How Are Ryder Cup Teams Picked?

On Aug 28, 2023

Viktor Hovland put the finishing touches on his Tour Championship and golf now enters its offseason. But fear not, one of the sport’s best weekends will be here before you know it as it is a Ryder Cup fall. Rome will play host and the Europeans will look to avenge the 19-9 thumping Uncle Sam gave them back in 2021.

Making one of these teams and representing your country — or countries — is a great honor usually reserved for the players who are in the best form. But putting together a Ryder Cup squad is a bit more complicated then looking at the box scores.

Each Ryder Cup team has 12 spots, with six going to automatic qualifiers based on who has the most points (as determined below) and the remaining chosen by the team captains. Luke Donald is piloting Europe for this go-around and Zach Johnson has those duties for the United States.

Points for the USA are accrued in the following manner:

• 1 point per $1,000 earned at standard PGA TOUR events beginning Jan. 1, including the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and WGC events, through the BMW Championship

• 2 points per $1,000 earned for winner of the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open

• 1.5 points per $1,000 earned for all others that make the cut at the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open

• No points available at PGA TOUR Additional events

Automatically qualifying for the United States are: Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, and Xander Schauffele.

Points for the Europeans are a bit more complicated but they take three from the World Point List and 3 from the European Point List.

Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland are locked in — and late-breaking news has Tyrrell Hatton also making the cut. The final two shoo-ins will be revealed soon.

After that the remaining positions are straight-up captain’s picks, meaning it’s a mix of strategy and loyalty and other undefinable factors that can lead to surprises. We should be getting complete announcements soon so the trash-talking can begin.