The U.S. Ryder Cup Team's LIV Golf Conundrum: Assistant Captain Davis Love III Offers an Inside Perspective

The two-time Ryder Cup captain dished on Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson—and even Tiger Woods—as the U.S. team attempts to end a generational drought.

Davis Love III is as eager as anyone to go to the 2023 Ryder Cup—and he knows who he expects to see there, and who he doesn’t.

“Brooks Koepka adds something to the team,” Love recently said to Sports Illustrated. “I don’t think there’s anybody else out there—outside of the PGA Tour—that players would have that confidence in like they would in Brooks.”

A two-time captain and six-time team member, Love will serve as one of Zach Johnson’s five assistant captains at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome. In advance of the Sept. 29-Oct. 1 matches, Love talked to SI about preparing for the event, which LIV golfers could be on the team and the fervent warnings he gave to specific players, prior to their exodus, about losing Ryder Cup status.

Davis Love III is one of U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson's closest confidantes :: Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports

Love doesn’t speak for the 2023 U.S. team captain, but he’s one of Johnson’s closest confidantes. This year, advisors like Love will be especially valuable, as the process leading up to the event will be more complicated than ever.

LIV’s shadow over the 2023 Ryder Cup is a conundrum. On June 6, news broke of the "framework agreement" between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s backer, the Saudi Public Investment Fund. But since the alliance isn’t finalized, it doesn’t change how the upcoming Ryder Cup will operate.

“We tried to tell these guys before they went to LIV. ‘Do you understand what could happen?’” Love says of LIV players losing the ability to compete in the Ryder Cup.

The important detail to note is that LIV golfers actually can play in the 2023 Ryder Cup, at least on the U.S. side. There’s a loophole in the U.S. team’s system.

The U.S. team is not run by the PGA Tour, but rather, the PGA of America. Being suspended from the PGA Tour does not result in immediately losing PGA of America membership. The rules allow for a one-year grace period for LIV Golf members (who paid their PGA of America dues in 2023). On the European side, however, LIV golfers such as Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, and Paul Casey—who might have been considered—won’t be eligible for the event. That’s because they have all resigned their DP World Tour membership, and the DP World Tour runs the European Ryder Cup team.

American LIV golfers, on the other hand, will be members of the PGA of America—the organization that runs their team—through June 2024.

Therefore captain Zach Johnson will likely have Koepka, the 2023 PGA champion, on his squad in Rome.

The top six players in the U.S. Ryder Cup rankings are automatically on the team following the BMW Championship on Aug. 20. Koepka is currently No. 4 but with the major season over, he’s unable to earn more points. LIV events don’t count towards the U.S. Ryder Cup team standings, but the major championships—which LIV players are still eligible for—do. After Koepka, the highest-ranked LIV golfer is Dustin Johnson, who stands at No. 37.

“For two weeks Brooks showed us 'Brooks Koepka.' But for the rest of the year, you don’t know how to judge what he’s doing,” Love says. “And current form—how do you judge from all the way back at the PGA until now? How do you judge how he’s doing? But it’s Brooks Koepka. And he rises to the occasion.”

Brooks Koepka rose to the occasion as a rookie in 2016 at Hazeltine, going 3-1-0 in four matches for captain Davis Love III (in background) :: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

When it comes to Koepka, though, Love still seems to be grappling with the complication that his standing isn’t exactly based on his “current form.” Koepka clearly showed solid form at the Masters (where he tied for second), the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open (where he tied for 10th). At last month’s British Open, however, he struggled, posting a T64.

Put those conversations aside and Love is confident in one thing—if the team believes in Koepka, the captains will, too. Koepka’s Ryder Cup record is 6-5-1 and he played significant roles in the U.S. team’s success in 2016 and 2021.

“At Hazeltine in 2016, we got rounded out by Ryan Moore, who nobody even considered, even though he was playing great. Bubba Watson hit it a long way, and Steve Stricker was playing great, but Ryan Moore rounded our team out and the guys had a lot of confidence in him because he was putting so well,” Love says. “The team knows who’s right. I think they know that Brooks is a force. And we want to win.”

