The first hints of the 2023 Ryder Cup have begun to emerge as a result of Tuesday’s significant modifications to Europe’s qualifying procedure.
Luke Donald will get SIX captain’s selections for the 2023 Cup, which is TWICE as many options as the previous captain Padraig Harrington had in 2021. In addition to those six selections, the European squad will also have six automatic qualifiers from its well-established European Points and World Points lists.
Steve Stricker made the switch to six captain’s selections for the first time during the 2021 Cup for the USA, and it was generally hailed for contributing to the Americans’ record-breaking 19-9 triumph at Whistling Straits. With the next 2022 Presidents Cup, which Davis Love III will captain, the United States will continue to use the same system.
In a news statement, Donald said that “these adjustments to the qualifying procedure for Staff Europe follow in-depth review with the team at Ryder Cup Europe and with Thomas [Bjorn] and Edoardo [Molinari]. “I’m delighted that when we presented our thoughts to the Tournament Committee, they were 100 percent behind them.”
Given the recent debut of LIV Golf, there is much uncertainty over who will be associated with Europe at the time of the decision. Henrik Stenson was the European captain just a month before, but when he joined the fledgling league, he lost his status with the squad. Just 12 days later, Donald took over, declaring, “Some of my best experiences in golf have been in the Ryder Cup and I would not swap those for anything.”
The ability of LIV golfers to make the squad is a crucial concern that follows. It is reasonable to assume that LIV golfers will not get a captain’s choice from Donald at this time. But are they still eligible based on points? There is no stated condition that prevents them from pursuing that route to the team.
There will be 18 LIV players competing in the BMW Championship, which starts Ryder Cup qualification, the following week. Sergio Garcia, for example, will be far more likely to qualify for the 2023 Ryder Cup if he wins that competition. In 2023, major championships will also give the most points (6,000), followed by the Rolex Series competitions that are part of the DP World Tour. However, World Points (issued through the World Golf Ranking) will not be granted to tournaments conducted during the same week as a Rolex Series event, and European Points will only be given to current DP World Tour players who retain their membership. (In other words, the largest tournaments on the DP World Tour should also be avoided by the LIV Golf program.)
But on paper, it does seem that a high-performing LIV golfer from Europe who is also a DP World Tour player and performs well in major tournaments may have a shot to make the Ryder Cup squad. There is no explicit language prohibiting LIV golfers from qualifying in Team Europe’s press statement. Despite this, there is still tremendous rivalry for such positions since there aren’t as many open positions as there once were.
Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, and Tyrrell Hatton, who each performed very well on the DP World Tour that summer, were the top three players on the European Points list in 2021. Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, and Paul Casey rounded out the top three players on the World Points list. It is exceedingly improbable that a LIV golfer would qualify through the Global Points list since it is constructed using world ranking points and is mostly dominated by PGA Tour tournaments, which LIV players are prohibited from competing in.
To put it more simply, a LIV golfer would have to compete in major championships and DP World Tour tournaments as one of the top three European players to qualify automatically. However, a lot of them are out of time. Due to their lack of participation on a circuit that awards them, their global golf rankings continue to decline over time. For those who have won the Masters event in the past, which includes many LIV golfers, lifelong exemptions are granted. The admission requirements for the PGA Championship, U.S. Open, and British Open, however, are not as advantageous.
In keeping with the previous illustration, could Sergio Garcia outperform many of the top European professionals in the world in particular competitions that award qualification points, scattered throughout a schedule that also features double-digit LIV golf competitions, such as Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick? Although it is improbable, it is conceivable.
Original article posted on Golf.com
Photo Credit: si.com / Golffile
