Poulter On The Ryder Cup Captaincy

A year ago Ian Poulter looked to be a banker for the captaincy at the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. His opposition skipper was likely to be Phil Mickelson and it promised to be the barmiest Ryder Cup in the history of the competition.

Two skippers, full of opinions and incendiary quotes, and all of it on Long Island, New York.

This year's Ryder Cup was supposed to have Henrik Stenson at the European helm, then he jumped ship to LIV Golf and Luke Donald was drafted in. As things stands it seems inconceivable that anyone connected with LIV will get a look in in terms of any captaincy.

For years Ian Poulter has been Europe's talisman in the matches. He's played on seven of them, won five times, inspired the Miracle At Medinah in 2012 and he's never been beaten in singles.

This week he is playing on the Asian Tour which, he says, will give him his best opportunity of qualifying – there are four spots available – for The Open at Hoylake.

As for his chances of leading Europe he had this to say on Instagram: "LIV Golf League is here to stay it's only 30 rounds old. And every start up business takes time. I'm so proud to see how far it's come in such a short space of time. It's an incredible business and product and it will be incredible.

"And if the DP World Tour chose to not have any LIV golfer as captain after they have supported them and still do for over 25 years then shame on them. Sad but that's on them. Time will tell and once all the info is out things will change I'm sure."

Whatever that info is remains to be seen and you would imagine that things will change a long way down the line. What does seem certain is that at least a few of the LIV gang will miss out if only due to the fact that so many of them headed to the Saudi-backed circuit.

Again, a year or so ago we were mentally trying to also shoehorn in the likes of Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell for the coming years. McDowell has already spoken about the doubts that he had even before LIV Golf had happened.

“I had to reason with myself and say, ‘Would I love to be the Ryder Cup captain in Ireland in ’27, picture myself standing there on the stage giving the opening speech, looking at my team behind me?’ Beautiful, I got a tear in my eye just thinking about it. But that wasn’t a guarantee; that wasn’t a given.

“Let’s say LIV hadn’t come along. [Westwood] would have turned Rome [in 2023] down, so now he was looking at ’27 because [Ian] Poulter was going to take ’25 at Bethpage Black. He said that eight years ago and wanted to get into a fight with Mickelson on the stage in New York City.

"I haven’t really thought about it. That may be one of the most fundamental things that may come out of this whole thing that we don’t get to see Phil versus Poulter at Bethpage Black. You know, that probably won’t happen now. Westwood is one of the most decorated European Tour players of all time. So I’m going against him and I’m thinking, ‘I’m not sure I’m necessarily winning this job,’ you know, so this is the type of reasoning that I had to go through in my head.”