A quirk in Team Europe's Ryder Cup selection process means that Irishman Shane Lowry is likely to need one of Luke Donald's six captain's picks to make the team.
The cutoff to determine Europe's six automatic qualifying spots is this weekend, and Lowry is in sixth, less than four points behind Tyrrell Hatton of England. The top five are mathematical locks, but Lowry and No 7 Sepp Straka of Austria are expected to be passed by eighth-place Rasmus Hojgaard of Denmark.
That's because Lowry and Straka cannot earn points at the Tour Championship, while Hojgaard – who did not qualify for the Tour Championship after playing a partial PGA Tour schedule this year – is in the field at the British Masters on the DP World Tour, where he's able to earn points.
Hojgaard is tied for 14th halfway through that tournament and is all but certain to leapfrog Lowry, whom he trails by less than 14 points.
It's a change in the system brought on by Englishman Donald, the returning captain from Europe's victorious 2023 team. There used to be separate "World" and "European" points lists to account for where European players competed, but Donald streamlined it to one list.
The Tour Championship does not offer qualifying points to American players, as their six auto-qualifiers were locked in last Sunday. It doesn't offer points to Europeans, either, something Lowry only recently learned.
"Yeah, I only found out about that Monday. I thought I was guaranteed getting points this week," Lowry said. "I thought I was going to be pretty much guaranteed on the team.
"Yeah, I was somewhat disappointed to hear that. But the rules were made at the start for qualifying, and that was it."
RYDER CUP VETERAN
Lowry understood that Hatton was primed to pass him on points "and I'm going to need a pick next week, so hopefully I get a nice phone call off Luke."
That phone call is essentially a given. Lowry is a veteran of the past two European teams, he's in strong enough form on the course and there's little reason for Donald to get creative with his captain's picks after finding a winning formula in Rome.
"Obviously, the chat is what the team is going to be like, who's going to get picked, who's not," Lowry said. "This is with the guys in the locker room, obviously nothing to do with Luke or anyone. But yeah, I'd be fairly focused on it, that I want my game to build into it well."
Lowry plans to play the Irish Open and the BMW PGA Championship in England in the leadup to the Ryder Cup.
He's certainly making progress in that direction, as he fired a bogey-free, 7-under 63 in the second round of the Tour Championship that featured a back-nine 29 and a 97 1/2-foot birdie putt at No 14. Lowry will enter the weekend tied for seventh, six shots behind leaders Russell Henley and Englishman Tommy Fleetwood.
Still, Lowry didn't seem to want to jinx anything when speaking to reporters after the round. Cutting off a question about what the atmosphere at Bethpage Black might be like next month, Lowry said, "Yeah, let's not talk about it too much."