The 2025 Ryder Cup was not one that the US golf team will want to remember, even if they fought back very well in the singles to lend the final score a veneer of respectability. They won the singles 8.5 to 3.5, although with a massive nine matches being settled on the 18th, the score could easily have been rather different.
In the end, Europe claimed an impressive and rare away victory by 15 points to 13 to retain the cup. Tommy Fleetwood spearheaded that effort and was the top points scorer from either side. Few Americans had a competition to remember but over the years the USA have had some incredible performers in the Ryder Cup.
If we look only at the competition since 1979, when it became Europe versus America, the majority of the top points scorers are Europeans. Indeed, seven European golfers have scored more than the 21.5 total that Phil Mickelson has managed, Lefty being the best US performer since 1979. But if we look at the Ryder Cup’s whole history, we see a couple of Americans above Mickelson. Note that the format of the Ryder Cup has changed several times, and in some years players contested up to six matches.
Top 5 US Points Scorers at Ryder Cup
| Player | Points | Appearances | Matches | Points Won % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billy Casper | 23.5 | 8 | 37 | 64 |
| Arnold Palmer | 23 | 6 | 32 | 72 |
| Phil Mickelson | 21.5 | 12 | 47 | 48 |
| Lanny Wadkins | 21.5 | 8 | 34 | 63 |
| Lee Trevino | 20 | 6 | 30 | 67 |
To give some perspective to those totals, Sergio Garcia is the leading Ryder Cup points scorer ever. The Spaniard has 28.5 points (45 matches over 10 Ryder Cups), but Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer and Lee Westwood all have 24 or more points, while Colin Montgomerie can match Casper’s tally. Rory McIlroy currently boasts 21.5 points from 38 matches and should have at least a couple more Ryder Cups in him and may even hope to surpass Sergio.
Billy Casper
While Europeans lead the way when it comes to Ryder Cup points, among the US players, it is the relatively unknown Billy Casper who tops the pile. We say relatively unknown, but that is only compared to the very best of the best, and also in terms of players that most fans under the age of 60 – and on this side of the Atlantic – would recognise.
William Earl Casper Jr, to give him his full name, won a massive 51 PGA Tour titles. That leaves him seventh on the all-time list, with more than Rory and Scottie Scheffler combined! Casper also won three majors and has top-four finishes at the two majors he didn’t claim. So perhaps “relatively unknown” is a misleading description for a player who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1978.
Casper had the fortune to play at a time when the US dominated the Ryder Cup, before the addition of Europe in 1979. He played in eight winning teams in a row from 1961 to 1975 and then came back as a non-playing captain to guide the US to victory over Europe in 1979. A true Ryder Cup legend, and his points-winning rate of 64%, thanks to 20 wins, 10 defeats and seven halves, puts him up there with the best of the best.
Arnold Palmer
Number two for the Americans is a man who all golf fans will have heard of. Palmer is a legend, an icon and one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Born in 1929, The King died in 2016, and alongside Jack Nicklaus and South African Gary Player, he changed how the sport was perceived in the 1960s.
Palmer won seven majors, only missing out on the US PGA Championship, a tournament in which he finished second three times. 62 PGA Tour wins put him fifth in terms of career wins and he won the PGA money list four times, too.
Palmer was a stalwart of the US team for much of the same period as Casper. In 1963, he was a playing captain, the last man to take on that role, while in 1975, he was a non-playing captain. He won all seven Ryder Cups he was involved with.
Phil Mickelson
Lefty has easily the worst record in terms of the percentage of contested points that he won, largely a reflection that he played solely in the Europe versus USA era. However, no other golfer can match the 12 Ryder Cups Mickelson appeared in, while his tally of 47 matches is a record held jointly alongside Lee Westwood.
He came into many Ryder Cups as the second-best player in the world but his relationship with the man above him, Tiger Woods, was generally fractious. The ill will between the two was often clear and did little to engender wider team spirit. Neither performed as they would have wished at the Ryder Cup, though Mickelson’s longevity has to be admired.
Lanny Wadkins
Wadkins is probably the least renowned player among America’s top five Ryder Cup points getters. The Texan won his only major at the 1977 US PGA but did record 21 PGA Tour victories, which is a healthy haul. Among those was the 1979 Players, so he had a fine career but not quite up there with the other men on this list.
However, he was involved in nine Ryder Cups, last of all as the losing captain in 1995, having been involved as a player in eight of the nine preceding editions of the event, including 1977 in the pre-European era. He won five times as a player, but lost in 1985, 1987 and then was part of the US team that tied in 1989.
Lee Trevino
Lee Trevino was born in 1939 and is still going strong at the time of writing. He has six majors to his name, winning the US Open, US PGA and Open Championship two times each. Augusta didn’t suit his game, so the theory goes, and he never really even challenged at the Masters, with a best finish of tied 10th.
The diminutive Texan, of Mexican heritage, was a popular player and was at his very best in the early 1970s, winning two majors in 1971 and another in 1972. He was the Ryder Cup skipper when America lost at the Belfry in 1985, but was on the winning side in 1971, 1973, 1975, 1979 and 1981. His Ryder Cup debut, however, came in 1969, and was a rare tie, Jack Nicklaus famously conceding a putt to Tony Jacklin that ensured the spoils were shared.
What of Nicklaus… and Woods?
Talking of Nicklaus, many will be surprised that he doesn’t feature on this list. With 17.5 points, the Golden Bear is seventh on the US leaderboard. He played in six Ryder Cups, winning 16 of his 27 matches.
His rival for the title of golfing GOAT, Tiger Woods, is ninth overall. He earned 14.5 points from a massive 37 matches. He lost 21 times and won just 39% of the points he contested.