owe it to my players, to my country, to all the people associated with the course, and I owe it to all the kids who have ever been in or will be in that position. GD: Which American players are you most excited to potentially work with, or for crowds to be intro- duced to? KB: Well, there’s J J Spaun, who has never played a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup. He’s the US Open champion, a guy who almost won the Players, but to me, I’m excited because I know what he’s going to get to experience. It’s one thing to play in a Ryder Cup but something else to be a part of this one. (Bethpage Black) is going to be the craziest Ryder Cup ever. I’m excited for Russell Henley. Heck, I still remember ev- erything about my first week, from practice rounds to how nervous I was when it started on Friday. Man, I remember playing a practice round on Tuesday, soaking up the atmosphere, and I was incredibly nervous then. It’s unlike any event you’ll ever feel. GD: How do you define success for your captaincy beyond winning or losing? KB: It’s just winning. That’s the goal, nothing else. Anything outside of a win is not going to be success- ful. I want the guys to feel prepared, that we came together as a group, that we are brothers, that I cre- ated a week for them at Bethpage they will remember forever, where we had each other’s backs and were one unit. But you do all that because you have an end goal in mind. GD: The unpacked suitcase coming to Bethpage? KB: No. I’m doing whatever I can to not make this Ryder Cup about me. It shouldn’t be about the cap- tain. You hear Bill Belichick talk, he never talks about the coaches. It’s the players that win games. The last thing I want is for the sideshow to be about this stu- pid suitcase that I didn’t open just because I was depressed. This has nothing to do with me. Even if I play, all I care about is winning. Everything else is stuff that can be left on the side. HOW TO REALLY TRUST YOUR DISTANCES
shot or are you only going to be playing best ball? That we are counting on you or that you might be in reserves. That you’re going to play with this guy that plays this ball. This is our strategy – make it loud and clear and without doubt to everyone in the room. The more guys know and understand those things, the better they’ll play. GD: Eight of the last nine Ryder Cups have been wonbythehometeam.Youhopethattrendcontin- ues this year, obviously, but does the current for- mat need tweaking to have more unpredictability? KB: That just shows how hard it is to play an away Ryder Cup. Over the last 20, 30 years, the Ryder Cup has changed into this monumental sporting event, something broader and bigger than a golf team, even a major. You’re going into a hostile atmosphere, like going into Fenway Park or a raucous college basket- ball arena. It’s tough to win in those places, even if you are the better team. That’s sort of what we’ve been dealing with. GD: Speaking of hostile, the last time we had a major at Bethpage, things got heated with some scenes that went beyond typical New York sports passion. Same with several past American-hosted Ryder Cups. You’re going to be responsible for your players’ experience in what could be an incredibly intense environment. KB: We urge the fans to cheer for our guys. We don’t want them to cross the line. Ultimately, we as the players and the captains, we can’t control a fan that’s in the crowd. We certainly don’t want the fans to af- fect the play of a player by yelling in their backswing or doing something inappropriate. We would never want that. Having said that, it’s going be a very dif- ficult place to play, just like Rome was for the Ameri- cans. That’s what you want as a home team. That’s why you go to a place like Bethpage, where the fans are part of the course’s DNA. The Europeans know that. We know that as Americans, they’re going be tough on us as well. We need to perform and win for them, and that is the focus. GD: As a Northeast guy, a Johnnie, being captain at Bethpage must seem too good to be true? KB: I didn’t get any scholarship offers other than from St John’s University. When I went there, I didn’t know what to expect. I had never really been to New York City, other than in and out as a kid. In college we got to play Bethpage Black every Monday. At that point in my life, I had never played or even seen a major championship course, and when I got to Beth- page, it was exactly the way I thought a major cham- pionship course would look and feel. Tiger had just won the US Open there. This might sound simple, but at that time I was so extremely grateful to just be in the position. Forget aspirations of being a pro, of be- ing a great college player. I just felt like I belonged to something bigger than myself. To get brought back into this Ryder Cup dream that I thought was gone – at Bethpage? C’mon. That’s why I’m bringing it all. I
The best pressure players won’t vary from their routines for even a second. Scottie Scheffler is a great example. What helps me commit and go is I’m never in doubt about the yardage. From practice with a launch monitor, I know how to hit any number based on my system of four swings. While it might not look that different to your eye, my feel for my shortest backswing and through-swing is “chest-to-chest.” For a slightly longer swing that produces a little more distance, the hands rise higher and go “ear-to-ear.” Then I have a 95-percent swing (I nail its numbers most consistently) and, finally, a full-power swing. When I won at Hartford this year, on the final approach I wanted to fly the ball 146 yards. That’s my ear-to-ear 9-iron. Easy.
56 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2025
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