can read that here<\/a>. For now, I\u2019m just projecting what I think will happen, and this is no longer a situation where Bradley is on the bubble for the final spot. I\u2019d argue he\u2019s been the sixth- or seventh-best U.S. player in 2025. He won with incredible clutch play at the Travelers in June. He hasn\u2019t finished worse than 41st at any tournament since April. And you cannot deny the passion he brings and the way crowds respond to him. The only reason to leave Bradley off is purely because you believe his captaincy is that important. If that\u2019s how you feel, it is completely understandable. But if you are picking the 12 best, it\u2019s not even a debate.<\/p>\nBen Griffin: The missed cut at the Open is a disappointment, and if he has a terrible August, this can be revisited. But Griffin\u2019s play has not merely been a nice heater over the summer (although what a heater it was). He\u2019s been in contention in tournaments every single month of the season, going back to January. And again, sometimes the vibe test adds something. Griffin at Bethpage? Immaculate vibes.<\/p>\n
Patrick Cantlay: What are we doing here? Suddenly, there\u2019s a strong conversation that Cantlay shouldn\u2019t be a lock. People, he\u2019s a lock. After decades of hearing Americans bemoan the Europeans having all these form-agnostic killers like Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood who win no matter what, now the U.S. has the best cup player of the 2020s and is nitpicking him? My goodness.<\/p>\n
Also, he\u2019s not even having a bad year! A poor major run, absolutely. But if we\u2019re going off overall statistical golf, he\u2019s been the ninth-best American. He\u2019s played in 10 signature events this year and been top 20 in eight of them! If anything, last year was the real down year for Cantlay, and he still was the absolute star of the Presidents Cup. Stop this madness.<\/p>\n
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Jordan Spieth needs a big final month to make the Ryder Cup team. (Kevin C. Cox \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Sam Burns: Woof, this was hard. He\u2019s played overall better golf this year than Jordan Spieth, Maverick McNealy, Andrew Novak or Chris Gotterup. From the RBC Heritage through the Travelers, he essentially earned two strokes on the field every week he went out. He\u2019s been here before, and he\u2019ll be perhaps the best putter in the entire competition.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve said in every projection this year that if Spieth plays perfectly solid golf \u2014 which he has \u2014 then you have to have him on the team. But at the end of the day, too many golfers like Spaun, English and Griffin went out and earned spots.<\/p>\n
Final thoughts<\/p>\n
\u2022 Chris Gotterup making the team would be awesome, and his absurd length off the tee makes him a perfect fit. It\u2019s very encouraging to see the 25-year-old bomber do so well on the biggest stages, like his third-place finish this week at the Open. But it\u2019s just a little too in-the-moment for me. If he tears it up this August? Absolutely. He should be considered. I just don\u2019t want to make a rash decision.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Deep down, the best thing that could happen is Maverick McNealy or Spieth winning a tournament in the next month. McNealy has played such impressive golf all season long. He is more than deserving of playing in a Ryder Cup. He just hasn\u2019t been better than the 12 golfers picked. But I\u2019d love nothing more than for McNealy to win in Memphis or the BMW and grab a spot. The same goes for Spieth.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Don\u2019t rule out Andrew Novak. Captain Bradley went out of his way recently on the 5 Clubs podcast to toss Novak\u2019s name in, saying, \u201cGuys like Andrew Novak have shown throughout the year what a tough competitor he is. I love his mindset and his attitude.\u201d It wouldn\u2019t be a bad pick at all. The only thing holding me back is him slowing down a bunch since his April-May heater.<\/p>\n
When Europe decided to run it back for 2025, enlisting Luke Donald again as captain and watching as he reassembled his vice-captain team, it all felt very intentional. To be the first road team to win a Ryder Cup since 2012, keep as much as you can with what worked and build off of that. It\u2019s a dramatic contract from the U.S. squad, facing their latest existential crisis about leadership and passion.<\/p>\n
So if you\u2019re going to bring back Donald and four of his vice-captains, including analytics wizard Dodo Molinari, why not also bring back the players? So that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing here \u2014 between the six automatic qualifiers and my captain\u2019s picks, 11 of the 12 European teammates in 2023 are returning.<\/p>\n
All 11 brought home at least one full point in Rome, the result of their talent but also of a cohesive approach where veteran Justin Rose was willing to be paired with nervous rookie Robert MacIntyre in fourball and sit the foursomes sessions.<\/p>\n
Automatic qualifiers<\/p>\n
MacIntyre\u2019s career has taken off since then, and he currently sits second in the European points rankings. Rory McIlroy, of course, is on top, and already automatically qualified, though there\u2019s little doubt he waited until that news to book his tickets to New York.<\/p>\n
Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Shane Lowry are Nos. 3-5, and will again be foundational elements of the lineup. Hatton and Fleetwood each played four matches in Rome, and Lowry is a ready-made partner for our sixth automatic pick, Sepp Straka.<\/p>\n
Of all of these men, Straka has the most nervous road to Bethpage. He missed the first three majors cuts of the year and finished T52 at the Open, and will need some positive results in the PGA Tour\u2019s playoffs to not need a captain\u2019s pick.<\/p>\n
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Tommy Fleetwood should again be a foundational player for the Europeans. (Warren Little \/ Getty Images)Captain\u2019s picks<\/p>\n
Jon Rahm has not done well enough outside of LIV to qualify on points but c\u2019mon, how can you not bring the Spaniard? His good is still better than most\u2019s best, and he hits it a mile off the tee. You need that at this course.<\/p>\n
This is where the questions begin, and you have to have at least some doubt about what you\u2019re getting from them during Ryder Cup week.<\/p>\n
Viktor Hovland is going to be on the team, which is not something I would have guaranteed at different points over the last two years. The Norwegian has figured out his game enough to earn the spot, though the boom-or-bust nature of his game the last four months has me worried. Could he win 3 1\/2 points again? Sure. Could he be a disappointment and struggle? Also yes.<\/p>\n
Ludvig \u00c5berg\u2019s PGA Tour season has been a definite sophomore slump, with a regression off the tee and around the greens causing him to be a middle-of-the-pack player. Among just Europeans, he\u2019s 12th in strokes gained overall the last three months, behind several players not on this team.<\/p>\n
So why take him? One, he\u2019s Ludvig \u00c5berg and the long-term view is still him as one of the most exciting young players in golf. But the unique format of the Ryder Cup would allow an enterprising captain to use \u00c5berg in foursomes, setting him up for his still-strong iron play to be a weapon on approaches and the par-3s.<\/p>\n
Rose will be 45 by the end of September and he needs to be a role player at Bethpage. After his playoff loss at the Masters, he regressed badly for several months, until a sixth-place finish at the Scottish Open and T16 at the Open Championship. He\u2019s a good player, but would it be entirely shocking if he has an off week? Not at all.<\/p>\n
The last veteran to make the team is Matt Fitzpatrick. His performance at Royal Portrush, playing in the last group on Saturday and finishing in the top five, was a very loud announcement that the Englishman is back<\/a>. Over the previous three months, he has been sixth in the world in strokes gained, and it\u2019s not weighted toward one particular category. Overall, he\u2019s been very efficient.<\/p>\nAll four of these players have earned their spots, and you\u2019ll take the risk because of the potential. If two or three (or four) all struggle and you lose the cup, that\u2019ll be unfortunate, but you can live with it because you still gave yourself the best chance to win.<\/p>\n
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Matt Fitzpatrick found his game in the nick of time. (Andy Buchanan \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
That leaves just one spot and a handful of contenders.<\/p>\n
Nicolai H\u00f8jgaard is powerful off the tee and trending in a positive direction. Thomas Detry won in Phoenix earlier this year against a good field. If you\u2019re looking strictly at current form, then Harry Hall and Aaron Rai must be on the long list.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also Sergio Garcia. He\u2019s a Ryder Cup legend, no doubt. He caught fire for a month, winning LIV Hong Kong and backing it up with two top fives. But nothing in the last three months has approached that level of play, making him an unnecessary reach and potential liability.<\/p>\n
No, I\u2019m going with Rasmus H\u00f8jgaard. While he\u2019ll be the lone Ryder Cup rookie on this team, he was a part of things in Rome. When twin brother Nicolai made it, Donald invited Rasmus to come and have a role, to be around the team room as much as he desired.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an example of an approach to leadership that builds buy-in and continuity, taking what could be an awkward situation and making it as comfortable as possible.<\/p>\n
Two years later, Rasmus is the brother who\u2019s seventh in the Ryder Cup points standings, with enough positive results that he cannot be ignored. Do we expect him to be a killer? No. But he\u2019ll do his job, and another true driver of the golf ball is the final piece that Europe needs.<\/p>\n
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton \/ The Athletic; Photos: David Cannon, Richard Heathcote \/ Getty Images; Zac Goodwin \/ PA Images via Getty Images; Stuart Franklin \/ R&A via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With major championship season now in the rearview mirror, all road signs now directly point to the last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-16280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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