Kevin Na wants to play on this year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team. The announcement of that team’s captain, Steve Stricker, came last February.
Na also wants to play on the 2022 U.S. Ryder Cup team. The announcement of that team’s captain might have come Friday. From Na.
Tiger Woods. Or – as Na realized his slip – Tiger Woods?
“My goal is to make the Ryder Cup team this year at Whistling Straits. I would love to be a part of the team,” Na said on Sky Sports. “And I know the following Ryder Cup is in Italy, and the captain, I believe, is Tiger Woods. So it’s another thing I’m looking forward to.”
Wait, where did Na hear that from? Nothing formal has been announced.
“I heard rumors,” he told Sky Sports while laughing. “OK, let me – am I starting a rumor? Sorry. That’s what I heard. Am I not supposed to say anything? I don’t know. I’ve heard rumors. I won’t tell you who I heard it from, but that’s what I heard.”
Was it Woods himself? Close.
“It wasn’t from him,” he told Sky Sports. “It wasn’t from him. But it was from one of his friends.”
It would be the first time Woods has captained a Ryder Cup team, which the 15-time major winner has played on eight times. It would not be the first time he would be the captain of a team event, as he guided – and played on – the winning U.S. Presidents Cup team last December.
This year’s Ryder Cup is Sept. 25-27 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, though whether it’s played as scheduled, played without fans or played next year has been discussed due to the coronavirus. The PGA Tour has been on hiatus since the middle of March because of the pandemic and will return June 11 at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas.
Na is that tournament’s defending champ. He told Sky Sports that “as a defending champion, I have to be there.”
“But I can say, ‘I don’t feel comfortable; I don’t want to play,’ and I don’t think anyone’s going to say anything against that,” he said. “Are there some concerns that I have? Yes. Obviously getting on a flight is a concern. If I do test positive and I can’t go anywhere for two weeks, I can’t see my family for two weeks, that’s going to be miserable.
“The PGA Tour wants to make this perfect; they want to make sure that nobody gets sick. All it takes is one player, one caddie, one member of staff to get severely sick and they’ve got to pull the plug.”
