AI-assisted summary
• Ryder Cup captains use practice round groupings to test potential pairings for the competition.
• The U.S. and European teams held practice sessions at Bethpage Black ahead of the 2025 Ryder Cup.
• Speculation suggests Europe may stick with successful 2023 pairings, while the U.S. will feature new combinations.

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Four names beneath a tee time for a practice round can seem trivial. At a Ryder Cup, it’s telling. 

Captains of both the U.S. and Europe sides assigned these foursomes for a reason – likely because the pairs in the group will be playing partners at some point during the first two days of Ryder Cup competition, which features foursomes (alternate shot) and fourball (best ball) matches on Friday and Saturday. 

Here’s a look at how the practice pairings over the first two warm-up sessions have panned out. With the weather looking questionable Thursday, practice time at Bethpage Black could be over. 

2025 Ryder Cup practice round groupings

Europe Group 1 (Tuesday): Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose

Europe Group 2 (Tuesday): Rasmus Højgaard, Viktor Hovland, Robert MacIntyre, Sepp Straka

Europe Group 3 (Tuesday): Ludvig Åberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, Jon Rahm

Europe Group 1 (Wednesday): Hatton, Lowry, Rahm, Straka

Europe Group 2 (Wednesday): Fitzpatrick, Hovland, MacIntyre, McIlroy

Europe Group 3 (Wednesday): Åberg, Højgaard, Fleetwood, Rose

U.S. Group 1 (Tuesday): Harris English, Russell Henley, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler

U.S. Group 2 (Tuesday): Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Ben Griffin

U.S. Group 3 (Tuesday): Sam Burns, JJ Spaun, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele

U.S. Group 1 (Wednesday): DeChambeau, Thomas, Griffin, Young

U.S. Group 2 (Wednesday): English, Henley, Scheffler, Spaun

U.S. Group 3 (Wednesday): Burns, Cantlay, Morikawa, Schauffele

Predicting 2025 Ryder Cup Friday foursomes (alternate shot)

Earlier this week, U.S. captain Keegan Bradley said his matchups and pairings have been ’90 percent’ decided. Europe captain Luke Donald has 11 of 12 players returning (Højgaard replacing his twin brother, Nicolai). This isn’t rocket science, but until the matchups are formally announced Thursday evening, speculation is as close as we can get. 

Europe swept the foursome session to start the 2023 Ryder Cup so let’s assume Donald doesn’t change much:

• Rahm/Hatton
• Fleetwood/McIlroy
• Åberg/Hovland
• Straka/Lowry

The Americans will definitely have a different look, however, since Thomas’ buddy Jordan Spieth isn’t on this team.

• Scheffler/Henley
• Schauffele/Cantlay 
• Thomas/Griffin
• DeChambeau/Spaun 

How the best ball pairings shake out could depend on the morning, with Scheffler and DeChambeau likely doubling up for the Americans and McIlroy and Rahm doing the same for Europe. 

The Ryder Cup isn’t just a showcase for the best golfers from the United States and Europe. The lead-up to the sport’s most prestigious international team event also puts a spotlight on their wives and girlfriends.

Yes, the WAGs of professional golf are part the 45th edition of the Ryder Cup and they were out in full force on Tuesday, Sept. 23 for the traditional Ryder Cup welcome dinner before the first tee shots of 2025 are hit starting Friday morning. This year’s gala feast was held at Hempstead House, a 50,000 square foot, Tudor-style mansion in New York near Bethpage Black Golf Course, and the annual photos featuring the Ryder Cup golfers and their significant others have once again turned into popular talking points.

The U.S. team wore black Ralph Lauren suits without ties and the Europe team wore Loro Piana black suits and ties with grey-and-white striped dress shirts and black leather loafers. Their wives and girlfriends, however, stood out wearing designer gowns and dresses in an array of colors and styles.

So who are these women? And are there any single golfers playing at this year’s Ryder Cup? Here’s a breakdown of what to know about the wives and girlfriends for every golfer participating in the 2025 Ryder Cup:

Ryder Cup WAGS 2025: Wives and girlfriends for every golfer

United States

Bryson DeChambeau

The 32-year-old might be one of the few single golfers at this year’s Ryder Cup. He has long been rumored to be dating Lilia Schneider, a golf internet personality and college golfer at Marian University in Indianapolis last year. But neither DeChambeau nor Schneider have confirmed the relationship to this point and DeChambeau attended Tuesday’s Ryder Cup gala stag.

Xander Schauffele

The two-time major winner will play his first professional event as a father at the 2025 Ryder Cup. Schauffele and his wife, Maya, recently became parents to their first son, Victor. It’s why Schauffele elected not to play in the Procore Championship along with the rest of the U.S. Ryder Cup team earlier this month. Schauffele noted after he won the 2024 PGA Championship that his wife ‘has the most inside track to my emotions on a day-to-day basis.’

