The PGA Tour season is over and the golf world is still celebrating the incredible victory for Tommy Fleetwood at the Tour Championship, winning the FedEx Cup to finally secure his first career win on the PGA Tour. However, now the focus has shifted to the Ryder Cup at the end of September.
The Europeans dominated the last edition of the Ryder Cup back in 2023 in Italy, winning with a comfortable 16 1/2 points. Now, the Americans are out for revenge.
On Monday, Team Europe and captain Luke Donald finalized their team for this year's edition with the six captain's picks to go along with the six automatic qualifiers, and there are a lot of names from that 2023 team that will be defending the title this year in New York. Donald picked Shane Lowry, Jon Rahm, Sepp Straka Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg and Matt Fitzpatrick to round out the team.
Those six will be joined by Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre, Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton and Rasmus Hojgaard as the six automatic qualifiers.
All six captain's picks were on Team Europe back in 2023, as were five of the automatic qualifiers, so Team Europe will have plenty of continuity coming in. Just Hojgaard was not on the team a few years ago, but his twin brother Nicolai filled the 12th spot.
After the Tour Championship finished up, Team USA captain Keegan Bradley finalized his selections for the Americans. The biggest story coming in was whether Bradley would pick himself to play after a strong season, but he left himself off the team and is choosing to focus on his role as captain.
The Americans have really struggled to win the Ryder Cup when it has been held in Europe, losing the last seven on the road dating back to a win in England in 1993. However, the Europeans were able to steal one on the road back in 2012 at Medinah Country Club before the Americans won the last two on home soil.
Donald is hoping that his selections and the team's chemistry and familiarity with each other, something that the Americans don't have to the same extent, will help them get over the hump and get the job done this fall.
