It’s a Ryder Cup year and this week’s Zurich Classic features four-ball and foursomes. So why are so many elite Americans not here?
AVONDALE, La. – No one is going to mistake the bayou of Louisiana for Bethpage Black, the notoriously hard A.W. Tillinghast-designed golf course in Farmingdale, New York, that will host the 2025 Ryder Cup matches starting in 155 days. But this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans is the only PGA Tour event that features the same playing formats used at the biennial battle between the United States and Europe.
In hot and humid conditions, 80 two-man teams will compete at TPC Louisiana in four-balls on Thursday and Saturday, along with foursomes on Friday and Sunday. The winners of the winning team will each get just over $1.3 million and 400 FedEx Cup points.
Four-ball and foursomes are played in four of the five sessions at the Ryder Cup, so you might think the field at the Zurich Classic would be loaded with American and European Ryder Cup hopefuls looking to impress their prospective captains, Keegan Bradley (U.S.) and Luke Donald (Europe).
But going by the list of players who are in the Crescent City this week, you’d be half right.
The tournament’s defending champions – Masters winner Rory McIlroy and fellow Irishman Shane Lowry – are here again, and they are currently ranked No. 1 and No. 6 on the European Ryder Cup point list. If they maintain those spots, McIlroy and Lowry will be guaranteed places on the team.
There are four other teams of European players who are highly ranked on the European point list playing at the Zurich Classic: Rasmus Hojgaard (No. 4) and his twin, Nicolai (53); Laurie Canter (11) and Jordan Smith (17); Matt Wallace (9) and Thorbjorn Olesen (15); and Robert MacIntyre (13) and Thomas Detry (8). Sepp Straka, who won the PGA Tour’s American Express Championship in January, ranks 19th and is playing with American Brice Garnett. Aaron Rai, No. 20, is playing with American Sahith Theegala.
On the U.S. side, things are different. Collin Morikawa is the only player currently ranked in the top 10 on the Ryder Cup point list who is in the field this week, playing with Kurt Kitiyama, who ranks No. 57. Andrew Novak, who lost in a playoff to Justin Thomas last week at the RBC Heritage, is ranked No. 11 and is also here. Tom Hoge (13) and Billy Horschel (16) were scheduled to play before Horschel withdrew on Wednesday due to a lower body injury. Hoge is now playing with Kevin Chappell, who at No. 336 on the Official World Golf Ranking, has no Ryder Cup points.
Wyndham Clark (17), Akshay Bhatia (20), Joe Highsmith (25) and Jacob Bridgeman (29) are now the only other players aside from Morikawa who are in the top 30 on the U.S. Ryder Cup point list and are in the field at the Zurich Classic, and none of them are paired with each other.
New point system in place at Zurich for European Ryder Cup hopefuls
An update to the European Ryder Cup points system could be a reason why so many players from across the Atlantic have chosen to compete in New Orleans: Ryder Cup points will be allocated to European players at the Zurich Classic if both players on the team are European.
Luke Donald, the European Ryder Cup captain, is playing this week with Camilo Villegas, who has been a vice captain on two International teams in the Presidents Cup.
“I don’t like to tell them what to do, that’s certainly not my place,” Donald said after being asked if he encourages potential European Ryder Cup players to compete in the Zurich Classic. “(It’s) their schedule, they need to do what’s best for them individually and where they’re going to perform at their best. But certainly, I’ll send the odd friendly text, ‘Are you thinking about playing Zurich, who are you playing with, maybe if you want, play with this guy.’ There’s a little bit of that going on because I think it’s another opportunity to find a partner that you might feel very comfortable with and find a little bit of comfort in foursomes, which is a very uncomfortable kind of format.”
Wyndham Clark won the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club and was on the 2023 Ryder Cup team that lost 16 ½ to 11 ½ in Italy.
“I would love for Team USA to do more team stuff as far as events like this or if we go play certain events together,” he said Wednesday. “I know the European team does a great job with that.”
Morikawa echoes the sentiment.
“I do wish you saw a few more (highly-ranked American) players out here, but we’re still, what, months away from really trying to figure it out and dialing in team golf in September,” he said.
Timing of PGA Tour’s team event is maybe not ideal
The issue both Clark and Morikawa point to is the timing of the Zurich Classic on the PGA Tour schedule. The Zurich comes two weeks after the Masters and one week after the RBC Heritage, a PGA Tour signature event. It’s also two weeks before another signature tvent, the Truist Championship, and three weeks before the start of the PGA Championship. That makes this week and next, when the CJ Cup Byron Nelson will be played, prime weeks for elite American pros to take a break and rest.
“I think this event is an unbelievable event,” Horschel said earlier this week. “Can too much weight get put on this in the sense of a Ryder Cup format? Yes, because it’s one thing to play at the Zurich Classic in a team format, and it’s another to play in a team competition, especially a Ryder Cup, which is even more amplified, and the pressure is even higher.”
No one would deny that, especially if they had ever been near the first tee at a Ryder Cup, yet a healthy number of Europeans who aspire to be on Luke Donald’s team are here and playing together.
Zurich extends title sponsorship of New Orleans event
On Wednesday, Zurich announced that it is extending its title sponsorship of this event through 2030, and Kristof Terryn, the CEO of Zurich North America, said several times that the team format was one of the best moves the tournament ever made. So, unless there are changes to other parts of the PGA Tour schedule, the Zurich Classic’s date could make it challenging to get more potential Ryder Cup players in the field and playing together.
The DP World Tour presented the Team Cup in Abu Dhabi back in January, a match-play event that pits players from Great Britain and Ireland against players from continental Europe, and it was filled with Ryder Cup hopefuls, including Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Justin Rose, Rasmus Hojgaard, Matt Wallace, Laurie Canter and several others.
Donald referenced it when talking about the Zurich Classic and the Ryder Cup on Wednesday.“(The Zurich) is another opportunity to play some sort of team golf, to play some foursomes, which is a format we don’t play very often,” he said. “Certainly, at the Team Cup earlier in the year in January, there were some chats sort of during that week about possible guys playing with who and whether they would want to play in the Zurich.” In early 2016, Jack Nicklaus hosted a 26-person dinner filled with potential U.S. Ryder Cup team players, along with captains and vice captains, at his home. Speaking about the evening a few days later, Davis Love, the U.S. Ryder Cup team captain, said, “It was just great to get everybody together. … It was a big group of guys that are now excited about the Ryder Cup, thinking about it and are part of the process.”
Later in 2016, the United States defeated Europe, 17 to 11, in the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine, the most lopsided American win since 1981.
PGA Tour players rave about New Orleans tournament
Few cities know how to roll out the welcome mat like New Orleans, and player after player who spoke with the media before this year’s Zurich Classic talked about how fun it is to play in this event and enjoy the food, the city and the fans. So descending as a group on this event would seem like a great way to improve relationships between players, bond as a group and create some of the camaraderie that the European team seems to thrive on year after year.
Would getting Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Tony Finau, Jordan Spieth and other top American players here guarantee a Ryder Cup victory for the U.S. in September? Of course not. But since the U.S. defeated the International team – again – in the Presidents Cup 18 ½ to 11 ½ at Royal Montreal last September, European Ryder Cup hopefuls will now have had two chances to compete in foursomes and four-ball events, and several have taken advantage of those chances as they prepare for Bethpage.
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