This insane move by Team USA has handed Europe the first point of the 2025 Ryder Cup

Have Team USA shot themselves in the foot with the 2025 Ryder Cup still a year away?

Keegan Bradley’s Ryder Cup revenge mission just got a little harder as the PGA of America move to silence his 13th man in New York.

Home advantage in sports is a widely accepted phenomenon. 

Familiarity, travel fatigue, weather, altitude, and fans all contribute to varying extents to the higher-than-average win percentage enjoyed by home teams and players.

US Major League Soccer has one of the highest home win rates across the American sporting landscape, at 69 percent, with home teams in the NBA and NBL also coming out on top in six out of every ten matches.

Given the financial pressure and employment ramifications associated with success in elite sport, it’s understandable why home franchises and tournament organizers do everything they can – within the rules – to give their teams a boost.

And rule 101 – pack out stadia with die-hard fans who want to feel they’ve played their part. Just don’t price them out of the market.

That is of course unless winning is just the icing on the cake for organizing committees who deep down prioritize profit above all else. It’s exactly what the PGA of America has been lambasted for by seething fans after ticket prices for the 2025 Ryder Cup were revealed.

Just attending a practice day will set fans back $225.27, with that figure bumping up to $423.64 on Thursday for the luxury of a bolt-on Opening Ceremony.

But wait for it. For the competition proper, you will need to find $749.51 for a ticket. That means anyone wanting to attend every day will pay an eye-watering $3122.71 – and that’s before any travel, accommodation, or beer. Don’t panic though, your competition ticket day does include a hotdog and a can of Mountain Dew.

To place the hike in context, competition tickets at Marco Simone in 2023 were set at a still expensive, yet far more palatable $275. It’s speculated that the almost three-fold increase is designed to price out rowdy New Yorkers, renowned for their uncompromising brutality – particularly when on the pop.

And while no one is advocating for the drunken abuse of European players, outpricing genuine fans for the sake of a minority runs the credible risk of stripping away the magic of a Ryder Cup. LACC’s sedentary US Open vibe didn’t go unnoticed by fans last year after available ticket numbers were halved at the exclusive members club. It was a disastrous look, and it could be happening again.

“They are a group of greedy elitists, who don’t care anything about golf,” wrote one fan on X.

“My buddies and I were going to make the trip up from MD….until we saw ticket prices,” said another.

“This is going to be 90% corporate buyers. Clearly trying to grow the game,” continued the outrage.

The pricing should be a huge concern for US Captain Keegan Bradley, as he endeavors to rouse the troops after having their pants pulled down for large chunks of the 2023 contest.

Golf’s greatest team competition is like no other, and while Bradley will still have jurisdiction over course setup, the potential absence of a partisan home crowd due to ticket prices could represent a “massive own goal,” as No Laying Up’s Kevin Van Valkenburg wrote on social media.

And given the USA has only won four of the past 12 Ryder Cups – all at home – there will be plenty more Americans sharing those concerns about McIlroy et al. getting an easy ride at Bethpage, and helping Luke Donald secure back-to-back wins as European captain.

Fortunately for Bradley, away Ryder Cup wins are still a rarity with visitors only prevailing on six of the 22 occasions since 1979 when the Ryder Cup switched from USA versus GB & Ireland to USA versus Europe. The quality of Scheffler, Schauffele, and Morikawa in addition to the eligibility of their LIV stars including DeChambeau and Koepka may prove more than enough firepower without overly-raucous home support.

But as just 8/11 favorites, the bookmakers are not expecting an American procession. Far from it, which is why the decision to dilute home advantage in this way feels all the more bizarre.

On a more important note than ‘winning’, however. The Ryder Cup shows off golf in its best light. A change to play for something meaningful than money in a golfing era obsessed with record-breaking prize funds. A chance to challenge elitist stereotypes, inspire new generations of golfers, and engage with existing ones.

How $750 tickets help this cause is the question that cannot be avoided over the coming weeks and months. Perhaps the answer lies in the question itself. Greater ticket revenues equal greater resources to help grow the game.

And while that may be true, it will do little to comfort the vast majority of fans and families hoping to see the action unfold at one of sport’s bucket list events. Instead, they’ll have to settle for the comfort of the couch and seeing the occasional shot in between the almost endless commercial breaks.

How much for European fans to attend the 2025 Ryder Cup?

About the author

Ross Tugwood – Senior Digital Writer

Ross Tugwood is a Senior Digital Writer for todays-golfer.com, specializing in data, analytics, science, and innovation.

Ross is passionate about optimizing sports performance and has a decade of experience working with professional athletes and coaches for British Athletics, the UK Sports Institute, and Team GB.

He is an NCTJ-accredited journalist with post-graduate degrees in Performance Analysis and Sports Journalism, enabling him to critically analyze and review the latest golf equipment and technology to help you make better-informed buying decisions.