Zach Johnson Did His Best, but This Looks Like One of the Weakest U.S. Ryder Cup Teams Ever

Johnson favored those with big-game experience when completing his roster, writes John Hawkins, but most of the players on this U.S. roster are trending in the wrong direction, while Europe keeps looking stronger.

Zach Johnson was a premium overachiever in his competitive prime, a two-time major champion whose 12 PGA Tour victories attest to a grinder’s mentality and the value of hitting fairways. Short but straight off the tee, as good a bet as they get on the greens, Johnson didn’t overpower a golf course into submission. He lulled it to sleep with guts and guile.

All of those qualities will come in handy next month in Rome, where Johnson will pilot one of the weakest U.S. Ryder Cup teams ever against a European side that seems to get stronger by the minute. The Yanks haven’t claimed an overseas victory in 30 years, and on paper, this squad doesn’t appear likely to end that streak. Johnson did all he could to fortify his roster Tuesday morning by announcing his six captain’s picks—additions that clearly favored those with big-game experience and the past accomplishments associated with name-brand star power.

Did America’s skipper lean too hard on the marquee factor? Not really, given that Cam Young (ninth) and Keegan Bradley (11th) are the only players to finish among the top 12 in the U.S. standings who didn’t make the team. No shock in either case, nor is the omission of Lucas Glover (16th), whose recent back-to-back victories make him Uncle Sam’s flavor of the month. The longer you assess Johnson’s options, however, the easier it is to justify the picks he made.

It’s not that the cupboard was bare, but in baseball parlance, stocked with one can of corn after another.

We start with Justin Thomas, coming off his worst season ever. How does a guy who failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs—one top-five finish since February—earn an at-large selection? His two major titles certainly helped, though surely not as much as his 6-2-1 Ryder Cup record. Thomas has never lost a match in four-balls or singles. His partnership with Jordan Spieth has been a successful one, but Spieth is coming off a fairly mediocre year himself, barely making it to the Tour Championship and without a top 10 all summer.

“Obviously, [current] form is a part of the decision-making process,” Johnson said of Thomas’s inclusion. “So is fit for a golf course, fit for the team room, experience and, in this case, passion. You just don’t leave JT at home.”

So it’s not exactly science, but instinct stuffed into a bundle of yesteryear. That Johnson chose Thomas and Spieth says all you need to know about how little he valued recent performance. Then again, would you rather see Young and Denny McCarthy trying to steal a point on a never-seen golf course in front of 25,000 riled-up Italians? Sam Burns is another one—his T9 against a tiny field last week in Atlanta was his first top 10 since May. Yes, Burns won the WGC-Match Play in March, but more was expected after three victories in 2021-22 and a summer full of strong performances the year before.

Collin Morikawa? Again, what he’s done lately hasn’t gone greatly. After blowing a six-shot lead in the final round of the calendar-year opener at Kapalua, a guy who began his career making history spent much of this season in search of the left-to-right ball flight largely responsible for that early success. A playoff loss to Rickie Fowler in Detroit last month was the first legitimate sighting of Morikawa on a leaderboard in six and a half months. He promptly missed the cut at the British Open and failed to capitalize on a 61–64 start at East Lake, turning his 36-hole lead into a T6.

When you win two of the four majors on your first try, greatness becomes a burden, not a destination. Morikawa is still a very good player. Just not as often.

Speaking of which, Fowler’s career revival in 2023 turned him into America’s sweetheart all over again. That valiant effort at the U.S. Open, followed by his first victory since early ’19 in Detroit. Of Johnson’s six picks, Fowler probably makes the most sense. Almost all his Ryder Cup points were accrued over the past 10 months, when he missed just one cut in 18 starts and accumulated seven top 10s, a stretch that began last October with a T2 against a decent gathering in Japan.

The list of big names trending in the wrong direction is a lengthy one, however, and Fowler is on it. He hasn’t managed a top 15 since Detroit, which is somewhat meaningful in terms of conventional wisdom but no big deal to Johnson. Apparently, neither is his 3-7-5 career mark vs. the Europeans. Everybody loves Lil’ Rickie. Everybody but the Italians in late September.

America’s six automatic qualifiers have won a total of three majors, two of which were claimed this summer by a pair of guys nobody saw coming. Wyndham Clark is hugely talented but short of depth in terms of top-tier success—is he the Next Big Thing or a One-Hit Wonder? Brian Harman is basically Zach Johnson standing on the other side of the ball. Great putter, dogged and determined, but there’s no ignoring all those years he spent in the PGA Tour’s middle class.

Enter Brooks Koepka. Five major titles, the latest at the PGA in May. His collection of big trophies means Johnson’s six picks have a total of 12 major triumphs overall. That in itself makes it easy to understand what the U.S. skipper was thinking. Road game? Haven’t won Over There in forever? We need some horses, even if they don’t gallop as swiftly as they once did.

“He basically earned his way onto the team,” Johnson said of Koepka. “Pretty easy pick. A very natural fit.”

Say what? The dude annoyed almost everyone who got near him—and there weren’t many—in his prior life on the PGA Tour. He defects to LIV Golf, rediscovers the form that made him such a monster to begin with, and now Koepka is a natural fit? Like every U.S. Ryder Cup captain before him, Johnson will say whatever it takes to turn his ball club into one big, happy family. Koepka barely missed the top six despite very limited action against the guys he used to beat when it mattered most, but his league hopping is a distraction. However large, however small.

If Johnson had snubbed him, however, he would have compromised the strength of his squad to make a very loud political statement, which is 180 degrees from what this biennial tussle with the Euros is all about. Without Koepka, America’s chances in Rome would have been slim. With him? Uncle Sam could stand to gain another 20 pounds.