ANALYSIS
Global Golf Post handicaps
TEAM EUROPE
Jon Rahm
Career Ryder Cup record: 4-3-1 (team: 1-1)
LOCK
His recent play hasn’t matched the ridiculous standard that he set earlier this year, but Rahm is the definition of a world-class golfer. If European captain Luke Donald could play the Spaniard in all five matches – which may not happen because Marco Simone is a treacherous walk – he probably would.
RORY McIILROY
Career Ryder Cup record: 12-12-4 (team: 4-2)
McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, dropped the torch in 2021 at Whistling Straits and is now just .500 in Ryder Cup play. Europe needs a more engaged McIlroy, who made an emotional promise to be just that in Wisconsin. The No. 3 player in the world has bounced back nicely from his Masters wreck, authoring five consecutive top-10 finishes and potentially building momentum toward September.
Viktor Hovland
Career Ryder Cup record: 0-3-2 (team: 0-1)
Hovland has come into his own recently, rising to No. 5 in the OWGR and raising his play to gaining two strokes per round on each field, which is a highly sought-after benchmark for elite players. The Norwegian is a critical piece of the European core which, unlike the American side, lacks the security blanket of tremendous depth.
Tyrrell Hatton
Career Ryder Cup record: 2-4-1 (team: 1-1)
The analytics show that Hatton is underappreciated by the OWGR and should be considered a bona fide top-10 player in the world. The Englishman has five top-five finishes since March, is No. 3 in strokes gained total on the PGA Tour and could be, statistically speaking, the top putter among all 24 players in Rome.
Matt Fitzpatrick
Career Ryder Cup record: 0-5-0 (team: 0-2)
You can throw out his Ryder Cup record because Fitzpatrick was a completely different player in 2016 and 2021. Last year’s U.S. Open winner is only No. 17 in Data Golf’s true strokes gained metric, and the Englishman has missed more cuts (five) than he has top-10 finishes (four) in 2023, including a victory at Hilton Head. But there is no debating his solidified place in European team golf.
Tommy Fleetwood
Career Ryder Cup record: 4-2-2 (team: 1-1)
Fleetwood is on a heater at the moment, notching three top-five finishes in his past six starts. Even without that, the Englishman is one of eight European players within Data Golf’s top 12 of strokes gained in the past three-, six-, 12- and 24-month periods. The only time he played a Ryder Cup on home soil, Fleetwood partnered with Francesco Molinari en route to a 4-1-0 showing in France.
Shane Lowry
Career Ryder Cup record: 1-2-0 (team: 0-1)
Lowry had some strong moments in the 2021 Ryder Cup and is firmly among Europe’s top eight guys, even if his form (only one top-10 result in all of 2023) has been modest. The Irishman is a borderline top-30 player in the world, but all of that goes out the window if he flourishes in front of the home fans – and his personality could be perfect for that scenario.
Justin Rose
Career Ryder Cup record: 13-8-2 (team: 3-2)
Rose has convincingly played his way onto the European squad by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and then registering six top-25 finishes. The Englishman is all the way up to No. 21 in the Data Golf overall rankings, his Ryder Cup record is positive and he brings much-needed experience to a group that no longer has as much of it. Not taking the LIV money – unlike several players of his ilk – paid off in a significant way.
Adrian Meronk
Career Ryder Cup record: None
PROBABLE
After eight locks, there is an air of uncertainty on the European side. The most likely candidate to fill one of the last four spots is Adrian Meronk, a top-50 player in the world who won the Italian Open at Marco Simone in May. The 6-foot-6 Pole has struggled at majors this year (MC-T40-MC), but he has been a consistently strong player on the DP World Tour and is a top-12 European over the past six months.
Victor Perez
ON THE BUBBLE
We have Perez on the right side of the bubble at the moment. He has played well in the past two Italian Opens at Marco Simone and has flashed a high ceiling by winning the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship against a strong field. The Frenchman is close to making the team on the European points list and, despite ranking outside the top 20 Europeans in the Data Golf rankings, is one of the few wild cards who has had recent success going up against the game’s best.
