What are the captain's picks? And how are captain's picks selected? Here's what you need to know.
What is a captain's pick for Ryder Cup? What to know about wild card selections for U.S.-Europe team competition originally appeared on The Sporting News
Every two years, the Ryder Cup presents the best team event in golf, as Team USA and Team Europe battle it out for bragging rights.
Each team's captain has a huge responsibility leading his team, and that has only grown with the expansion of the captain's picks. While the rosters used to simply be the best-ranked players on each side, captains are now eligible to shape rosters as they see fit with wild-card selections.
So, what are the captain's picks? And how are captain's picks selected? Here's what you need to know.
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What is a captain's pick for Ryder Cup?
When choosing their Ryder Cup teams, each captain will get to personally choose six players on their team to join the six players who automatically qualify.
Team USA and Team Europe have points standings for the Ryder Cup, although each side calculates its system differently. The top six point-getters on each side will automatically clinch a spot in the Ryder Cup for their respective team.
Then, to fill out the rosters, both captains will choose six golfers who they feel will perform best. This allows players a chance to prove they deserve a spot if they aren't in the top six, and it gives captains the opportunity to assess other factors besides Ryder Cup points.
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When were captain's picks introduced to Ryder Cup?
For the first 50 years of the Ryder Cup, Team USA played Team Great Britain and Ireland to decide a winner. Then, in 1979, in a stretch when Team USA won the Ryder Cup in 13 straight events, Team Great Britain and Ireland expanded to Team Europe and added two wild-card picks to the team to try and increase competitiveness.
It wasn't until 1989 that Team USA added their own captain's picks to the tournament, as Team Europe finally won two straight Ryder Cups in the years prior. Aside from the one time when Team Europe had three, each side chose two captain's picks until 2008 when Team USA expanded to four. Both sides would choose either three or four captain's picks in the 2010s until 2021, when Team USA expanded to six, and 2023, when Team Europe followed suit.
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How does the captain decide who to pick?
The classic debate in the Ryder Cup is how to decide who should make the team. Typically, the decision comes down to players with Ryder Cup experience vs. more inexperienced players who are having strong seasons.
Experience vs. form debate
While it's fair to say that the best golfers each year should play in the Ryder Cup, the event itself is different than all other tournaments. Ryder Cups feature multiple match play formats, including four-ball and foursomes, which sees two players team up as a pair for each team.
Therefore, captains may lean on players with Ryder Cup experience who know how to play in these particular formats. Add in the crowd and home vs. road element, and experience plays a part here in a way that isn't usually the case in golf.
On the other hand, it can be hard to leave a "hot hand" off the roster if they are playing well. Even experienced Ryder Cup players have down years, so it's important for captains to balance experience with recent success.
In 2025, Team USA's standings lock on Aug. 17, while Team Europe's standings lock on Aug. 24.
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Timeline for announcing captain's picks
Team USA and Team Europe use different timelines to decide their rosters.
For Team USA, the Ryder Cup standings lock in after the BMW Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, completes. That means that the captain will choose his captain's picks within the next week.
On the other side, Team Europe gets an extra week as they don't lock their standings until after the British Masters, which usually takes place a week later. Once the standings are locked, the captain makes his wild card selections
Most successful Ryder Cup captain's picks
Raymond Floyd, 1993
After getting chosen as a captain's pick in 1991, the 51-year-old Floyd proved to be a key member of the 1993 team, going 3-1 for captain Tom Watson. Floyd's best moment was on Sunday when he beat Jose Maria Olazabal to clinch the cup for Team USA, the last time that the Americans won a road Ryder Cup.
Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood, 2006
In the final of Europe's three-straight victories, Ian Woosnam perfectly used his captain's picks on the veteran Clarke and the youngster Westwood. The pair combined to go 6-0-2 with seven total points, which included two wins while being paired together, as Europe won the event by nine points.
J.B Holmes/Hunter Mahan/Chad Campbell, 2008
After three straight losses, Team USA expanded its captain's picks to four in 2008 under captain Paul Azinger. That proved to be a wise choice, as three of Azinger's selections were crucial to America winning back the cup.
With Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville hosting, Kentucky native J.B. Holmes brought hometown energy with a 2-0-1 record. Mahan's 3.5 points led Team USA that week as well, while Campbell had a respectable 2-1 record himself.
Ian Poulter, 2012
Poulter is one of the best Ryder Cup performers ever, feeding off the energy of the event well. He's been a captain's pick five times, the most of any golfer as a wild card, and has won 12 points in this event as a wild card.
His best performance was perhaps in 2012 when Team Europe pulled off a stunning comeback to win on the road at Medinah. Poulter went 4-0 during the week, the only golfer on either side to reach four points, and he beat Webb Simpson early on Sunday to help erase Team Europe's four-point deficit and win the event 14.5-13.5.
Between 2008 and 2012, his first two Ryder Cups as a captain's pick, Poulter went 8-1.
Sergio Garcia, 2002/2018/2021
Sergio Garcia has always performed well as a captain's pick, going 9-4 in Ryder Cups when he was a wild-card selection. that began in 2002, as Garcia won three points in his second Ryder Cup, then continued in 2018 and 2021, when Garcia went 3-1 each tournament as a veteran.
Additionally, in 2018, he became the all-time leading scorer in Ryder Cup history.
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Biggest Ryder Cup captain's picks busts
Curtis Strange, 1995
Strange was the first true bust of the captain's pick era, as he was a surprise selection when Lenny Wadkins chose him with one of his two selections. Strange struggled to prove Wadkins right, as he went 0-3 during the tournament and blew a lead to Nick Faldo in their singles match as Team Europe won 14.5-13.5 on American soil.
Steve Stricker/Jim Furyk/Brandt Snedeker, 2012
The "Miracle at Medinah" was a disaster for Team USA, blowing a 10-6 lead on Sunday to lose at home. At the center of the collapse was Davis Love II's captain's picks, as three of the four struggled mightily.
While Dustin Johnson was arguably the team's best player as a wild card that year, Stricker went 0-4 as the only American who failed to win a point and lost the second-to-last match with the tournament tied. Furyk and Snedeker went 1-2 each and also lost their singles matches to contribute to the collapse.
Martin Kaymer/Lee Westwood, 2016
After three straight victories, Team Europe had a down Ryder Cup in 2016 as Team USA reclaimed the cup by six points. Europe had four players produce zero points and six with one point or less, which includes Kaymer and Westwood, who combined for a 1-6 tournament.
To captain Darren Clarke's credit, he also selected Thomas Pieters, who went a masterful 4-1 during the week, the best performance of any European player.
Bryson DeChambeau/Phil Mickelson/Tiger Woods, 2018
It's hard to imagine Woods, Mickelson, and DeChambeau as bad captain's picks, but that was the case in 2018 when Team Europe trounced Team USA 17.5-10.5. The three golf stars went a combined 0-9, which included DeChambeau unsuccessfully teaming with both Mickelson and Woods in the tournament, and were the only three players not to get even half a point.
Surprisingly, the only one of Jim Furyk's captain's pick that played well in 2018 was Tony Finau, who went 2-1 despite being the last pick on the team.
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