When, if ever, will he return?

For several years, the popular 19th-hole parlor game — Name that Captain! — was red hot when the subject turned to the captaincy of the U.S. team for this Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. 

For the longest time, Phil was the leader in the clubhouse. Contestants were drawn to the dimpled lefthander’s hard-luck charm, cumulatively earned from four second-place U.S. Open finishes in Greater New York, plus all the fried-garlic and Garden State love that came his way by winning the PGA Championship at Baltusrol. But then Phil went LIV and all bets were off.

So then it had to be Tiger, right? Woods, king of kings, didn’t take the ’23 captaincy in Rome, so surely he’d take the job in ’25 at Bethpage, where he won his second U.S. Open. Right? He certainly didn’t need a trial run as an assistant captain. No way. Not after the masterful job at the 2019 Presidents Cup, a road game at Royal Melbourne. As captain there, he stubbornly (and brilliantly) stuck to his game plan, and even to Patrick Reed, despite a four-point deficit midway through Day 3 (of 4). His on-course performance was even better, playing bump-and-run golf like a jewel thief. The Americans won, and Woods became the final statement on what it means to be a playing captain. Talk about letting the legend grow. 

But when the American team gets introduced at the rescheduled opening ceremonies at Bethpage on Wednesday afternoon, it, of course, won’t be Tiger Woods at the podium, calling out Ben Griffin’s name, plus the 11 other players and the five American assistant captains. It won’t be Phil Mickelson at the mic. It won’t be Zach Johnson, who might have been given a second crack as the captaincy had his team won in Italy two years ago. (Luke Donald captained his way to this year’s European team by winning in Rome.) It will, of course, be Keegan Bradley. Practically nobody playing Name That Captain! saw that coming, and then it happened. Three days into this professionally hyped and managed week, Keegan is its star. The real action begins Friday morn.

So while we’re here, let’s play a quick round of Name That Captain, ’27! In two years, the Ryder Cup will be at Adare Manor in County Limerick in Ireland.

Brandel Chamblee, in a casual aside on Golf Channel, said he expects Tiger to be the U.S. captain in Ireland.

You can see it. Tiger likes Ireland. He likes J.P. McManus, the owner of Adare Manor. He likes the people of Ireland, the fishing there, the libations. He liked the challenge of trying to win abroad at Royal Melbourne.

All will become clearer by Sunday night. If the U.S. wins this week, my guess is that Keegan Bradley will get a second team in Ireland. Even a close-call loss could get him a second nod. For one thing, his name is Keegan Bradley — as names go, that’s pretty Irish. He grew up on the Boston Celtics. As American sports teams go, that’s as Irish as it gets. He has a young team, so there’s no reason to think there will be a sea-change in the American roster in two years. As Johnny Wood, the U.S. team manager, said the other day, “Professional golfers love consistency. They don’t like change.” By Sunday night, we’ll know a lot more about the ’27 captaincy. So the ’29 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine for Tiger? Sparks are not flying.

Woods may never captain a Ryder Cup team. It’s weird to think, isn’t it? And it’s weird to think that Phil Mickelson might never captain a Ryder Cup team. So weird. The two most decorated, celebrated popular American golfers of the past 30 years not following in footsteps left various team rooms by Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson.

By tradition, elite professional golf values its traditions more than its paydays. But when Phil Mickelson went LIV, he turned his back on that tradition, and likely forfeited his place in that Hogan-Arnold-Nicklaus Ryder Cup captain parade. 

But Tiger Woods did, too. Not, of course, by going LIV. Woods has done the opposite. He had double-downed and triple-downed on the PGA Tour. But when he said, regarding this 2025 Ryder Cup team, that he could not make the time commitment the job required, he was surely telling the truth, but not the whole truth. Because he was also saying, by implication, I don’t want to make the time for it. He didn’t say that this former goodwill exhibition for bragging rights had turned into an over-the-top international sporting extravaganza, in which the captain is a P.R. pawn.

If you’re Tiger Woods, there’s no upside to being the Ryder Cup captain. For Keegan Bradley there is. Ditto for Luke Donald. But if you’re the only living player with 82 PGA Tour wins and 15 major titles, winning a Ryder Cup as captain does almost nothing for your let-the-legend-grow legacy. Losing hurts it. You don’t get to hit a shot, and the demands are over-the-top. Woods would never say this, but when you think about it, it’s obvious: It’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Unless Woods has a change of heart.

Playing Name That Captain! has never been more of a crapshoot. Not like this, anyway.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com