Who are the winners and losers in Europe’s new Ryder Cup system?

The way European golfers qualify for the Ryder Cup has been significantly tweaked, but will it have an impact on who plays for Luke Donald’s side against the USA in 2025?

Before I reveal the numbers I’ve crunched and the archives I’ve ransacked, we need to know the changes. The most important change is that now, there is one list players earn points on and not two.

There is no World Points List, based on world ranking points earned in the qualifying period, and there is no European Points List, based on Race to Dubai points earned in the qualifying period. It is now the Ryder Cup Points List and players earn scores from this year’s Betfred British Masters at the end of August until August 24, 2025.

This is the points allocation by each event during the qualification period:

Majors: 5,000 points
PGA Tour Signature Events, Players Championship and the FedEx Cup playoffs: 3,000
DP World Tour Rolex Series events: 2,000
PGA Tour Regular FedEx Cup events: 2,000
DP World Tour Back 9 events: 1,000
DP World Tour Global Series events: 1,000
PGA Tour Opposite Field events: 1,000

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New European Ryder Cup qualification rules: Would they have made a change?

What I wanted to find out is if the new Ryder Cup Points List and guidelines announced today were brought in to determine the 2023 European Ryder Cup side, would there have been a huge difference in who played at Marco Simone in Rome?

Donald is keeping his six automatic qualifiers and six captain’s picks. As the points above are heavily distributed across the majors and PGA Tour events and less so on the DP World Tour in Europe, I don’t think the six stars that make up the core of Europe’s team will change (meaning the top six points scorers in the new list).

Based on results from the 2023 Ryder Cup qualifying period, which lasted from the 2022 BMW PGA Championship to the Omega European Masters in 2023, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland showed outstanding results.

This trio won eight times between themselves in 2023. Donald didn’t have to worry about their participation, but you already knew that. Tyrrell Hatton came second at the Players Championship in 2023 and top-20’ed at The Open, the PGA Championship, the Memorial and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Tommy Fleetwood was outstanding during the qualifying period where he came tied for 5th at the US Open, tied for 10th at The Open and ended in tied for sixth at the Tour Championship. Matt Fitzpatrick won the RBC Heritage and ended up tied for ninth at the Tour Championship.

With the new criteria, all of these six players would almost certainly have locked up places because we can safely assume their brilliance on the PGA Tour, where all of the points are, would’ve got them through.

Only Fleetwood from this sextet missed out on automatic qualification for the last Ryder Cup. Bob MacIntyre made it instead who, during the last qualifying period, had no top 10s in regular PGA Tour events but crucially made several DP World Tour top-10s, came second at the Genesis Scottish Open which is co-sanctioned with the PGA Tour and won the DS Automobiles Italian Open.

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But had the new guidelines been in place last time, MacIntyre’s strategy of steaming through the DP World Tour schedule in pursuit of points might not have been as fruitful, with events in the United States, with the exception of The Open and fleeting Rolex Series events, carrying the most weight.

This is not to say MacIntyre didn’t deserve a pick. With solid performances from Sepp Straka, Justin Rose and Shane Lowry on both sides of the Atlantic, this quartet would have been deserving of picks if this new criteria was used last time. What we’re looking at here is not much variance.

The new criteria could strongly hinder those who want the path travelled by MacIntyre this time around though. Crucially, for the rest of 2024, players can only earn points on the DP World Tour until the end of the calendar year. This will give rank-and-file DP World Tour players the chance to build points, albeit very fractionally allocated to this circuit once called the European Tour.

The likes of Yannik Paul and Rasmus Hojgaard, all who won DP World Tour events during the last Ryder Cup qualifying period and still didn’t make Donald’s side in Italy, might be wearing a larger scowl than 12 months ago when they weren’t chosen.

Perhaps this speaks to the importance of finishing as high in the Race to Dubai ranking as possible.

The top 10 players in this year’s Race to Dubai rankings at the end of the season, who do not already have a PGA Tour card, will earn one for 2025.

In this sense, the remaining portion of 2024 could be crucial for DP World Tour competitors looking to graduate to the PGA Tour and earn access to more avenues to the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage.

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