Betting on the Ryder Cup: What is it? How does it work?

The teams have been named and we are headed to Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in Rome, Italy for the 2023 Ryder Cup.

What is it? How does it work?

For those of you who don’t know, the Ryder cup is arguably the most fun tournament in golf. Team USA takes on Team Europe in a head to head show down for all the glory. The tournament takes place over the course of 3 days with a few different styles of play. On the first two days of the tournament they play what is called Four-Ball match ups and Foursome matchups. Four-ball means teams of two face off against each other with each player playing their own ball, whichever teams player shoots the lowest score on the hole earns a point and if they tie the hole then each team earns half a point. In Foursomes each team of two plays only one ball and has to take turns alternating shots, so one player tees off and their teammate hits the next shot until the hole is finished with the lowest score on each hole earning points. The last day of the tournament is straight up 1 vs 1 singles matchplay. Each match is worth 1 point and the first team to secure 14.5 points will win the Ryder Cup. If the tournament ends in a 14-14 tie then the Ryder Cup remains with the previous winner which is Team USA who CRUSHED Team Europe 19-9 in 2021. Team USA leads the overall record at 27-14 but Team Europe has been closing the gap winning 7 of the past 10 tournaments since 2002.

How are teams selected? Who’s playing this year?

Each team has 12 players on it: 6 players qualify automatically and 6 players selected by the captains. The captains this year are Zach Johnson for Team USA and Luke Donald for Team Europe, whose picks we will get to in a moment. The top 6 Americans in the points rankings automatically qualify for the Ryder Cup team which were Scottie Scheffler (1), Wyndham Clark (2), Brian Harman (3), Patrick Cantlay (4), Max Homa (5) and Xander Schauffele (6). In order to automatically qualify for Team Europe you either had to be top 3 in the European points list or top 3 in the World points list which gave this years spots to Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick and Robert MacIntyre. As I mentioned before the last 6 players for each team are selected by the captains and this is where things can get interesting. For Team USA the captains selections were Sam Burns (12), Rickie Fowler (13), Brooks Koepka (7), Collin Morikawa (10), Jordan Spieth (8) and Justin Thomas (15). While it’s almost impossible for a captain not to get criticized for their picks this year seemed to stir up a lot more drama particularly around Justin Thomas. Thomas had a rough year overall and most people didn’t think he should even be considered for the team after finishing 71st in the FedEx Cup standings which kept him from even making it into the playoffs. There were probably four big names you could argue deserved a spot over JT, (Cam Young (9), Keegan Bradley (11) Denny McCarthy (14) and Lucas Glover (15)). Three of them were ahead of JT on the points list that were left behind, and Glover earned almost all of his points in the last 2 months of the season with back to back tournament wins, one of which was a playoff event, so you could argue take the guy who is hot right now over the one who struggled all season. Although JT did just play well at the Fortinet Championship so maybe there is some hope for him after all. For Team Europe the captains picks were Tommy Fleetwood, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Nicolai Højgaard, and Ludvig Aberg. Captain Luke Donald opted to take two young prospects in Højgaard and Aberg as well as the veteran Shane Lowry who had a disappointing season like JT making a lot of fans question how Adrian Meronk was left off for these three. Personally, I think Aberg was a great pick, I have no doubt in my mind that he will be one of the guys to watch for next year on tour but I have a hard time justifying Lowry or Højgaard over Meronk who won the Italian Open and was runner up at the 2021 Marco Simone which were both at the same course that is hosting this years Ryder Cup.

Regardless of what you think of the captains picks the teams are set and the tournament kicks off on Friday, Sep 29th. Team USA will be looking to win back-to-back Ryder Cups and claim a first victory on European soil since 1993. Looking forward to see what kind of lines we will get for this event, one I already have my eyes on are the outright spread betting, USA -4 (+310) Europe -4 (+490). This prop has cashed for one of the teams the past four events and seven out of the past nine.