LALI STANDER: More questions than answers ahead of the Ryder Cup

With less than a week to go before the announcement of the European team for 2023’s eagerly awaited Ryder Cup in Italy, it seems we have more questions than answers. 

Usually by this stage of a Ryder Cup season, you’d have a pretty good idea about who the captains will select. Of course, there are always a handful of players jockeying for position or subtly trying to get the attention of their skippers, but you’d still have more than an inkling of which golfers could fill the last few spots. 

But this is no ordinary Ryder Cup. And these are not ordinary times for golfers.

For starters, US captain Zach Johnson and European skipper Luke Donald both get a ridiculous six wild card picks each for the Rome-based tournament. 

It’s a pretty obvious ploy to ensure the world’s top-ranked golfers will tee it up in the 44th Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Guidonia Montecelio. And that just sucks for the ones who have had two great years on their home tour without really setting the world alight. 

Johnson’s six automatic spots went the way of World No 1 Scottie Scheffler, reigning Olympic champion Xander Schauffele, World No 4 Patrick Cantlay and three rookies in Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark — both Major winners in 2023 — and Max Homa, who played his way into the top six after strong appearances at both the St Jude Championship and the BMW Championship. 

The giant cash-filled elephant in the room was whether Johnson or Donald will select players from the LIV Golf Tour as their captains’ picks. After all, it’s just a few weeks ago that some kind of merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf was hastily announced. The details are still thin, and nobody seems to really know what it entails, but it did open the door for LIV golfers to play the Ryder Cup and Johnson walked right through it. 

On Tuesday night, the US captain set the precedent in what are still murky waters when he named PGA champion Brooks Koepka as one of his six wild card picks. 

However, the four-time Major winner will be the lone LIV rebel in the 12-man side, with Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Sam Burns filling the last five spots.

In fairness, one does have to consider that Johnson’s decision was influenced by the fact that he already had three rookies among his automatic qualifiers and that none of the six has participated in a Ryder Cup on European soil. 

But now the burning question is how will Donald respond? Will Johnson’s move give him licence to go the same route? 

Donald must be mightily tempted. 

Europe are bidding to wrestle the trophy back from the US, fielding its youngest team in Ryder Cup history, after losing in a record 19-9 thrashing at Whistling Straits in 2021. And let’s not forget that the Americans haven’t won on European soil since 1993. Or before Scottie was born.

But let’s face it, none of their former Ryder Cup heroes that defected to LIV are playing particularly decent golf at the moment anyway. I don’t believe any amount of Ryder Cup nostalgia will bring the likes of Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson back to their inspirational form of yesteryear. 

Donald, who took over the reins after Henrik Stenson defected to LIV Golf, has Major champions Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm locked in via the European Points list, with Viktor Hovland and the feisty Tyrrel Hatton qualifying via the World Points List. And with McIlroy stating publicly last week that he doesn’t think it would make a difference that the LIV players are not playing for Team Europe, better to shut that door. 

The last two automatic qualifying spots will come down to the Swiss showdown this weekend.

Two-time Ryder Cup player Matt Fitzpatrick has a chance to dislodge Tommy Fleetwood for the final spot on the World Points List, but Fleetwood would be a shoe-in for the wild cards, anyway. Scottish lefty Robert MacIntyre is likely to claim the final spot if he can stay ahead of Germany’s Yannic Paul, who is just 126.09 points adrift on the European Points List. 

The Europeans are definitely top heavy, but beyond the top six it starts to get a bit tricky. With the greatest respect to McIntyre, Paul, Adrian Meronk and Victor Perez, they are hardly going to give the US team any sleepless nights despite being consistently good on the European Tour. 

And while rookies tend to give the teams a good boost of energy, too many of them and you could be asking for trouble. So, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see the likes of Justin Rose or Shane Lowry getting a wild card pick with Sepp Straka, who has been in great form on the PGA Tour. That could leave Paul and Meronk to try to keep the Europeans’ fine record at home intact.

Off course, the women will play the Solheim Cup in Spain in the week before the Ryder Cup from September 29 to October 1. I can assure you this will be no curtain raiser for the main event. Many devoted golf fans I spoke with two years ago said they enjoyed the women’s event far more than the men’s, partly because of how much closer it was, but mainly how much more relatable it was. After all, most women can’t fire a 320m drive like the men, but they can all dare to dream to like the ladies. Wink-wink.