SOTOGRANDE, SPAIN | The period of time between the start of automatic qualification for an upcoming Ryder Cup and the announcement of the captain’s wild cards is a little like the gap between a couple telling the world that they are getting hitched and the arrival of invitations to the wedding ceremony itself.
Speculation about who gets the nod, theories about seating settings, warnings about who needs monitoring, questions about the plus-one, fretting about what to wear, hopes that someone can’t make it, fears of repercussions when telling others that they won’t be coming, concerns that the venue won’t be up to scratch.
About the only thing the two don’t have in common is a growing reliance on metrics.
On the other hand, you never know. Somebody somewhere is probably using data to determine whether the bride’s spinster Auntie Joan should be seated next to the groom’s Uncle Tony or Frank from accounts.
"It’s definitely the focus. Every week for a year.”
Matt Wallace
Europe’s qualification period for the 2025 encounter at Bethpage Black next September began at the end of August with the British Masters at The Belfry and, as such, is very much in embryonic shape.
However, based on the early results in that period, allied to the flow of the 2024 season, five names do suggest themselves as potential rookies in the raucous setting on New York’s Long Island.
The five are potentially intriguing tales, and all were in the field at last week’s Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters played at the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande. None was involved in the remarkable and record-equalling nine-hole playoff in which France’s Julien Guerrier claimed his first DP World Tour victory after defeating the local favourite Jorge Campillo.
The five in question are England’s Matt Wallace, Denmark’s Rasmus Højgaard, France’s Victor Perez, Italy’s Matteo Manassero and Spain’s own David Puig.
All five would require many things to go their way in order to book a ticket to Bethpage Black, but Puig might be most in need of the stars and planets aligning.
The 22-year-old Arizona State rep is a two-time winner on the Asian Tour who has impressed with three top-12 finishes on the DP World Tour since the start of the Ryder Cup qualification period.
Crucially, however, he is a LIV golfer and has no membership status on the DP World Tour, where he has been playing on invitations alone.
“I will be speaking to the DP World Tour soon,” Puig told GGP here. “But I will be honest: It is very complicated, and I don’t know what will happen. If I became a full member, I think I would collect the points I would have been due [from recent results]. But if I am only an associate member, I do not get those points. But I am not entirely sure that is the case. I hope to clear it up soon.”
The enthralling transformation of Manassero’s career continues apace. Just 18 months ago, this one-time teenage phenom – who claimed four DP World Tour wins before his 21st birthday, including the 2013 BMW PGA Championship – was still recovering from a slump during which he bottomed out at 1,805th in the world rankings.
In the final week of May 2023 – the 10th anniversary of that career highlight at Wentworth, no less – he travelled to Denmark for the Copenhagen Challenge on the second tier and claimed victory. Less than two months later, he added a win on home soil to confirm his graduation to the main European tour.
In March, he won the Jonsson Workwear Open in South Africa, one of eight top-10 finishes in a DP World Tour season that has gladdened the heart of European golf fans.
Manassero’s reboot has been built on common sense, and he is in no mood to change policy.
“I have got back to where I am with good processes,” he said after tying for 17th in Sotogrande. “I know that I have nice possibilities in my future now. A card on the PGA Tour is one; the Ryder Cup is another. I cannot ignore them, but I have learned to put goals aside and focus on, as I said, process. I will keep doing that.”
Gaining a PGA Tour card, which goes to the top 10 in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings for players otherwise not eligible, looks likely. He will face a choice, because using it might make it more difficult to qualify for the European team. But Manassero, now 31, will deal with the decision-making in a calm manner.
Perez faces a similar problem. The 32-year-old Frenchman is a former resident of Sotogrande who apologised for being unable to discuss his medium- or long-term future because in the short term he had to race to catch a flight for this week’s Zozo Championship in Japan on the PGA Tour.
He spent much of the qualification period for the 2023 match on the bubble before missing out on an automatic place. This three-time winner on the DP World Tour has twice finished third on the PGA Tour this year and was also fourth in the Olympics. But splitting his time between Europe and the States makes keeping two cards tricky and gaining an automatic spot in the Ryder Cup fiendishly difficult.
For Rasmus Højgaard, the incentive is to join his twin brother, Nicolai, as a European representative. Moreover, he is in the unusual situation of having experience of the first tee at a Ryder Cup without having played in it.
He was invited by the European team to shadow Thomas Bjørn in Rome and to drive the vice captain’s buggy.
“I can’t imagine what it was like to play on that first tee,” the 23-year-old Højgaard said in Spain, where he tied for fourth, after having experienced the Ryder Cup as an intern. “It’s a very stressful week, and you can see the experienced player handle it well and the rookies a little less so. I’d be a rookie, but not quite at the same time.”
Wallace hopes that memories of 2018, when he won three times on the DP World Tour and yet was overlooked for a captain’s pick by Bjørn, will drive his performance this time around, allowing him to take uncertainty out of the equation by claiming an automatic spot.
He was victorious in the European Masters in the second week of the qualification period, the perfect start for a man who now has five wins on his home circuit to sit alongside a first PGA Tour triumph in last year’s Corales Puntacana Championship, but he’s wary that he’s seen other golfers start well and then fade.
“My team are full focus,” said Wallace, 34, who tied for 20th here. “We know what to do.”
Just like the bride and groom, when that date is in the diary, it becomes an obsession for Ryder Cup hopefuls.
"It’s definitely the focus,” Wallace said. “Every week for a year.”
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Top: England's Matt Wallace hopes quick head start can help secure a place on Euro team at Bethpage Black.
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