Zach Johnson reveals his US Ryder Cup Captain’s picks
Team USA is complete. Has Zach Johnson surprised you with any of his six captain’s picks for the Ryder Cup?
Team USA captain Zach Johnson has named his six picks to take on Team Europe at the 2023 Ryder Cup.
Two-time PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas was selected after speculation over his inclusion in Rome.
This comes despite missing three major cuts and recording three top 10s in 2023, while also failing to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Thomas has earned 6.5 points from nine matches across his two Ryder Cup appearances – a tally Johnson likely looked to with this selection.
Thomas and Jordan Spieth have formed a partnership across the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup for America and Spieth was another of Johnson’s six picks for this year’s edition.
Spieth, a three-time major champion, will make his fifth successive Ryder Cup appearance. He has 9.5 points from 18 matches across his four previous starts.
🚨CONFIRMED🚨
— National Club Golfer (@NCG_com) August 29, 2023
Here are US Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson’s six picks for the 2023 event in Italy… 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/c4tnFCMWEr
Following an incredible comeback season which saw him win for the first time on the PGA Tour in four years, Rickie Fowler returns to the Ryder Cup.
Fowler last played in the competition in 2018 in Paris when Team USA were heavily beaten. He has earned 5.5 points from his four appearances in the event.
Following his incredible performance as a rookie in Whistling Straits, Collin Morikawa returns for his second successive Ryder Cup appearance.
He scored 3.5 points from a possible four as the United States handed out the biggest defeat to Team Europe in the competition’s history.
The only LIV golfer to make an appearance in Johnson’s side is the 2023 PGA Champion Brooks Koepka.
The American finished runner-up at Augusta before winning the Wanamaker trophy for a third time and he almost guaranteed himself an automatic top-six spot, despite playing in far fewer ranking events than his American colleagues.
The sixth spot belongs to Sam Burns who will join Homa, Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark as the rookies for Team USA.
Burns finished the 2023 PGA Tour season strongly with a top-ten result at the Tour Championship. He won the WGC Match Play earlier this year, showing his class in this format of golf.
Six players had already automatically qualified to play in the American team at Marco Simone at the end of September.
First-time major champions Clark and Harman joined World No 1 Scottie Scheffler as the top three in the US Points list.
Homa, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele made up the six to assure themselves of a spot at the Ryder Cup.
Team USA’s 12-man squad
Patrick Cantlay
Wyndham Clark
Brian Harman
Max Homa
Xander Schauffele
Scottie Scheffler
Sam Burns*
Rickie Fowler*
Brooks Koepka*
Collin Morikawa*
Jordan Spieth*
Justin Thomas*
(* indicates Captain’s Picks)
Will this 12-man group retain the Ryder Cup on European soil? What do you think of Zach Johnson’s captain’s picks? Let us know with a post on X, formerly Twitter!
Matt Coles
Mention a European country, and Matt will tell you which resorts make the National Club Golfer Top 100s: European Resorts list. He might even throw in who designed the golf course and how many rooms the hotel has got at each one…
Matt got into the game of golf from a young age, following his old man to the local golf club. He fell for the sport, and now can’t seem to go a day without thinking about how to improve his game (Thanks Dad!). Matt has been a member of Howley Hall GC in Leeds since 2020, and is just about managing to maintain a single-figure handicap. He likes to remind people that he once broke 75, but won’t tell people that it was on a shortened course during the winter.
He moved to Leeds after graduating from the University of Central Lancashire with a First Class Honours degree in Sports Journalism. Matt joined NCG after almost five years travelling the world with the Professional Squash Association, working on events in all four corners of the globe.
Matt currently plays a Cobra King LTDx driver and RadSpeed 3-wood. TaylorMade monopolise the rest of his bag, with a SIM UDI, M5 irons and both Milled Grind and HI-TOE wedges, along with a Monza Redline putter. He uses a Vice Pro Plus golf ball, because he’s a bit different…
Away from golf, Matt is a Manchester United fan, and a keen runner, having ran the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon (his first and possibly last), in May 2023.