“It’s been awesome. I feel very lucky to have my wife. She’s at home with him right now. I miss him a bunch,” Schauffele said earlier this week. “It’s been cool to sort of learn what it’s like to be a dad, and I look forward to everything that comes with that.”

Scottie Scheffler

Justin Thomas

Thomas and his wife, Jillian Wiesniewski, are both from Kentucky and had their first child in November 2024. Jordan Spieth was the best man at their wedding two years earlier. Thomas revealed after he won the 2017 PGA Championship that he had Wiesniewski, then his girlfriend, changed her flight to later on Sunday because he had a feeling he was going to win his first major.

Russell Henley

One of the U.S. team’s Ryder Cup rookies is married to artist Teil Duncan. ‘She puts steel in my spine,’ Henley told reporters after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March 2025. “She’s tough on me when she needs to be and just super supportive.’

Sam Burns

The 29-year-old and his wife, Caroline, are from the same town (Shreveport, Louisiana). She once revealed to WJCL News in Savannah, Georgia, that she was Burns’ first Valentine as a 5-year-old. The two went to different high schools and didn’t start dating until each attended LSU. Burns said he proposed on the way to dinner one night while he was playing in the 2019 RBC Heritage. The couple welcomed their first child, a son named Bear, in 2024.

Patrick Cantlay

After being in the middle of a lot of drama at the 2023 Ryder Cup, Cantlay married his wife, Nikki Guidish, in Rome the day after the event ended. Justin Thomas and LPGA star Nelly Korda were among those in attendance.

Collin Morikawa

Morikawa and his wife, Katherine, met while he was playing college golf for California and she was playing golf at Pepperdine. She ran in the 2024 NYC Marathon after being inspired to start running while reading the book, ‘Can’t Hurt Me,’ by runner and author David Goggins, according to the New York Post. The couple got married in November 2022.

J.J. Spaun

Spaun won the 2025 U.S. Open on Father’s Day with his wife, Melody, and their children there to celebrate. They’ve been married since 2019, but their first encounter after meeting through mutual friends didn’t go so smoothly.

‘I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m a pro golfer.’ Because I thought I was cool,’ Spaun recounted in 2023. ‘But she’s like, ‘I don’t even know. What does that mean? Like, does that mean you’re like rich or something?’ I was like, ‘No.’ And she’s like, ‘I don’t really care.’ And I was like, ‘All right.’

‘And we went like mini golfing or something and she’s like, ‘This is lame.”

Harris English

The 36-year-old making his second-consecutive Ryder Cup appearance married his wife, Helen Marie, in 2017. They both attended the University of Georgia. When English won the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in January, he savored the moment celebrating on the 18th green with his wife and 1-year-old, Emilia, when he won the tournament.

“I’ve been seeing over the years of people’s families coming out on 18 green and their children coming out to see them win,’ English said. ‘I’m so happy that she was there to see it. I have no idea if I’m going to win again or when I’m going to win again, but we’ll have those pictures for a lifetime.”

Ben Griffin

This 29-year-old Ryder Cup rookie got engaged to Dana Myeroff in July 2024 and they’re slated to get married in December, according to an Instagram post by Myeroff.

Cameron Young

The captain’s pick and Ryder Cup rookie is married to Kelsey Dalition. Their families knew one another growing up outside New York. Young told Golfweek in 2021 he played hockey for Dalition’s father and with her brother.

“They’re not a golf family at all so Kelsey is kind of still learning the ropes,’ Young said. ‘It’s actually great for me, because the last thing I want to do when I get home is answer questions like, ‘Why’d you pull a 9-iron on 16?’ That would make my head explode, so that’s been a blessing.”

Europe Ryder Cup WAGs

Rory McIlroy

The 2025 Masters champion has been married to his wife, Erica Stoll, since 2017. They met while Stoll was working for the PGA of America at the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah. ‘Erica that week was always the one that was checking us in and out. She was there at transportation, so she was always in the car park over there,’ McIlroy told Golf Channel in 2019. McIlroy filed for divorce in May 2024, but the couple eventually reconciled. They have a daughter, Poppy.

Jon Rahm

The 30-year-old Spanish LIV Golf star is married to Kelley Cahill Rahm, a former Arizona State track and field athlete. Rahm played college golf for the Sun Devils. The couple have three kids together. Kelley told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2018 that she and Rahm met at a Halloween party as Arizona State freshmen. Rahm wore a SWAT team uniform, and she was dressed as a referee.

