It shouldn’t matter what happens from here.
Brooks Koepka should be on the US Ryder Cup team when he faces Europe outside of Rome in late September.
From the moment Koepka’s last shot ended in victory at Sunday’s PGA Championship in Oak Hill, until August 20, when the Ryder Cup scoring process is over, there should be nothing left to debate.
Koepka must be on the 2023 US Ryder Cup team.
Period.
If Americans are serious about winning the Ryder Cup on European soil for the first time since 1993 in Belfry, England, Koepka should be certainly one of the 12 players on Captain Zach Johnson’s team – whether he’s golfing on the PGA Tour, at LIV Golf or in the Thursday night bar league.
Never mind LIV nonsense. Those that query whether Koepka is certainly one of America’s top 12 players must query their knowledge of golf… or their eyesight.
This biennial competition pits American players against European players. Europeans have been dining with Americans for 30 years. A koepka on the American team gives you a greater probability of bringing the trophy home than if it wasn’t on the team.
There’s nothing complicated about it.
Nevertheless, the situation is understandably complicated.
The PGA Tour, which is strongly supported by the PGA of America (the governing body of the US Ryder Cup and PGA Championship team), has banned players from playing LIV Golf.
As such, these players are ineligible for accumulating Ryder Cup points…unless they’re playing in certainly one of the 4 major championships.
Koepka made life difficult for individuals who don’t need LIV players on the Ryder Cup team by ending second in the Masters and winning the PGA. second place on the list.
Koepka also has the US Open in Los Angeles next month and July’s British Open in Hoylake, England to solidify his spot on the points table, with a top six in points routinely earning a spot on the team and the captain making the last six picks as wildcards .
The underside line, nonetheless, is that Koepka, even when he falters in the next two majors and drops out of the top six, should be certainly one of the captain types.
Conversations with Johnson this week about the LIV players and the Ryder Cup have bordered on comical, with the US captain spinning around the subject as if he were swerving his automotive around a deer that had pounced in front of his automotive on a dark highway.
Certainly one of the issues being discussed is that LIV Golf is suing the PGA Tour, so there’s a lawsuit and LIV is paying Koepka a variety of money.
One other issue is whether or not Johnson believes having LIV players on his team – like Koepka and Dustin Johnson (two who’re in form and in the prime of their careers) – will be a distraction for the American team.
That is complete nonsense for 2 reasons.
First, American gamers, most of whom not only get together with Koepka and DJ but are friends with them, would welcome them as a part of the team. This PGA Tour vs. LIV ferocity is less about the players than the tour leading suits.
These words, spoken by Scottie Scheffler on Sunday in Oak Hill, best reflect what American gamers take into consideration this topic:
“I would like to win the Ryder Cup [and] I’m not interested in tours or anything like that. We wish to beat these guys in Europe. It has been a protracted time since we defeated them [on the road]. Any of the top 12 guys that make up the complete team…we would like a team of fellows to go there together to bring the Cup back home and that is all I actually care about.
Secondly, had Johnson ignored Koepka (and maybe DJ) as captain types that should not be eligible for points, he would have been subject to way more negative attention and distraction if his team lost without them.
This topic opens up enough cans of maggots to provide a whole fly fishing tournament, and Johnson clearly doesn’t like that sort of fishing.
Like the Masters a month earlier, the PGA of America didn’t ban LIV players from playing in its championship last week since it recognizes that as a serious championship, its product is healthier if the best players in the world compete.
The Ryder Cup product is healthier when America’s best players compete against Europe’s best. Koepka is certainly one of the best players from America.
Must be on the team.