The case for, and against, Brooks Koepka as a Ryder Cup captain's pick
Brooks Koepka narrowly missed an automatic slot on this year's Ryder Cup team. Will he get a captain's pick? It's still up in the air.
The numbers didn’t quite fall his way, and now Brooks Koepka’s Ryder Cup fate is in the last place he wanted it to be: in someone else’s hands.
Koepka, the five-time major winner who plays on the LIV Golf tour, could only watch as Sunday’s BMW Championship wound down. In the tournament’s final holes, Max Homa and Xander Schauffele scooted past Koepka to claim the final of six guaranteed Ryder Cup slots. Another six slots remain, and team captain Zach Johnson will now decide who fills them out.
Here’s what Koepka brings as a potential Ryder Cup teammate: a 7-6-1 record and a heavy dose of slam-nerds-in-lockers attitude that the U.S. team — which will feature at least three rookies — will desperately need for this road game. Koepka’s ability to win majors on the toughest courses in golf will come in handy when Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in Italy gets its Ryder Cup makeover.
Koepka also managed to finish seventh in the Ryder Cup standings despite playing in just 10 qualifying events, and only four this year. Schauffele, by contrast, needed a T8 finish on Sunday to get past Koepka while playing in 26 qualifying events.
Most notably, Koepka won the PGA Championship in May, and took a 54-hole lead at the Masters into Sunday before Jon Rahm passed him. The other three major winners of 2023 — Rahm, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman — have all qualified for their respective Ryder Cup teams.
The reason behind Koepka’s limited number of qualifying appearances — the fact that he’s spent most of his time on the LIV tour — is enough of a reason for some critics to dismiss his candidacy regardless of his qualifications. LIV’s financial backing — from a Saudi Arabian regime with documented and alleged human rights violations — is enough for some to disqualify Koepka’s case on its face.
“Koepka being at the Ryder Cup, regardless of what he does, will not be about whether it will be great for the United States or the Ryder Cup,” persistent LIV Golf critic Brandel Chamblee said last week on the Golf Channel. “In making this team more cohesive, being all on point, and pointing in the right direction, Brooks Koepka missing this team would be good for this team.”
Johnson hasn’t exactly cleared up the picture himself. He and Koepka played a practice round together prior to the Open Championship, and it’s tough to believe that the Ryder Cup didn’t come up at some point in their outing. More recently, however, Johnson tried to put some daylight between himself and LIV players.
“I’m going to be fully transparent. It’s hard because I’m not able to witness what they’re doing and see their form, with the exception of four events a year,” Johnson said on the “Subpar” podcast recently. “What Brooks has done this year, well no one’s surprised. I’m just glad he’s healthy.”
LIV supporters quickly responded that Johnson actually is able to witness what LIV players are doing, assuming he has access to either YouTube or The CW. But Zach Johnson’s viewing habits aren’t really the issue here; the question is whether he would reach across the LIV-PGA Tour divide to bring Koepka aboard.
Even as recently as May, when Koepka won the PGA Championship, such a bridge would have been unthinkable given the animosity (and legal action) between the Tour and LIV. But once the Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, LIV’s financial backer, announced their surprise partnership agreement in early June, the higher-minded moral objections to LIV players’ breakaway decision evaporated. LIV players may not be welcomed back onto the PGA Tour, but the Tour and its players don’t get to claim the moral high ground any longer.
Beyond that, Koepka has now won the major hosted by PGA of America — which is a different organization than the PGA Tour — three times, and PGA of America hosts the Ryder Cup. That in itself is enough to at least paper over the largest divisions between the two camps.
Koepka has also stressed that there is no animosity between the LIV players and their former PGA Tour brethren. That may or may not be true across the board, but this is: American players are more invested in the Ryder Cup now than they have been in a generation, and anyone that can help in that endeavor is going to be welcomed into the American locker room.
The PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship tees off later this week. Koepka won’t be in the tournament, of course, but many Ryder Cup captain’s picks hopefuls — including Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns, Rickie Fowler, Keegan Bradley and Lucas Glover — will be looking to impress their would-be captain. Johnson will make his final picks after the end of the Tour Championship.
