{"id":239594,"date":"2025-09-19T18:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/239594\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T18:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T18:59:11","slug":"for-good-of-the-game-famed-caddie-challenges-ryder-cup-captains-with-unique-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/239594\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018For good of the game:’ Famed caddie challenges Ryder Cup captains with unique idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of hype, the 2025 Ryder Cup arrives next Friday, September, 26th<\/a>, at Bethpage Black<\/a>. The event ends on Sunday, and one famed caddie-turned-TV analyst thinks the Ryder Cup captains should collude to conclude the festivities with a non-traditional bang.<\/p>\n

That analyst, former longtime Phil Mickelson caddie Jim \u201cBones\u201d Mackay<\/a>, shared his idea on Wednesday, predicting that if the captains followed through, it would both \u201cbuck tradition\u201d and \u201cbring the house down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jim \u201cBones\u201d Mackay floats tradition-breaking end to Ryder Cup<\/p>\n

While Mackay has been directly involved with many Ryder Cups on Mickelson\u2019s bag, he also caddied for Justin Thomas at the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.<\/p>\n

This year, though, Mackay won\u2019t be in the U.S. team room at Bethpage Black. Instead, he\u2019ll be walking the fairways in his role as an NBC Sports on-course reporter.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, NBC held a conference call for the NBC Sports Ryder Cup team<\/a>. All five members of the NBC\u2019s Ryder Cup TV crew – Dan Hicks, Brad Faxon, Paul McGinley, Smylie Kaufman and Mackay – took part.<\/p>\n

News <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Keegan<\/a><\/p>\n

Keegan Bradley celebrates winning the Travelers.<\/p>\n

Each offered some opening remarks before questions began, and that\u2019s when Mackay, speaking fourth, dropped his big idea for Ryder Cup Sunday.<\/p>\n

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After declaring his excitement for the tournament, which he called \u201cmy favorite event\u2026 in all of sports,\u201d Mackay took advantage of his time to reveal that his dream would be for Ryder Cup captains Keegan Bradley<\/a> and Luke Donald<\/a> to come together and match World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler<\/a> against World No. 2 Rory McIlroy<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s singles matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all I\u2019ll say is that I think that if it hasn\u2019t already been said, I would love if things look really close as we head into Sunday, if the two captains, Keegan Bradley and Luke Donald, who are close friends, could find 60 seconds for themselves and for the good of the game, maybe find a way to see that Rory [McIlroy] and Scottie [Scheffler] play each other in singles on Sunday,\u201d Mackay proffered on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Mackay continued by arguing that if the captains bought into his idea, it would take the excitement and interest levels to a whole other level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at a close Ryder Cup that would basically bring the house down in terms of the excitement that everyone sees around the play there on Sunday, and of course, a close competition,\u201d Mackay said.<\/p>\n

Why this would \u2018buck tradition\u2019 at Ryder Cup<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s so unique about Mackay\u2019s Sunday singles idea? It comes down to how Sunday singles matches are determined at Ryder Cups.<\/p>\n

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Following the second session of matches on Ryder Cup Saturday, the captains make final decisions about when their respective players will compete in Sunday singles. All 12 players on each team have to play a singles match, so ultimately the captains are deciding what order they will play on Sunday.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one crucial wrinkle to this process that impacts Mackay\u2019s idea: the captains don\u2019t choose the Sunday matches together. Instead, they choose their teams\u2019 playing orders in private without knowing what the other captain is doing.<\/p>\n

News <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Lanny<\/a><\/p>\n

Lanny Wadkins<\/p>\n

For example, Donald could decide he wants to start Sunday on the right foot with his best player, McIlroy, playing in the first match. But Bradley would not be privy to that decision. Bradley could instead decide that he wants his best player, Scheffler, to lock down the final match in case the score gets tight. In that case, McIlroy and Scheffler would be playing on the opposite ends of the tee sheet.<\/p>\n

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For the two top golfers to play each other on Sunday, Donald and Bradley would have to slot them into the same match blind.<\/p>\n

That is unless Donald and Bradley took Mackay\u2019s advice and broke this rule by meeting and planning out the matchups together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would be really cool if they could find a way and buck tradition and see that those guys play each other,\u201d Mackay said.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy-Jim Mackay Ryder Cup controversy<\/p>\n

As Mackay noted in his opening remarks, he\u2019s been at every Ryder Cup \u201cinside the ropes since 1993,\u201d most of the time as Mickelson\u2019s caddie.<\/p>\n

But the 2023 Ryder Cup arrived at a time when Mackay was temporarily carrying the bag of U.S. Ryder Cup mainstay Justin Thomas. That\u2019s how Mackay got into the middle of the biggest controversy from the last Ryder Cup.<\/p>\n

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Toward the end of Saturday\u2019s matches, Rory McIlroy, other members of the European team, Patrick Cantlay and Cantlay\u2019s caddie Joe LaCava, got into a dust-up on the course, when a hat-waving celebration by the U.S. team caught the ire of McIlroy.<\/p>\n

The dispute spilled off the course, too. Later that night, McIlroy got involved in a parking-lot shouting match<\/a> with someone on the U.S. team. In a video of the incident, Mackay can be seen trying, and failing, to calm McIlroy down.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Shane Lowry had to hold McIlroy back from escalating the encounter, forcing him into a waiting courtesy car.<\/p>\n

The post \u2018For good of the game:\u2019 Famed caddie challenges Ryder Cup captains with unique idea<\/a> appeared first on Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of hype, the 2025 Ryder Cup arrives next Friday, September, 26th, at Bethpage Black. The event…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":239595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[109550,1430,1504,1509,102015,69001,18752,1478,8656,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-239594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-2023-ryder-cup","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-justin-thomas","11":"tag-keegan-bradley","12":"tag-luke-donald","13":"tag-nbc-sports","14":"tag-phil-mickelson","15":"tag-rory-mcilroy","16":"tag-ryder-cup","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115232503527136171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}