Notebook: Big Decision Looms Over Ryder Cup Rosters

The Ryder Cup starts the week of September 25th at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, just outside of Rome.

When the hundreds of thousands of fans arrive that week for the 42nd playing of the biennial event, they likely won’t understand just what it takes to stage an event of this nature.

The process has been ongoing behind the scenes for years, but from an Instagram post by the DP World Tour, the process is now visible for all to see as the stands around the first tee are under construction.

With the infrastructure taking shape, questions surrounding the team rosters start to percolate.

European captain Luke Donald holds six captain’s picks for his 12-man team, and as of today he has no idea how big the pool of potential players will be.

Donald, like most players on the DP World Tour, is awaiting a ruling by the Sport Resolutions Appeal Panel following a five-day hearing that concluded Feb. 10.

The ruling, in large part, will decide how far the DP World Tour can go with enforcing its regulations against LIV golfers.

“It will be nice to if we can have a little bit more clarity about what I can and cannot do,” Donald said of the post-arbitration landscape. “I've always said no, I'm still concentrating on the guys that are playing week in week out trying to make points and trying to make that team automatically. I think that's all I'm kind of concentrating on right now.”

The expectation is that the Appeal’s Panel will rule in the next week or so, and while there is a hope this will clear up the landscape of LIV Golf vs. the DP World Tour, that may be just wishful thinking.

“Even if the European Tour do win it, I'm not sure their plan is to ban the players,” Donald said, “I haven't really talked to them in depth what they would do with the DP World Tour, they haven't come out and wanting to ban anyone, they just want to uphold their rules and regulations.”

Does that mean Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter or Henrik Stenson, each a European Ryder Cup stalwart, may have a chance to participate either as a player or vice-captain in Rome?

There’s a lot to work out between now and then, but at least the stands are being built.

World Rankings Drama

The World Rankings are always a discussion point amongst fans and players alike.

The reason is clear: it’s so hard to understand why they work the way they work. It’s a big reason why this week we launched our own list, the SI World Golf Rankings, which uses different data points and tries to be as clear and transparent as possible.

Let’s just look at last week versus this week’s world rankings.

Last weeks, Genesis Invitational on the PGA Tour saw Jon Rahm reclaim the top spot in both the OWGR and in the SIWGR with his victory at Riviera.

The OWGR’s field rating last week at the Genesis was 390.70, far higher than the Thailand Classic’s 92.84 that Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen won to earn just 15.96840.

Clearly the field in Los Angeles was one of the best of the 2023 calendar year, so its high field rating was clearly deserved.

But looking at this week’s events, the Honda Classic has a field Rating of 186.77, with a field that is more like a Korn Ferry event. DP World Tour event, the Hero Indian Open, has a field rating of 54.02 or 13.16 points less than Rahm earned by winning the Genesis.

Rahm’s 67.19 haul last week was well deserved, but should his individual points gained be more than the entire points allotted for the field in India?

Playing Captain Zach?

Zach Johnson hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews.

With 12 PGA Tour wins on his resume, including two major titles (Masters 2007), the Drake University graduate is on the bubble as a hall of famer.

Johnson turns 47 today, and the question isn’t about the Hall, but if Johnson can make his own team.

Sitting on the leaderboard after his morning second round at the Honda Classic, if Johnson could win this weekend, he would have to at least think about being the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963 at Atlanta Athletic Club.

Of course, a lot of positives must happen for Johnson and even then, with the Ryder Cup such a big event, unless you are Tiger Woods, who was a playing captain at the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia, it’s highly unlikely.

But it would be fun to talk about.

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