Here’s Who Would Make the U.S. Ryder Cup Team If the SI World Golf Rankings Picked the Players
The Ryder Cup is less than two months away, and in just a couple weeks we'll find out who will represent the U.S. and Europe at Marco Simone in Rome, Italy.
As all golf fans know, Ryder Cup team-building isn't completely cut-and-dry. On the U.S. side, a points formula based on two years of tournament earnings (shaded toward the current year and favoring the majors) determined six automatic qualifiers after the BMW Championship, while captain Zach Johnson will pick the remaining six players on the 12-man team on Aug. 29.
Europe's 12-man unit is built via three automatic qualifiers from a European points list and three from a world points list, then captain Luke Donald also gets six picks.
However, none of the points lists for either team completely account for players in LIV Golf. LIV players who perform well in the majors get credit but their play in regular LIV events receives no attention.
What if the Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings were used to select the U.S. team? Our proprietary, data-driven list looks at performances across all pro tours, including LIV Golf. (Here’s how we do our calculations.)
Here's the top 12 of the current U.S. Ryder Cup Team standings alongside the top 12 Americans in the SIWGR:
| U.S. Ryder Cup standings | SI World Golf Rankings |
|---|---|
Scottie Scheffler (1) | |
Wyndham Clark | Brooks Koepka (5) |
Brian Harman | Patrick Cantlay (6) |
Patrick Cantlay | Brian Harman (7) |
Max Homa | Wyndham Clark (8) |
Xander Schauffele (9) | |
Brooks Koepka | Max Homa (11) |
Jordan Spieth | Keegan Bradley (12) |
Cameron Young | Rickie Fowler (14) |
Collin Morikawa | Jordan Spieth (15) |
Keegan Bradley | Lucas Glover (20) |
Sam Burns | Bryson DeChambeau (21) |
By virtue of their play at the BMW, Max Homa moved up to fifth in the standings and Xander Schauffele jumped to sixth, bouncing Brooks Koepka to seventh. Koepka, of course, was idle this week as there wasn't a LIV event.
But what if the SIWGR set that top six? Koepka would be more than secure as the second-highest American in the entire ranking and Homa wouldn't be an automatic pick as the seventh-highest American.
If Johnson were to take the chalk with his captain's picks, simply taking the next six in the official standings, he'd go with Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Cameron Young, Collin Morikawa, Keegan Bradley and Sam Burns.
The SIWGR would go in a different direction, awarding the picks to Homa (so he makes the team after all), Bradley, Rickie Fowler, Spieth, Lucas Glover and Bryson DeChambeau.
Fowler, despite his resurgent summer which includes a win and three other top-10 finishes since late May, is 13th in the U.S. standings. And Glover, winner of two of the last three events on the PGA Tour including a FedEx Cup playoff event, is 16th—one spot behind Justin Thomas, who failed to qualify for the playoffs entirely and missed the cut in three of four majors this year.
According to the SIWGR, Fowler and Glover should be Ryder Cup-bound. And so should Bryson DeChambeau, the 12th-best American, who has a top-5 major finish this year (T4 PGA Championship) and turned in a dominant win earlier this month at the Greenbrier punctuated by a final-round 58.
We'll see what Zach Johnson does on Aug. 29, where it would seem highly unlikely that he would leave both Fowler and Glover off the team. DeChambeau would appear to be a long shot at best.
But it does make for interesting conversation when you look at two years of results versus one, and give LIV Golf events consideration.