Often during Ryder Cup week, journalists and TV analysts let their team allegiances impact their coverage. It’s part of the fun of this unique week in the golf world. But European TV analysts are taking their boosterism to a whole other level at the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.
While Paul McGinley might be the poster child for this problem, Nick Faldo provided the latest example of it on Friday, when he criticized American player Patrick Cantlay live on TV in a crucial moment.
Faldo slights Patrick Cantlay for slow play at Ryder Cup
In the golf world, many TV analysts are former golfers and have been involved directly in past Ryder Cups. Even if they are not, their allegiance to country is clear. So it’s natural for those biases to show up in the coverage of an event like the Ryder Cup.
And when done right, it can add color and character to a telecast. A good example of that was early in Friday’s USA telecast, where Faldo made a brief appearance and traded friendly banter with American analyst Notah Begay III.
It centered around one point Faldo has brought up repeatedly this week. Around the course at Bethpage, there are signs that display the historic Ryder Cup record for both teams, USA 27 – Europe 15.
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Faldo thinks this is a bit of “psychological warfare” on the Americans part, because, as he mentioned to Begay on Friday’s telecast, the score since Great Britain & Ireland opened the team to all of Europe is Europe 11 – USA 7.
But Faldo’s main job on Friday was working the Sky Sports telecast. Alongside a fellow European in the booth, former Scottish pro Ewen Murray, Faldo let his bias show even more.
And, unsurprisingly, one of the few U.S. players who gave Team Europe fits on Friday was his target: Patrick Cantlay.
And it was a crucial moment. Cantlay and Sam Burns were locked in a tie with Rory McIlroy on the 14th hole in one of the day’s most hotly-contested matches.
Cantlay had just stuck his tee shot on the par-3 to a few feet, leaving him a tricky but hugely important birdie putt. If he made it, the U.S. would go 1 up in a match they needed to have. While Cantlay is known as a slow player, the importance of this putt could not be overstated.
But Faldo and Murray weren’t having it, and chose to make fun of Cantlay’s glacial process as he lined up his putt.
“So Ewen, you started life as a small boy and you grew up from there, you could probably tell us your biography by the time he hits this one,” Faldo joked, drawing laughter from Murray.
Then Murray joined in, saying “Well there is plenty of space for that. I understand how important every single shot is. Over the course of three days here, Rory could have a three-course meal!”
GolfWRX shared the clip on X.com, which you can see below.
Unfortunately for the Americans, Cantlay’s putt lipped out, and the match ended in a halve a few holes later.
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Having the British Sky Sports TV broadcast full of European bias is one thing, but the American broadcast is a whole other thing.
But that’s what viewers in the U.S. had to deal with all day Friday. That’s because the TV broadcast in the States, on the USA channel no less, featured a member of the current European Ryder Cup organization: McGinley.
McGinley is a longtime NBC/Golf Channel analyst, and a very good one at that. McGinley won three Ryder Cups as a player, and then captained the European team to victory at the 2014 Ryder Cup.
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But McGinley’s association with the team is not over. Right now, for this year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, he’s the European team’s strategic director.
And on Friday’s lengthy USA telecast, his analysis was offered from a completely biased perspective, regularly referring to the European team as “we” and letting his bias impact his analysis repeatedly.
It got so bad that by the end of the Cantlay/Burns-McIlroy/Lowry match late Friday, Jim “Bones” Mackay, another analyst on the USA telecast, couldn’t help but point out McGinley’s hypocrisy.
McIlroy had a putt on the 18th hole on a similar line to one Justin Rose had made in the match before. McGinley suggested European captain Luke Donald should give McIlroy the read. But Mackay wasn’t having it. He quickly reminded McGinley that he’d made the exact opposite argument when the Americans were in a similar situation earlier in the day.
For their part, the American analysts on the telecast did not engage in similar biased analysis, which likely left many U.S. viewers thinking they were watching a European broadcast after all.
We’ll have to see if trend continues on Satuday’s coverage, or if changes or made for the rest of the tournament.
