On Friday night, hours before the Cypress Point 2025 Walker Cup race started, the GB&I team received an inspirational message from Rory McIlroy. In the minute-long video, McIlroy, a member of the last European Ryder Cup team to win on American soil, notes how special the opportunity before the GB&I team is on the famous Monterey Peninsula track.
“It doesn’t feel like being someone who plays the Walker Cup and can’t do it completely and then keep playing the Ryder Cup and being able to beat the Yankees in their own backyard,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy then ended the news with Ryder Cup’s promise ahead of the 2025 event at Bethpage Black.
“Please beat them because I know we’re going to beat them at Bethpage,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy’s message stimulated GB&I to attend a 3-1 Foursomes meeting to open the Walker Cup. However, Team USA got its own promotion in the evening’s meeting in the form of Bryson DeChambeau, a star in the US Ryder Cup.
The two-time U.S. Open champion played on the 2015 Walker Cup team, losing 16.5 to 9.5, arrived Saturday night as the Americans fought in their singles matches on Day 1 to take the lead. With the US Jase Summy and GB&I’s Eliot Baker tied under the 18th green green, getting stuck on Ropes and Strud the Tree.
DeChambeau will return the Ryder Cup in a few weeks, but it turns out to be good luck. Just as DeChambeau arrived, Baker missed the putt and Summy won the game to give the Americans a key point and let them lead them into Sunday.
“That’s special,” Smith said of Dedanbeau coming to support the team. “My first thought was that I haven’t seen him in years and he’s getting bigger.”
DeChambeau then hangs out with the Americans in the locker room and then speaks to them on the last day of Sunday.
“He just walked in,” Preston Stout said of Dechambeau. “It certainly didn’t expect it. It’s cool. He gave us a little bit of inspirational conversation, which was great. Hopefully, it gave him a little bit of motivation and got the Ryder Cup in a few weeks.”
While much of the 2025 Ryder Cup talk centers on Captain America’s decision to not be a match captain, DeChambeau’s return is a deficit advantage the United States will have in Bethpage Black.
“There’s a lot to say about Bryson,” Bradley said at the captain’s draft press conference. “One of the most incredible things is that he’s qualified to get the team from eight starts, which is unheard of. But I’m most impressed [by] It was his efforts to be part of this team. He had to travel, to see us wherever we were and to exceed what we wanted from the players, and that was what I was most proud of. You can keep talking about him and the golfer being an incredible player, but it was amazing what he did for the team, with the extra effort.
“A simple fact is that Bryson Danborg is one of the best golfers on the planet,” Bradley later said on the golf channel. “We can pair with a lot of people. He’s always open- he’ll play with anyone. He’s just going there fantasticly, representing his country in Bethpage Black. He’s a really great weapon we’re going to have. Bryson went all the way through the whole process, whether he’s on the liv or in this game. And won the Ryder Cup.”
The weapon helped strengthen the young American team on Saturday. Bradley envisions DeChambeau having a bigger impact in three weeks as Americans hope to undermine McIlroy’s vision of another victory on American soil to complete his career’s “best year.”
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