The remaining six at-large picks for the 12-man U.S. team will be selected by captain Johnson, with input from his assistants and players. But the odds of a spot going to a LIV player appear to be slim. Johnson hinted at the PGA Championship that he won’t be taking LIV’s shotgun-start 54-hole events into much consideration when it comes to rounding out his team.

With captain’s picks in mind, another player who inevitably makes his way into the conversation is Dustin Johnson. The two-time major champion can easily be declared one of the U.S. team’s most popular and valuable players in recent years. Johnson made history by going 5-0-0 in his matches at Whistling Straits and was immediately heralded as the glue of the winning squad.

“I would say if Dustin’s healthy, and we see some scores—Dustin’s still one of the best players in the world,” Love says. “It’s going to come down to the team, really. Whether Max Homa is 10th or 11th in points, or it’s Dustin Johnson, the team is going to know who is playing well and who they have confidence in.”

Love couldn’t be more confident in Johnson’s abilities, and his presence in the team room would likely be missed. But for now, there is still more to be considered. Aside from a T10 finish at the U.S. Open, Johnson hasn’t shown strong form in the majors and that’s reflected in his ranking 37th in the U.S. team standings.

“Dustin, he left Whistling Straits as Mr. Ryder Cup. He was the star,” Love says. “I said, ‘Dustin you have done everything we have ever asked you. You’re the best teammate.’ If I had to rank all of my teammates, Dustin Johnson did everything we ever asked him to do. If he played one match Friday, one match Saturday, one match Sunday, he won three points. At Whistling Straits, we promised him he’d play four matches. He played five, and what did he do? He got us five points. He had no issues if he sat out. He’s the ultimate team player. I said to Dustin, ‘I can’t imagine a Ryder Cup team without you on it, and you’re going to be Ryder Cup captain one day. Do you understand?’

Davis Love III and Dustin Johnson were all smiles after winning in 2016 at Hazeltine :: Keyur Khamar/PGA Tour/Getty Images

“Hopefully, in a few years, maybe that changes. But it didn’t change for the Presidents Cup last year and it’s not changing for the Ryder Cup except for Brooks. The European team is just decimated of captains. Yeah, we told [LIV players] that, and it’s going to be very strange.”

“Strange” is a proper word for the situation.

Love then mentions another player who might be the only other LIV member who could piece together a case for a spot on the team: Talor Gooch, a three-time individual champion on LIV this season. Gooch also became the center of a golf Twitter firestorm when he compared the atmosphere at last year’s LIV event in Portland to the Ryder Cup.

“I can’t imagine there’s a hell of a lot of difference,” Gooch said.

Gooch hasn’t played in either the Presidents Cup or the Ryder Cup and has since walked back the comments.

“Talor Gooch, I flat out told him, I said ‘look, I know what you’re hearing, but if you hit that first drive at [LIV’s London event], you’re not playing on the Presidents Cup team and you’re not going to be defending champion at the RSM Classic,” Love says.

“I said to him, ‘I’m being selfish, Talor, I want you on my team, and I want you to play the RSM in November.”

Gooch might have been a 2022 Presidents Cup candidate, but he hasn’t exactly been part of the Ryder Cup conversation. Gooch missed the cut at both the PGA and the British Open and finished T34 at the Masters. He didn’t make the U.S. Open field.

Meanwhile, Zach Johnson seems to be leaving the door open for Justin Thomas to be selected as a captain’s pick. Thomas boasts an impressive 6-2-1 record, but he has missed three out of four cuts at the majors this year, and without a strong performance at this week’s Wyndham Championship, he might not make the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs.

Johnson spoke on Thomas’s struggles at the British Open: “Guys with talent like that work and aren’t afraid to put their work in the dirt, if you will, not to be cliche, typically find it. It’s just a matter of when, not if. He’s too darned good.”

