ATLANTA – Zach Johnson will gather with the six U.S. Ryder Cup players who’ve already qualified for next month’s matches in Rome and his vice captains for a team dinner on Wednesday and there likely won’t be much small talk.
Johnson’s job became very real Sunday as the six automatic qualifiers locked themselves in for the biennial bout and, more importantly, the stage was set for the U.S. captain to name his six picks following this week’s Tour Championship.
Any captain – either U.S. or European, Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup – will tell you the wild card picks are the most stressful and significant part of the job. Given the landscape of this year’s team, Johnson’s picks might be the most challenging in recent history, but there are a few no-brainers.
Despite a curiously outspoken wave of opposition on social media, Brooks Koepka should be and will be among Johnson’s picks. Recent captains have leaned heavily on what the automatic qualifiers want, and that’s Brooks.
“I looked at the points list the other night. [Koepka] was like [29] points shy [of the final automatic qualifying spot]? Which is, I think it was the equivalent of like $30,000 throughout the year,” said Scottie Scheffler, who finished first in automatic qualifying. “[Twenty-nine points], if he played one tournament on Tour, I think he probably would have been on the team.”
Koepka won the PGA Championship and finished runner-up at the Masters. The five-time major champ had been among the automatic qualifiers until Sunday, when Xander Schauffele bumped him out of the final spot. There have been some arguments that Koepka has been quiet, on both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, since winning at Oak Hill, but there doesn’t appear to be any LIV Golf bias among his potential teammates when comes to making the 33-year-old a pick.
“Brooks, he’s right there. I think he would be a pretty good addition to the team. I’m not totally familiar with his record in Ryder Cups, but the experience would certainly help, especially considering there’s probably going to be a fair amount of rookies over there,” said Brian Harman, another automatic qualifier and a Ryder Cup rookie. “In my opinion, the goal of the Ryder Cup is to win, so whoever Zach thinks that can help us win the Ryder Cup I think needs to be on the team.”
That “just win” mentality holds up for Johnson’s likely second pick, Jordan Spieth, but after that the waters become far murkier. In order, it would seem Rickie Fowler (No. 13 on the points list) and Justin Thomas (No. 15) fit in with what the captain would want from his team in Rome, with Thomas an easy partner for Spieth and Fowler, the kind of flexible locker room guy you can send out with anyone.
The remaining picks would be some combination of Cameron Young (No. 9), Collin Morikawa (No. 10), Keegan Bradley (No. 11), Sam Burns (No. 12) and Lucas Glover (No. 16), a late addition to the list of potential picks following his strong finish to the season that included back-to-back victories.
What won’t be an issue, at least among his potential teammates, is Koepka’s status on LIV Golf. This is somewhat surprising – as well as encouraging given the broader context of what it could mean for professional golf – when you consider where the game was mired just three months ago.
Prior to June’s framework agreement announcement, the Tour, LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund were locked in a collection of contentious lawsuits that were going to drag on for years and there wasn’t even the slightest hint the two sides could find any common ground.
That changed on June 6, and even though the Tour and PIF don’t appear to be much closer to a definitive agreement that would create a for-profit entity, the message has been received across the golf world. For players like Koepka, who joined LIV Golf but never joined the anti-trust lawsuit against the Tour or was outspoken about the divide between the two sides, there’s never been the type of animosity that could influence his potential status on a U.S. team. The same can’t be said for the European side.
Because of DP World Tour rules, players who joined LIV Golf and resigned their DP World Tour membership aren’t eligible for the Continent’s Ryder Cup team, a list that includes the likes of Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell. As a measure of how divisive the subject is, Rory McIlroy was asked if he would have an issue with the U.S. team picking a LIV player even though Europe will not.
“No,” he shrugged. “I don’t think it would make a difference for us.”
It seems the framework agreement and the possibility of collaboration between the two sides can only heal so much. The good news for Koepka is he’ll fit back into the U.S. team room just fine.