Matt Fitzpatrick

The 2022 U.S. Open champion will compete in his fourth Ryder Cup appearance for Europe, but his first as a married man. He and his wife, Katherine, got engaged in September 2023 after the Ryder Cup in Italy. Katherine was the runner-up in the 2014 Miss New Jersey pageant and revealed on Instagram earlier this year that she writes messages like ‘MF is cute’ and ‘I love you’ in bright red marker on his golf balls.

Tyrrell Hatton

The English LIV Golf star had several near-misses at majors this year, but nothing like his 2021 wedding day with wife, Emily Braisher. Hatton revealed that the driver got lost and the couple showed up 30 minutes late for their COVID-19 impacted ceremony in Asheville, North Carolina. Braisher, who previously wrote the ‘Wife on Tour’ blog, also famously interrupted Hatton in the middle of his backswing when she closed a port-o-potty door too loudly at a DP World Tour event in Italy.

Justin Rose

The 45-year-old PGA Tour veteran is the oldest golfer representing Europe this year, and he also appears to have the longest marriage. Rose and his wife, Kate Phillips, have been married since 2006. She notably was shown embracing Rory McIlory after he won the 2025 Masters while paired with her husband for the final round. The couple met when Kate worked at IMG while it was representing Rose at the time. She also served as caddie for Rose at the Indonesian Masters on their wedding anniversary in 2017. They founded the Kate and Justin Rose Foundation in 2009 that helps children living in poverty in Central Florida.

Sepp Straka

The 32-year-old Austrian met his wife, Paige, while he was a golfer at the University of Georgia and Paige was a student at Auburn. Straka missed the BMW PGA Championship in England that the rest of Europe’s Ryder Cup team played in earlier this month because he and his wife recently had their second child prematurely, according to Europe team captain Luke Donald. Straka didn’t want to be too far from home and his wife is not in New York this week.

Tommy Fleetwood

The 34-year-old Englishman who finally broke through and won his first PGA Tour event to close out the 2025 FedEx Cup playoffs is married to Clare Craig. She also serves as his manager. There is a 23-year age gap between the two and Craig initially turned down Fleetwood’s initial attempts to start a romantic relationship because of that dynamic. Craig is 57 years old.

Ludvig Åberg

This rising PGA Tour star brought his girlfriend, OIivia Peet, to this year’s Ryder Cup festivities. Peet is a Manchester, England native who played college tennis at Texas Tech. Åberg, 25, played college golf at Texas Tech.

Shane Lowry

The 38-year-old Irish golfer married his wife, Wendy, in 2016. She is a former hospital nurse in Dublin. The couple met in 2012 and Wendy Lowry once shared a photo of their first night out together.

“There were plenty of times I have been crying myself to sleep or wondering am I able to keep going but when you have a good strong woman behind you it makes it easier,” Shane Lowry told the Irish Independent in 2019. “I owe a lot to her.”

Viktor Hovland

The 28-year-old appears to be the lone single member of Europe’s team.

Robert MacIntyre

The 29-year-old lefty burst onto the international scene with his performance two years ago at the Ryder Cup and he had girlfriend, Shannon Hartley, with him at this year’s Ryder Cup gala. Hartley came with MacIntyre to the United States the past two years when he became a PGA Tour regular following his successful Ryder Cup debut.

Rasmus Højgaard

The 24-year-old Ryder Cup rookie was accompanied by his girlfriend, Julie Sander Danielsen, at the Ryder Cup gala. Højgaard makes frequent appearances on Danielsen’s Instagram page.

A team of Afghan refugees will participate in its first international soccer tournament, which will be a round-robin event for four women’s national teams in the United Arab Emirates, FIFA announced Wednesday.

Dubbed ‘FIFA Unites: Women’s Series,’ the tournament will also feature national teams from Chad, Libya, and the UAE. The tournament will be held in Dubai Oct. 23-29, with all matches set to stream on FIFA+.

‘Ensuring that all women have access to football is a priority for FIFA and a key element in shaping the future of our sport,’ FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement announcing the event.

Using the training grounds that typically host the English women’s and men’s national teams, FIFA last week hosted a talent identification camp for the Afghan refugee team, with roughly 70 players participating. Head coach Pauline Hamill and her coaching staff plan on narrowing that group down to a final 23-player squad to take part in October’s games.

The Afghan national team began play in 2007, but the Taliban-led government banned women from playing sports in August 2021. With significant worries that the ban would extend to punishment for players who had participated, the Australian government led an effort to evacuate 75 women athletes from Afghanistan.

The refugee team, which FIFA plans to recognize as representing Afghanistan, would be making its debut on the international stage. Many resettled players have teamed up to play in Australian lower-league soccer as the Melbourne Victory FC Afghan Women’s Team.