Séamus Power
Power looked like a sure thing at the end of last year when he won the PGA Tour’s Bermuda stop and had two other top-five finishes. His play has steadily deteriorated since then, however, as the Irishman has missed five cuts since the Players Championship. One benefit he does have is that his FedEx Cup ranking likely will allow him to play the first two playoff events, giving him more chances to get back in form.
Aaron Rai
Coming off a recent T3 in the RBC Canadian Open, Rai is now a top-12 European golfer in the Data Golf rankings. The Englishman is in contention to make the FedEx Cup playoffs as a top-70 PGA Tour player, and his greatest skillset is driving accuracy, which could be a good course fit for Marco Simone.
Ludvig Åberg
Following conventional wisdom, a player fresh out of college should have little chance of playing on the brightest stage in golf. This is a unique situation, however, as the PGA Tour University winner is almost 24 years old and is the 12th-best European golfer in the world according to Data Golf. Åberg won four college events in the spring and already has two top-25 finishes in his first two PGA Tour starts since leaving Texas Tech. He will have his chance to make the team.
Sepp Straka
Straka, who made the 2022 Tour Championship, is the ninth-best European by the OWGR, but the Austrian’s play has been a crapshoot recently. He has missed nine cuts worldwide since November and has been uninspiring except for outlier performances in the Honda Classic (T5) and PGA Championship (T7). Like Kitayama on the American side, Straka is very good when he’s on but has a low floor. Data Golf has him well outside the top 12 Europeans.
Yannik Paul
If the Ryder Cup standings closed today, Paul would be on the team. He’s No. 3 on the European points list – Europe uses two lists plus captain’s picks to create its team – which would be good for the last spot in those standings. The German got there with some high finishes on the DP World Tour but is statistically an average professional golfer, with a strokes-gained rating slightly north of zero. He’s well outside the top 20 of European golfers regardless of the ranking system or data metric.
Alex Noren
Career Ryder Cup record: 2-1-0 (team: 1-0)
Noren was in terrific form late in 2022 but has missed eight cuts since February and will need a spark to make the team. The Swede would bring positive experience based on his play in the Europeans’ victorious 2018 Ryder Cup, so Noren should warrant a serious look if he can revive his game down the stretch.
Nicolai Højgaard
LONG SHOT
We’re not as high on Højgaard as are some observers. He certainly will have a shot to play his way onto the team given how wide open it is, but the 22-year-old Dane has spent most of 2023 as a below-average professional golfer. He did have a top-five finish at the Italian Open and a runner-up in the PGA Tour’s opposite-field Puntacana event a few months ago, but Højgaard is prone to foul balls off the tee and has yet to show encouraging results against top players.
Thomas Detry
Detry loaded up on FedEx Cup points in the fall but has been underwhelming since then. The Dane is within shouting distance of being on the bubble, and he’s statistically an above-average PGA Tour player, but Detry has not given any compelling reason why he should be on the team.
Alexander Björk
Over the past three months, Björk is the 13th-best European in strokes gained, one spot ahead of Pádraig Harrington. He’s 0-for-6 in making cuts in major championships and is just slightly above average in overall strokes gained, but he has four top-10 finishes in his last five DP World Tour starts.
ADRIAN DUMONT
de CHASSART
After completing his college career at the University of Illinois – where he did not finish outside the top seven in his final six starts – Dumont de Chassart immediately won a Korn Ferry Tour event and followed it up with a runner-up. He is well on his way to clinching a PGA Tour card and is quickly rising as a candidate to be in the next wave of European talent. It probably won’t be this year, but the Belgian is a player to watch for future Ryder Cups.
Thomas Pieters
Career Ryder Cup record: 4-1-0 (team: 0-1)
The Belgium bomber is the highest world-ranked LIV defector (No. 65) still eligible to get picked by captain Luke Donald. He went 4-1 in his only prior Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in 2016 and participated in January’s Hero Cup. He ranked as high as 34th before joining LIV in February and made cuts at the Masters and PGA before missing at the U.S. Open.
Sean Fairholm