The captain of Team USA, Keegan Bradley, following such a loss, shared how he feared that he would “never get over” their close defeat at the 2025 Ryder Cup. However, his teammate Justin Thomas had an entirely different take. Thomas claimed that it was partly the fault of staff members that resulted in Team USA’s loss. This, obviously, was not well received by the Bethpage Staffers.

Justin Thomas recently claimed that during the tournament, the grounds crew began arguing with the golfers over green speeds. The turf staffer replied to Thomas, sharing his unfiltered opinions on the matter. “They can argue with numbers all they want, but these are concrete, collected numbers that cannot be argued with. Data is data, not an opinion. Player perception is an opinion,” he said. “There was ZERO conversation between captains and the grounds crew during tournament week, and that is at the fault of Keegan. We would have welcomed him with open arms any day or time (we were there 24/7) and only spoke with him directly ONCE- weeks before the event.”

Thomas, however, stated clear reasoning for his belief. Joining the No Laying Up podcast, he reflected on their loss to Europe and said, “I don’t really understand that. I don’t know why they weren’t at all what Keegan had asked for. Keegan, I mean, had been pretty clear of asking for a certain speed and wanting them fast enough and I watched them argue with us that they were 13s and it’s like guys we play golf every week, like look on TV how many guys are leaving putts short.”

While blaming the ground staff, Thomas further added, “Nobody is getting you can’t have a putt roll three feet four feet past the hole. Like these greens are slow. Like speed them up and it was it was just bizarre because that’s not something you would expect at a home rider cup and again that’s not an excuse.” The Bethpage staff also claimed that Thomas should’ve reached out during practice sessions, and said, “If there was a problem, it should have come from him in practice rounds (that they failed to play) when they would have realized they didn’t like the speed.”

Explaining his take further on their loss, the 32-year-old added, “They had to adjust to them just as much as we did but that’s kind of a fun advantage you generally have is like being able to do that a little bit and it was just so frustrating that we were being fought with and argued with on the speed of the greens that we asked for. So that was uh that was bizarre.” However, one of the staff members who worked at Bethpage that week added, “They still lost, and they still can’t accept it. Two months later, and the excuses keep rolling. The grounds crew. wanted to win more than any player on that American team.”

He even added, “Quite frankly, it meant more to the Bethpage staff and the state of New York than anyone else. Learn to practice and compete as a team, or JT will continue to scrap together excuses in 2026.” While he just got accused of ‘making excuses’, Thomas also recently claimed to know the exact reason behind his exclusion from the 2024 President’s Cup Team.

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Justin Thomas claims to know the reason for his mysterious let-off in the Presidents Cup

Justin Thomas has had some bizarre moments in his golfing career. For example, back in 2023, Thomas did not have a very good year. In fact, he raked up the worst performance of his career. But somehow, he did get a captain’s pick for the 2023 Ryder Cup. And while this decision already baffled the fans, something more peculiar was yet to come. 

Just a year later, at the 2024 Presidents Cup, Jim Furyk shockingly did not pick Thomas on his team. And this was even though he had a comparatively better season than the one in 2023. Now, cut to 2025, Thomas proved that he can still pack a punch. And such a sublime display this year has further raised the noise about why he should have been picked last year in Montreal. Now, amidst all the noise going on, Thomas recently had his say on why he was mysteriously let off from the team. 

Speaking in a recent episode of the ‘No Layup Podcast,’ Thomas stated, “It was weird. Like, I didn’t have a good feeling about it, to be honest. And I think the biggest thing was the golf course. I think with the way it was, how they were gonna set it up, with the rough being really long, and the fairways being narrow, and I wasn’t driving it particularly well, and I think that was a huge, huge part of it for them.” He also thinks that the stats probably played a key role in his team writing him off.