The last officially-recognized game for an Afghan women’s national soccer team was Dec. 1, 2018, a 5-0 loss to Tajikistan at the Central Asian Football Association Women’s Championship. FIFA statutes expressly bar governments from interfering in the affairs of their country’s recognized soccer federation. However, despite the actions of the Afghan government banning a women’s national team from play, the Afghanistan Football Federation has never faced sanctions from FIFA.

The UAE national team, which played its first international match in 2010, is currently ranked 117th out of 196 teams that meet the threshold for evaluation. The team’s coach, Vera Pauw, was accused of abusive conduct during her tenure leading the NWSL’s Houston Dash, and is currently barred from any role in the league. Pauw has denied the allegations against her.

The Chadian and Libyan teams are not currently ranked by FIFA due to inactivity. A report from UAE state-owned newspaper The National notes Libya last played a FIFA-sanctioned game in 2019. By participating in the ‘FIFA Unites: Women’s Series,’ both will qualify for a place in the next FIFA rankings, which will be released in December.

Ichiro Suzuki is 51 years old now, dark hair liberally sprinkled with gray, a Hall of Famer tagged with the stuffy title of ‘special assistant to the chairman’ on the Seattle Mariners masthead.

And he’s also the physical embodiment of just how long the Mariners have gone between American League West division titles.

Suzuki was just a rookie in 2001 when he kick-started the Mariners to a 116-win season, the AL West title and a Most Valuable Player award to go along with his top rookie honor, seemingly ushering in an era of prosperity.

The game can be cruel, however, and the wait sometimes interminable to repeat such success. Which is why the city of Seattle and the Mariners themselves could finally exhale on Wednesday, Sept. 24, when they defeated the Colorado Rockies 9-2 to seal their first AL West title in 24 years.

The Mariners completed a startling rise from consistent yet benign threat to, perhaps, the team to beat in the AL playoffs with a resounding finishing kick, winning 16 of their last 17 games to blast past the Houston Astros and end their streak of seven consecutive full-season division titles.

And from start to finish, the Big Dumper was their bell cow.

Cal Raleigh’s otherworldly season continued in the clincher, as he hit his 59th and 60th home runs in the rout of the Rockies, sending the crowd at T-Mobile Park into delirium with a first-inning, upper deck shot and an eighth-inning blast for No. 60.

Raleigh is no Ichiro – not bound for 3,000 hits nor blessed with otherworldly athletic ability. But Raleigh has driven the Mariners this far behind his impeccable handling of the Mariners’ excellent pitching staff and the 60 home runs he has crushed – most ever for a primary catcher or switch-hitter in major league history.

The resurgence of Julio Rodriguez – he now has 32 homers and 28 stolen bases – and continued offensive emergence of shortstop J.P. Crawford has galvanized a Mariners lineup that has been reluctant to add to an offensively flaccid group the previous two seasons.

This year, president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto finally went big at the trade deadline, importing corner infielders Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor. While Suarez has struggled, Naylor has shined, accruing an .820 OPS and 2.1 WAR in less than two months while lengthening Seattle’s lineup.

And now, the Mariners (89-69) find themselves in an enviable spot: Closing in on the AL’s second-best record and a first-round bye in the playoffs. They clinched the division flag by wiping out the Rockies, as Raleigh hit home runs No. 59 and No. 60, and Rodriguez his 32nd, an appropriate flourish to capture the AL West title.

The Mariners’ lone playoff appearance the past quarter-century came in 2022, when they won a wild-card series at Toronto before those Astros swept them out of the AL Division Series.

Now, they should be able to cool their heels and begin their playoff quest at home against a wild-card survivor.

In the middle of a pennant race, and in the middle of a game-changing inning Tuesday, the Cleveland Guardians endured a horrific injury against the Detroit Tigers.

During the sixth inning, with runners at first and second and no one out, Guardians designated hitter David Fry squared to bunt on a 2-2 pitch from Tigers starter Tarik Skubal. The ball missed Fry’s bat entirely and struck him in the face. Fry immediately held his face and went to the ground.

A deafening silence fell over the crowd, which had just waken up when the Guardians scored their first run of the game one batter earlier. Seemingly distraught, Skubal threw his glove, turned away and tossed his hat. Jose Ramirez, Fry’s teammate who was on first base, put his hands on his head in obvious concern.

Fry was eventually able to stand on his own, but he was carted off the field to a rousing ovaction from the Cleveland crowd. Skubal, along with the entire Tigers infield, clapped, and Fry acknowledge his teammates in the third-base dugout with a wave.

The Guardians went on to score two more runs off Skubal and win the series opener 5-2.

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said after the game that Fry took the pitch ‘straight to the face,’ but that he never lost consciousness.’ Vogt said Fry will have some testing done and there would be an update on his condition Wednesday.