The bookmakers and the pundits all seemed to agree that despite winning the Ryder Cup in 2023 in Italy, Team Europe would be out of their depth in a title defence in New York in the 2025 edition of the tournament. But over the past weekend, those predictions proved to be inaccurate, as after the first two days, Team Europe had a massive lead and basically held the trophy in their hands once more.
It wasn't without the Americans putting up a good fight on the final day however, despite being seven points behind (Team Europe only needed 14 total points to retain the trophy and started Sunday on 12 points...) the Americans kept winning their matches, ultimately seeing the tournament go down to the wire. But Team Europe survived and overcame the pressure, not just retaining the trophy but winning the Ryder Cup too, leading the team of 12 players captained by Luke Donald to be dubbed back-to-back champions.
The question now is whether Team Europe can become back-to-back-to-back champions in 2027, when the Ryder Cup returns to Europe for an event in Ireland. It will be a home field advantage, but will the team be captained by the same man that many are regarding as the best to ever do it?
Donald spoke with Sky Sports where he left the door open to one more term as the team's coach, explaining the following:
"I'm never going to rule it [2027 captaincy] out right now. I need time to process. Like everything I do I go into detail about what the challenge is and what lies ahead.
"A lot of people thought I was crazy going a second time around. Why now? When everything went well in Rome, just walk away as a winner, but now I've obviously won home and away - that's pretty special."
The other question is which players will be selected for the Team Europe squad, and if the captain will bring back the same 12 who started in 2023 and 2025 too. Also, who will be Team America's coach now that Keegan Bradley has lost twice in a row on foreign and domestic territory?