Who is in Team USA?
United States captain Zach Johnson has selected out-of-form Justin Thomas and LIV Golf rebel Brooks Koepka for the 44th Ryder Cup in Rome at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club.
Five-time major winner Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns and Rickie Fowler complete the US captain’s six picks to join automatic qualifiers Scottie Scheffler, Open Champion Brian Harman, US Open winner Wyndham Clark, Max Homa, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schuaffele.
Thomas failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup play-offs and admitted it had been “humiliating and embarrassing” to card a second round of 81 in the US Open in June.
The two-time major winner also carded an opening 82 in the Open at Royal Liverpool, but has still been selected by Johnson ahead of the likes of Keegan Bradley and Cameron Young.
- Scottie Scheffler
- Sam Burns
- Wyndham Clark
- Brian Harman
- Xander Schauffele
- Patrick Cantlay
- Max Homa
- Brooks Koepka
- Collin Morikawa
- Rickie Fowler
- Jordan Spieth
- Justin Thomas
Team USA’s first-time captain was asked during Monday’s opening press conference why he did not call on Bryson DeChambeau and other Ryder Cup veterans such as Dustin Johnson.
“Yeah, I can answer all of those in a very simple manner,” Johnson said. “We have a points system within The PGA of America, within the Ryder Cup USA. It’s pretty evident… how you garner points and which tournaments can accumulate points.
“I have my own top 30 but when it got down towards the end of the process, it was the top 20, the top 25 guys in that point system that I felt like had the merit and certainly, well, should have my full attention. That’s where I was. I was basically in the top 20, top 25 guys in points when it came down to formulating this Team USA.”
Koepka finished seventh in the US Ryder Cup standings, with No. 15 Justin Thomas the lowest-ranked player to receive a captain’s pick.
With only the four majors to accumulate Ryder Cup points in, Johnson finished 40th and DeChambeau 54th. Dustin Johnson has fallen to 114th in the Official World Golf Ranking while DeChambeau is 128th. Talor Gooch, another multiple-time LIV winner, finished 89th in the Ryder Cup standings and is now 167th in the world.
DeChambeau, who is a combined 2-3-1 in two previous Ryder Cup appearances, said he hopes the qualification system will be different when the event returns to the US in New York two years from now.
Why has Brooks Koepka been selected?
The key distinction with the US team is that Ryder Cup eligibility is not linked to the PGA Tour but to membership of the PGA of America.
All of American’s LIV players remain members of the PGA of America, if not the PGA Tour. Koepka won the US PGA Championship at Oak Hill in May and finished second at the Masters, although that was not enough to qualify for the team automatically. Johnson decided that form was strong enough to warrant a captain’s pick.