McEwan: The Ryder Cup’s LIV-shaped conundrum

Today is John Daly’s 57th birthday. The perfect time, then, to remind yourself that he is the only eligible multiple major champion who has never played in the Ryder Cup.

What makes this all the more surprising is that the larger-than-life American’s two major wins both came in Ryder Cup years.

In 1991, he was bypassed for one of captain Dave Stockton’s two picks, just days after he won the US PGA Championship, having started the week as the ninth alternate.

Four years later, a matter of weeks after he defeated Costantino Rocca to win the Open at St Andrews, Daly was again overlooked. Captain Lanny Wadkins preferred to pick Curtis Strange and Fred Couples, despite the latter nursing a back injury.

In a 2020 podcast appearance, the ‘Wild Thing’ was asked why he thought he had never represented his country on the biggest team stage in golf.

“Probably attitude,” he replied. “Probably some of the things that I did off the course. And some of the things that I didn’t do that I was accused of doing, and there was a lot that I did that I really did.”

This is all relevant in the context of this year’s match at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club near Rome.

US captain Zach Johnson, much like his European counterpart Luke Donald, faces a conundrum when it comes to fleshing out his side.

With six picks at his disposal, two-time major champ Johnson will have plenty of decisions to make but arguably none bigger than whether or not to choose any players from the LIV Golf League.

During last week’s RBC Heritage, Johnson revealed that, to the best of his knowledge, it is within his power to choose LIV golfers so long as they remain members of the PGA of America.

(At which point it feels important to issue this reminder: the PGA of America and PGA Tour are not the same thing.)

Currently, three of the 12 players who starred in the USA’s record-breaking victory at Whistling Straits in 2021 are aligned to LIV Golf: Dustin Johnson, who bagged five points out of five in Wisconsin, as well as Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau. Phil Mickelson, one of captain Steve Stricker’s assistants, is also tethered to the upstart circuit.

Others, including so-called “Captain America” Patrick Reed and emerging talents such as Talor Gooch, are also on LIV’s books.

It had been assumed that overlooking them for this year’s Ryder Cup would be so straightforward a decision as to not even be a decision.

Then the Masters happened. Mickelson and Koepka tied for second. Reed finished in a tie for fourth. Suddenly, the notion that 54-hole no-cut golf rendered top players non-competitive was blown to smithereens. What’s more, with three majors still to play this year, and several of LIV’s biggest players eligible, there are more opportunities for them to confound and complicate matters for Johnson.

Take a look at how the U.S. Team Rankings are shaping up! 🇺🇸

See the Top 6!👇 pic.twitter.com/CYCRgryL7D

— Ryder Cup USA (@RyderCupUSA) April 24, 2023

Make no mistake, the US skipper will be under pressure from various parties not to pick those players. They’ve turned their back on everything that made them. There should be consequences for their actions. Etcetera, etcetera.

However, let’s just say a LIV-based American wins the US PGA, the US Open or the Open. Is it right that they should be left out of a team ostensibly representing the “United States of America” simply because of the tour they play on?

The answer to that question depends on how you might respond to another: should the Ryder Cup be a match between Europe and the USA, or between players representing the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour?

The fact that neither tour existed when the match was established in the late 1920s perhaps provides a window into the intentions of the contest’s forebears.

Over time, several knots have been tied into this string by the professionalism of the sport and the emergence of the PGA Tour and then the European Tour as the game’s two most significant circuits. Qualification structures have been built and modified to allow for the nomadic existence of the game’s best players and, for the most part, without issue.

That’s until LIV came along and planted itself in the conversation.

The European Tour Group, which has responsibility for staging the Ryder Cup on this side of the Atlantic, is compromised because of the existential threat LIV poses to its business.

In the States, the PGA of America’s intentions are more opaque. The PGA Tour doesn’t have any official role in the running of the Ryder Cup – but it would be naïve to assume they are not making their feelings known through non-public channels.

All of which leaves Johnson – and to a comparable degree Donald – in an invidious position.

As for golf fans? Again, opinion is split. With or without LIV golfers, this year’s match will go ahead and likely be remembered for the outcome rather than the pre-amble. However, without the best players potentially taking part – for reasons that have nothing to do with golf and everything to do with tortious political interference – does it deserve to have an asterisk against it? Quite possibly.

Sport, at its best, requires the participation of the best. Imagine Argentina winning the World Cup in December without Lionel Messi, dropped from the squad because of where he plays his football, not how he plays his football.

There is still time for compromise to prevail.

Zach Johnson and Luke Donald are entitled to hope it does.

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor