LIGHTEN UP. ENJOY MORE DISTANCE.

A new full-set custom option for slower-swing-speed golfers. Swing faster and generate more ball speed for higher-launching, longer-carrying shots.

LIGHTER HEADWEIGHTS. LIGHTER SHAFTS. MORE BALL SPEED.

AVAILABLE IN DRIVERS, FAIRWAY WOODS, HYBRIDS AND IRONS.

With the clock ticking down to the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome in just over four months’ time it seems that the picture about who and who isn’t available for selection for both teams is becoming clearer, although still a little fuzzy in places.

Following the resignation of Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia from the DP World Tour, European captain Luke Donald no longer has the option – if he ever really did – of dishing out wildcards to arguably three of Europe’s most valuable players over the last 25-plus years. While it was virtually impossible for any of those players to have quali ed automatically, there was a remote chance that at least one of them might have been given a captain’s pick to help add a bit of experience to what looks like being a very green team. However, that option is now o the table, and Donald at least now has a clearer understanding of the parameters under which he can try to formulate a battle plan to win back the cup, however uphill a battle that might look.

As thing stand, US captain Zach Johnson, although having a deeper and more talented pool to draw on, looks like having a much harder task when it comes to his picks, as a quirk of the regulations means that PGA Tour players who have joined LIV Golf still have a way into the Ryder Cup team through dint of their membership of the PGA of America, which runs the Ryder Cup stateside. So while the PGA TOUR can ban LIV golfers from competing in its events, the Ryder Cup stands alone as a separate entity, and somewhere in paragraph 98 of the regulations it stipulates that players only have to be members of the PGA of America in order to be considered for selection.

That being the case, any US Ryder Cup captain would have to give serious thought to picking LIV golfers Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed as wildcards following their performance at the Masters, but it is also within the realms of possibility that should any of these players win a major championship between now and September that they would make the team through the normal channels of quali cation. And let’s not forget Dustin Johnson and Talor Gooch, both of whom are in decent form and perfectly capable of winning majors. Talk about pigeons and cats. Given the politics involved, and the weight of pressure no doubt being exerted from above, Zach Johnson will surely not risk the wrath of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan by giving a LIV golfer a wildcard, but in bowing to this pressure he will also be giving further fuel to the fact that wildcards have never been truly wild, and that they are more about giving a balance to the team in terms of current form and experience and on the odd occasion, friendly favour.

A team without at least two or three of those aforementioned LIV players would result in a slightly weakened US squad being assembled for a contest that has historically put forward the best players from each nation/continent. Could it be right that a reigning major champion should be left out of a team that represents the USA simply because of the tour they play on? Mind you, you only need to look back to John Daly to nd a player with major pedigree with a face that didn’t t. The $64m question – although it should probably be a lot more than that taking into account in ation and the amount of cash sloshing around the world of professional golf these days – should be whether the Ryder Cup should be a match between Europe and the USA, or between players representing the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour? With neither tour existing when the match was established in the late 1920s, it is only over time that the PGA Tour and the European Tour have wheedled their way into the quali cation criteria for the matches. And even then, rules have been modi ed in recent years to re ect the fact that top golfers play all over the world rather than exclusively playing one tour. With or without LIV golfers, this year’s match, as with others before it, will go ahead and likely be remembered for the competitiveness of the matches, and of course, the result, rather than the behind-thescenes politicking. However, without the best players potentially taking part – for reasons that have nothing to do with golf and everything to do with power grabbing – it might be one of those events, like the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where an asterisk has to be placed alongside it on the basis that not all of the sport’s key players were able to compete.

One hopes that there is still the time and the willingness on all sides for a compromise to be found to ensure the integrity of the Ryder Cup is retained, but I for one am not hopeful, and feel like the competition, regardless of where your moral and political allegiances lie, will be the poorer for it if the captain’s picks are not exactly that.