The news came as no real surprise, but LIV Golf events won’t count for European Ryder Cup qualification, even though Luke Donald and the Ryder Cup committee have opted to shake up the qualification process.
Perhaps as a result of the leading 10 Race to Dubai ranked players, not already exempt on the PGA Tour, gaining PGA Tour cards and likely to play the majority of their golf in the United States in 2025, the split points list which differentiated between points gained on the DP World Tour and on other worldwide events has been abolished.
And after Mathieu Pavon and Bob MacIntyre graduated via their 2023 Race to Dubai rankings and have since gone on to become PGA Tour winners, who can blame the class of 2024 for going house hunting in Florida when they receive their PGA Tour cards next year.
This, of course, means that the DP World Tour talent pool will be reduced further on the average weeks, and Donald likely feared that he’d be left with six captain’s picks and possibly eight or nine players he’d like to choose were the qualification criteria to remain as it had been for 2023.
A shrewd move, a necessary move, but also an ominous one as the DP World Tour’s second-tier status is highlighted even more.
But second tier is better than no tier at all, and that’s where LIV events will stand. Without any publicised advances in the PGA Tour/PIF negotiations, it was never going to be any other way, but the likes of Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk will have to step up to the plate in the majors or in the limited DP World Tour starts they may be likely to make if they are to avoid needing Captain’s picks.
Ranked second and third on the LIV standings respectively, it’s hard to envisage a scenario that Rahm and Hatton don’t find themselves on the plane to New York, but Meronk, who was unfortunate to be the last man overlooked for Marco Simone, has zero Ryder Cup experience and thus, no proven Cup credentials to draw on, so he’ll have lots of proving to do and little proving ground to do so.
Of course, playing well in the majors means it could all take care of itself, but winning an away Ryder Cup will require Europe having all their big guns locked, loaded, and firing on all cylinders.
The US qualification process has already begun, and courtesy of his U.S. Open victory, Bryson DeChambeau is the only LIV player in the top 10, but team captain Keegan Bradley has yet to announce how many automatic qualifiers he intends to pick. But barring a seismic shift in the negotiation process, Bryson will have to wait until April’s Masters before he can add to his points tally.
Bradley has said that ability and form will be the primary factors when it comes to deciding who his wildcard selections will be, but in the earliest of exchanges, it’s minor advantage to Europe at present.
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