Europe will defend the Ryder Cup later this month with 11 of the 12 players who saw off the United States in Rome two years ago after Luke Donald unsurprisingly opted for experience with his wildcard picks. Europe’s captain has turned to Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka, Victor Hovland, Ludvig Åberg, Jon Rahm and Matt Fitzpatrick to complete his team for Bethpage. Donald confirmed his choices on Monday, five days after his US counterpart Keegan Bradley had done likewise.
Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Rasmus Højgaard had already automatically qualified for the European side. In what is a quirk, Højgaard is the sole change from Rome where his twin brother, Nicolai, turned out in European colours.
Those to narrowly miss out include Matt Wallace, who was reduced to tears at the end of the DP World Tour’s stop in Switzerland on Sunday upon realisation his Ryder Cup dream was over once again. Cases were also made at various points in the qualifying process for Marco Penge, Thomas Detry, Harry Hall and Aaron Rai but it always felt likely Donald would opt for consistency. Europe have not won or retained a Ryder Cup on US soil since 2012.
