LIV Golf's Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson Want to Play the Ryder Cup, But It's Zach Johnson's Call

The LIV Golf stars have virtually no chance to earn automatic spots, so they'll be at the mercy of a U.S. captain who appears to have little interest in LIV.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Does Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka have a prayer of making the 2023 U.S. Ryder Cup team?

That may be one of the more interesting questions of the season as we are on the eve of the second major, the 105th PGA Championship.

With a 5-0 record at the 2020 Ryder Cup in Wisconsin that contributed to the 19-9 beatdown of the Europeans, Johnson put himself in rare company with only four players on either side of the Atlantic (Gardner Dickinson, Francesco Molinari, Larry Nelson and Arnold Palmer) as five-point winners in a single match.

Which makes you wonder how Johnson wouldn’t be a positive addition to a U.S. team in Rome.

“Yes, I would definitely like to play in the Ryder Cup, it's one of my favorite events to play in, especially after the last Ryder Cup,” Johnson said Wednesday at Oak Hill Country Club. “Obviously had a pretty good week. And, yeah, it's just an awesome event; and yeah, I'd love to be a part of it.”

But Johnson, like Koepka, knows that making the U.S. team is probably going to require one of the six captain's picks since playing their way on to the team will require earning more points than either player could probably garner through the four majors.

And since LIV players don’t earn world ranking points or Ryder Cup points in LIV events, a strong performance this week is not just important but imperative if they want to play in Rome.

But how do you judge the value of Johnson or Koepka beyond the four majors, or how well are they playing via their performance on a different tour, a tour that Captain Johnson has little familiarity with?

“Really difficult for me to judge that,” Zach Johnson said. “Again, I don't know the golf courses they're playing. Never seen them. I'm not there on foot in person.”

Translation: Johnson has little interest in learning about those players on LIV and admitted that he doesn’t go to events that are not on the PGA Tour or majors.

Not seeing a player in person makes it difficult to judge their game or their value to a team, which Captain Johnson has indicated is important.

“I want camaraderie and chemistry in the team room,” he said. “I want ownership by the team. I think it probably holds more true over there than over here. I want horses for courses. I want guys that can navigate Marco Simone in September.”

Both Koepka and Johnson have indicated they both want to play in Rome in September.

“If you go second, first, first, first (in the four majors), it would be kind of tough not to pick, right?” Koepka said by asking a question. “If you go handle business, I feel like I should be fine. But it's not up to me. It's up to Zach and what goes on.”

It was always clear that Captain Zach Johnson is the key.

“It's tough to be in Zach's mind or where he is at, but I would love to make it hard on him,” Koepka said. “I think that would be cool. The only thing I can do is go play good. If I play good, everything takes care of itself.”

But does it? If Koepka or Johnson play good, will it matter?

While he publicly talks a good game regarding players he calls his friends, Captain Johnson’s actions of not planning to attend a LIV event to scout potential picks reveals his interest is limited at best.

Johnson deserves the benefit of the doubt that he will give all LIV players a fair shake, but having limited knowledge about their games, their tour or their competition makes selecting any LIV player difficult.

“You're talking about an individual whose resume is extremely deep and wide,” Zach Johnson said of Dustin Johnson. “He's certainly in my generation one of the best players I've ever competed against, but it's not fair for me to guess his true form or anybody's true form that I can't witness.”