Tiger Woods will not be the United States captain at the 2027 Ryder Cup following his recent arrest for DUI with property damage from a rollover car crash in Jupiter Island, Florida. Woods issued a plea of not guilty to the charges but announced he would seek treatment and was granted permission to do so outside the country.
Considered the primary option to captain the Americans at Adare Manor in Ireland, Woods was in the process of deciding whether to take the gig. The PGA of America reportedly told him it wanted an answer before the 2026 Masters next week.
On Wednesday, the PGA announced that Woods formally withdrew his name from consideration following his accident.
“The PGA of America stands in full support of Tiger Woods as he steps away to focus on his health and well-being. … We commend Tiger for prioritizing his long-term health and deeply respect the courage it takes to make such a personal decision. Tiger has shared with us that he will not serve as Captain of the 2027 U.S. Ryder Cup Team and we support his decision. The PGA of America will share further updates regarding the Ryder Cup Captaincy when appropriate.”
While it’s likely the PGA had already considered Plan B scenarios, the organization now has no choice but to pivot.
The challenge? There is no obvious answer for who to select as captain beyond Woods. The United States does not have a recent history of success at the Ryder Cup; if it did, plucking and promoting vice captains into the prominent role would make sense. (The U.S. is 3-9 in the Ryder Cup since the turn of the century.)
This will be an incredibly daunting task. The United States has not won a Ryder Cup in Europe since 1993, and now, it must face a European side captained by Luke Donald for the sixth straight year. That level of continuity is unheard of in the Ryder Cup, and the U.S. is in desperate need of a cultural shake-up to at least get back on level footing with an increasingly dominant Euro side.
The Americans attempted to do so last year when Keegan Bradley was surprisingly named captain without knowing he was under consideration for the role. Unfortunately, despite Bradley’s immense passion for the Ryder Cup, a bevy of mistakes led to the U.S. fighting from so far behind that a thrilling Sunday of singles victories was not enough to overcome the Europeans in New York.
As for who will take on this Herculean challenge, here are five names who might fit the bill.
Brandt Snedeker
The current U.S. Presidents Cup captain is certainly an option to maintain a leadership role for the 2027 Ryder Cup. He’ll have some captaining experience coming out of Medinah, and many of the players who make up his squad in Chicago will also be part of the 12-man team heading to Ireland in ’27. Snedeker is also one of the few modern Americans who finished his career with a winning Ryder Cup record, going 4-2-0 in his two appearances, including a 3-0-0 week in the U.S. victory at Hazeltine in 2016.
However, one of the challenges the United States faces is that its dominance in the Presidents Cup has sometimes masked shortcomings that show up in the Ryder Cup. Furthermore, choosing Snedeker now, before the Presidents Cup, is risky should the Americans not live up to expectations at Medinah. A strong captaincy in the 2026 Presidents Cup seems more likely to set him up for the 2029 Ryder Cup, but perhaps he will get fast-tracked given the need for fresh blood.
Webb Simpson
Simpson is an incredibly popular figure among PGA Tour players, and he was a member of three U.S. Ryder Cup teams, going 4-4-1 as a player in those appearances. Those were all U.S. losses, but again, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone with a positive team record from any recent U.S. squad.
Simpson was a vice captain in 2025 for Bradley, so he has some understanding of the role and working the team room from that side. Of the possible options, there’s no one with better relationships with the players who would make up his team than Simpson. Given what we’ve seen from the European side in terms of how building those interpersonal relationships under Donald has led to tremendous success, perhaps Simpson could finally create that kind of culture for the U.S. side.
Steve Stricker
The last captain to lead a winning U.S. Ryder Cup team, Stricker’s squad at Whistling Straits buzzsawed the Europeans in 2021 and proved individual playing success isn’t all that important to success as a captain, as Stricker went 3-7-1 as a player in three appearances.
With a general lack of strong options, the PGA of America could do worse than calling Stricker back into duty to see if he can work some magic again. The challenge, of course, is that this time he’d have to do it on the road with a U.S. roster that doesn’t appear as strong top to bottom as it was in 2021.
The biggest question might be whether Stricker wants to take another swing at Ryder Cup glory. He may be happy with the storybook ending to his career in his home state five years ago.
Stewart Cink
Cink has gotten some buzz for the role, given his lengthy history as a Ryder Cup regular in the early 2000s. He is well-liked but now mostly plying his trade on the Champions Tour, where he’s been a dominant force since turning 50. While he has some existing relationships, perhaps a bit of separation might be a bit better for a captain.
Cink has the most Ryder Cup experience as a player out of any of the above options, as he went 5-7-7 in five appearances. He would surely love a crack at the captaincy, despite the apparent uphill climb facing the U.S. in 2027, and he could make real sense, especially if the PGA of America is worried about burning their few strong young candidates with a daunting road Ryder Cup trip.
Justin Leonard
Leonard went 2-4-6 in his three appearances, but his putt at Brookline to win the 1999 Ryder Cup is arguably the most iconic moment in U.S. Ryder Cup history. He voiced his interest in the role during a recent interview and cited the belief that some separation from this current generation of players could be good for a captain to make more level-headed decisions.
Like Cink, he would provide an experienced, older option for trying to get a rare road Ryder Cup win, while not risking a Simpson or Snedeker, who are two of your few strong, younger options going forward.
Wild Card: Phil Mickelson
It’s tough to believe someone other than Mickelson would have been the captain at Bethpage Black had he not burned bridges by going to LIV Golf. When he made that move, the assumption was that he might be lighting any chance he ever had to be a Ryder Cup captain on fire. However, now that tensions have somewhat cooled and the U.S. Ryder Cup team has seen multiple LIV players make the last two squads, perhaps that door has opened a crack.
If this is a sort of Mission: Impossible task, maybe there’s no better time to call in Phil than when the U.S. seemingly has nothing to lose. The question the PGA of America would have to answer before selecting him is whether Mickelson is able to rally enough support from the players. His departure for LIV ruffled an awful lot of feathers, and it might still be too soon for everyone to let bygones be bygones with Mickelson in particular.