Ryder Cup - 2025 Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Originally set up as a competition between golfers from the USA and those from Great Britain and Ireland, the competition was broadened in 1979 to allow other Europeans to take part. This made the challenge more competitive. The teams consist of the top six golfers from each region, based on points scored from tournaments, with the remaining six being termed 'captain's picks' as each captain chooses the players he considers best suited to the format and pressure.

Luke Donald was Europe's captain in 2025, his second time in charge of the team having already led Europe to victory in Italy in 2023. Venues normally favour the home team, so Donald was expecting a tough challenge in 2025.

The automatic choices for Europe were McIlroy, MacIntyre, Fleetwood, Rose, Hojgaard and Hatton. Lowry, Straka, Aberg, Hovland and Fitzpatrick were next in line and included by the captain, but Donald also chose Jon Rahm who was as low as 24th on the points list. The team consisted of four Englishmen (Fitzpatrick, Fleetwood, Hatton and Rose), three Scandinavians (Aberg from Sweden, Hojgaard from Denmark and Hovland from Norway) with McIlroy from Northern Ireland and MacIntrye from Scotland also being British. Lowry is from the Republic of Ireland, Straka is Austrian and Rahm is from Spain.

The first day of the match went Europe's way with wins for the duos of Rahm and Hatton, Aberg and Fitzpatrick and McIlroy and Fleetwood in the morning. The afternoon followed a similar pattern as Rahm and Straka and Fleetwood and Rose won, with McIlroy and Lowry halving their match, meaning that Europe led by five and a half points to two and a half.

Saturday proved even worse for the USA as Europe won six of the eight matches played, giving them eleven and a half points to the USA's four and a half. As holders, Europe needed to reach fourteen points to retain the Ryder Cup in a tie, or fourteen and a half to win it again outright. USA put up a tremendous final day fight, with Ludvig Aberg being the only European winner.

Hovland was injured, so couldn't play, meaning his match was automatically treated as a half. The other Europeans to manage to tie their matches were Fitzpatrick, Lowry, Hatton and MacIntyre. The match result was fifteen points to Europe and thirteen to the USA, giving Europe a rare away win in the Ryder Cup.

As for the wrong answers, all of these golfers have represented Europe but not in 2025. Molinari, and Italian, was there as one of Europe's vice captains. Poulter and Westwood are English while Stenson is Swedish. Paul McGinley, from Ireland, was on had during the event to offer advice to the European team and also worked as a commentator during the television coverage.