The Ryder Cup is a biennial golf tournament that pits the best of the United States against the best of Europe.
Team USA selects its roster by filling eight spots with point leaders, and then allowing the team captain to fill out the rest of the team by personally selecting golfers for the remaining four spots. Team Europe uses a similarly structured point system, but it awards 10 spots based on points, and then the team captain selects two golfers to fill out the final two spots on Team Europe.
Ryder Cup European Points List
The Ryder Cup points list is responsible for filling the first five spots on the European Team in the 2012 Ryder Cup. The point system awards one point for each Euro of prize earnings won during officially sanctioned European Tour tournaments. The cutoff dates for these events began on September 1, 2011, and ended with the conclusion of this year's Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles. The points system includes a mechanism for dealing with the possibility that two players have the same amount of points; in the event of a tie, the higher ranking on the 2012 Race to Dubai rankings would determine the tiebreaker.
Ryder Cup World Points List
The remaining five points-qualified spots are pulled from the Ryder Cup World Points List. The top five players on the World Points List who were not brought in through the European Points List are added to the European team for the Ryder Cup. The World Points List also assigns a value of one point per one Euro earned. The cutoff dates for qualifying events for the European Ryder Cup team under these parameters were the same as those for the European Points list, with tiebreakers being handled according to placement on the Official World Golf Ranking. World Ranking Points are derived from all officially sanctioned events on any Federated Tour.
Points-Qualified Players
Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, Peter Hanson, Martin Kaymer, Paul Lawrie, Francesco Molinari, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, and Lee Westwood are the 10 players who have qualified to represent Team Europe in the 2012 Ryder Cup based on point standings.
Captain's Picks
The final two players on the European Ryder Cup team were chosen after the conclusion of the Johnnie Walker Championship by the team captain Jose Maria Olazabal. The captain's picks for the 2012 European team were Nicolas Colsaerts and Ian Poulter.
The contributor has been a golf fan for the past five years.
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