Rules are rules according to Irish pair Pádraig Harrington and Shane Lowry whose good catholic school upbringing clearly still resonates with them as they discussed whether exceptions should be made to the European Ryder Cup qualifying criteria for LIV golfer Jon Rahm.
The Ryder Cup in Bethpage Black isn’t until next September but the make up of Luke Donald’s European team hinges on what happens over the next few months.
Rahm has played in just one sanctioned DP World Tour event (Olympics) this season and needs to play in three of the next five in order to fulfil his minimum quota of four to be eligible to obtain membership for the 2025 season. One of these events includes the Spanish Open in two weeks time which he has yet to confirm his attendance.
Billboards advertising the event in Madrid have been filled by Shane Lowry as the headline act in the potential absence of the two-time major winning Spaniard ahead of Thursday’s entry deadline.
Should Rahm not complete his minimum of four DP World Tour events it will put captain Donald and Europe in an incredibly difficult decision. A European team without Rahm and even Tyrrell Hatton will hardly be popping champagne in New York next year?
For Lowry and Harrington, the DP World Tour must remain strong and maybe bring out the old wooden ruler for Rambo.
“Do I want Jon Rahm on the Ryder Cup Team? Yes. You know, should he be allowed break the rules and make the Ryder Cup Team? Should there be exceptions made? I’m not sure. That’s not for me to decide,” said Lowry.
Harrington who was the last European Ryder Cup captain who did not have to deal with picking or not picking LIV players on his team in 2021 admitted that he is a “stickler for the rules” and highlighted a potential conflict if the player who finishes 12th in the qualification standings is overlooked for a LIV player who did not follow the qualifying rules.
Harrington related back to his days of playing on both the European and PGA Tour and he stressed the importance of the Ryder Cup to the DP World Tour as its only real bargaining chip to get US based Europeans to play on the continent.
“We had this situation back in my day where players were playing on the U.S. Tour, where they had to come back and play enough events — dispensations and exemptions. If anybody knows me, I’m a stickler for the rules. You know what the rules say and you stick to them.
“I know Jon Rahm. Big fan of Jon. And if the rules are written down, you’ve got to go about and stick to them. That’s just the way it is. It’s very important for the Ryder Cup — the Ryder Cup is bigger than just the match.
“I know people want to make out that it’s this one match every two years, but the Ryder Cup is The European Tour. It is the backbone of The European Tour. I would have been a strong advocate of stronger rules in the past of four events is not a lot.
“And I know the independent, the neutral would say, you know, it should be just European-born players against U.S.-born players, but it’s very important to the European Tour. The European Tour doesn’t have a lot of leverage to get players to come across and play here.
“When I started off, half the best players in the world played on The European Tour. You go back and look at the top 10 in the world, the names that were up there were playing The European Tour. Now even our best Europeans start their life with the PGA TOUR and so they don’t have that affinity.
“But when I started off, like Ernie (Els) would have come through Europe first and he always came tack. Retief (Goosen) came through Europe first, he always came back, Adam spot. They had an affinity to come back to Europe.
“Whereas if you go to college straight to the PGA TOUR, you don’t know the European Tour. You don’t have that draw back to it, and you know, the Ryder Cup is the carrot that we use to get people to come back, and when you do, you see guys come, like last year, they come, they play well and they enjoy the experience and that will get them coming back in future years.
“It is a very tough situation for the European Tour. It is a very tough situation for Luke Donald and The Ryder Cup in the sense of they really do want to have the best team and there is a case for saying, you know, give ourselves the best chance of winning, that’s as important a factor as anything in be keeping the European Tour at the forefront of golf.
“But at the moment if they want to change the rules, change the rules. I’ve always been a stickler for the rules. I’ve seen this leverage before and I wasn’t happy about it back in the day. I know there was a few — yeah. I’m a guy for sticking to the rules but it putts us in an awkward situation because in 12 months’ time I will actually want Jon Rahm playing in the match.
“But the 12th guy who qualifies, sticking to the rules or gets bumped out, he’s not going to be happy if somebody else has not stuck to the rules. We can’t forget that person, either.”
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