matches just never produced much profit.

Years ago, the best US players were happy to play for free. For decades after World War II, they were becoming sporting superstars, while British pros were still second-class citizens. Prize money at the Masters, for example in 1946, was two and a half times more than the R&A paid out at the Open Championship. The Ryder Cup promoted golf and themselves in the US and it was fun because they almost always won.

But in 1977, the first crack appeared in this state of affairs. With no prize money and the result almost a foregone conclusion, former US Open champion Tom Weiskopf decided to go sheep hunting rather than play in the Ryder Cup. The idea of paying players suddenly became an issue.

Then in the mid-1980s, Team Europe turned the Ryder Cup into a thrilling affair; the underdogs were finally winning and, with the result in doubt, the TV audiences rocketed and channels had to pay more for the coverage; sponsors took more interest; and ticket prices increased. Even the practice days started to sell out. It was a massive turnaround, but with this positive change came a negative problem for the US team – where does the money go and why can’t we, the American players, be paid?

The answer was complicated because two PGAs owned the rights to the Ryder Cup; for the first seven decades of competition, no one else was interested in staging the matches. Then in the 1970s when tournament pros broke away from their original organisations and created the PGA Tour and the European Tour, they turned their noses up at the unprofitable matches. However, by the late 1980s, they began to change their tunes and said ‘well, it’s our players who make up the teams, why are we ignored when it comes to spending the barrel loads of new cash?’. And so, negotiations began.

The PGA in Britain was fairly quick to hand over the running of the European-based Ryder Cups to the European Tour which had much more expertise in TV and sponsor deals. The Players Committee suddenly had a voice and profits went to support the Tour and other game-growing initiatives. There was never any controversy about paying the players – being chosen for the Ryder Cup was too much of an honour to be sullied by an argument over fees.

But that was not the case on the other side of the ocean. The PGA of America hung onto to its Ryder Cup ownership like grim death; they had 28,000 members to support and their own golf development projects to pay for. But when Tiger Fever arrived in the late 1990s, something had to change.

At the 1999 match in Brookline, Massachusetts, Tiger Wood (pictured), David Duval and Mark O’Meara all spoke out. Player expenses for the week had risen to $5,000, but it was a paltry amount considering the lowest prize fund at any PGA Tour event that year was $1.6 million. Although the match stipends made no sense in isolation, the integrity of the Ryder Cup was at stake and criticism flowed, even from US team captain that year Ben Crenshaw. “I'm from a different generation where the Ryder Cup means a lot to us. I'm upset people aren't jumping over the moon about (playing in it). I want our players to be unified. To be honest, I haven't seen that in the last four teams."

The US players claimed it was more about controlling the flow of the new-found cash rather than direct payment. "It's not greed," insisted Woods, who was looking closely at the projected $23 million profit from that year’s event. "It's the fact we want to help out. We want to donate money to our charities in our local areas. There's so much money being generated at the Ryder Cup, it's become a corporate event."

The PGA of America had to concede and, nowadays, the US players receive a reported $200,000 each for charitable distribution. Meanwhile, European players receive gifts from their captain and any extra money for playing may come from sponsors who pay bonuses for making the team. Rory McIlroy recently said how being paid would change the dynamic of the whole event: “I personally would pay for the privilege to play on the Ryder Cup. The two purest forms of competition in our game right now are the Ryder Cup and the Olympics, and it's partly because of that -- the purity of no money being involved."

But the charitable donations are now looking inadequate for the US players. Patrick Cantlay rather disingenuously denied his Rome ‘hat trick’ was anything to do with this, but insiders called him out and the controversy will not go away.

This year with media interest continuing to spiral upwards and ticket prices being astronomical – they top out at $750 which is almost three times the price of the final day ticket two years ago – the profits will definitely increase and so will the number of enquiries about US players wanting to receive payment.

Weiskopf refused to play and Cantlay refused to wear a hat – the US players at the 2025 match cannot refuse to answer the question of cash.