Now that the event is just two months away, Love is diving into his assistant captain duties, looking to help finally end a generational winless drought overseas. Love played in the 1993 Ryder Cup at The Belfry, which marked the last time the U.S. team has won on European soil.

He’s busy monitoring the PGA Tour action, texting locked-in players about upcoming logistics and plotting away with U.S. team legends. That includes communicating with Tiger Woods, who has no official role in the event, but will have a significant impact on the team—even if he won’t be in Italy.

“We rely on Tiger. We were hoping that he could come. And then with the big surgery he had, and plus it’s so hilly, it didn’t work out for him to come this year,” Love says. “But he’ll be involved. We get on Zooms and conference calls. He’s really good at the picks and the pairings. His role is coming.”

As Love’s pre-Ryder Cup musings continue to pour out one after another, so does a name that has defined the recent U.S. Ryder Cup history: Phil Mickelson. Like Woods, Mickelson won’t be in Rome, but he won’t be involved in this year’s Cup at all.

Mickelson, a six-time major champion, has been selected to the U.S. Ryder Cup team a record number of 12 times. He’s played the most matches out of anyone in the event’s history, and in 2021, he served as an assistant captain to Steve Stricker at Whistling Straits.

The 53-year-old has been a part of the Ryder Cup every year since 1995. In 2023, that impeccable run will come to an end. Mickelson isn’t just a Ryder Cup icon anymore—he’s a Ryder Cup icon who went to LIV.

“You tell Phil, you’re taking a chance that you never get to go on a Ryder Cup team trip again,” Love says. “You left Kiawah a world golf hero, no one had ever been on a high like that, at 50 years old.”

In 2021, at No. 115 in the world, Mickelson took home his sixth major title at the PGA Championship, becoming the oldest player to win a major championship. A year later, he was a no-show to defend that momentous win in the midst of his extended absence from the game, which was triggered by his own controversial LIV-related comments. Just a few months later, he signed with the Saudi-backed tour.

“Phil would have been, I assume, an assistant [in 2023]. And down the road, a captain,” Love says.

Phil Mickelson was an assistant Ryder Cup captain in 2021 along with Fred Couples, Davis Love III, Zach Johnson and Jim Furyk, and certainly in line for a future captaincy :: Darren Carroll/PGA of America/Getty Images

But ultimately, Mickelson—who had long been penciled in as the 2025 captain at Bethpage Black—made a decision to risk his future standing with the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Apparently, it’s one that he’s at peace with.

“I’ve had a lot of great experiences with the Ryder Cup,” Mickelson said during an eerie media scrum after this year’s PGA Championship. “I’ve been involved in 13. Played in 12, vice-captain at Whistling Straits. I’ve had a lot of great experiences. Stories. Memories. I’ve had more than my share. So I’m fine with other people having those other opportunities as well."

Love’s comments provide ample insight into how U.S. team leaders are contemplating the inner workings of the LIV Golf dilemma—and evidently, they’re approaching the complications with passion. But the decision isn’t up to the 21-time PGA Tour winner or any of the other four assistants.

Johnson was elected captain for a reason, and there’s only one thing to do before the standings are finalized and he makes his highly anticipated selections. Wait.

European Ryder Cup Team Update

The European team is its own animal: Henrik Stenson was stripped of his European team captaincy when he joined LIV back in July 2022, and despite recent developments, several other veteran Ryder Cup competitors won’t be able to take part in the event either.

Players must be members of the DP World Tour to play on the European team, and Ryder Cup legends such as Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey resigned their membership with the DP World Tour after LIV-related sanctions were imposed.

Keith Pelley, the CEO of the DP World Tour, said players may seek reinstatement, but it would take “exceptional circumstances” and quite some time for it to take effect. And apparently, those individuals might not care to come back anyway: None of the aforementioned LIV golfers have notified Pelley of their desire to return.