The points system for qualifying for the U.S. Ryder Cup team will be overhauled for the 46th biennial competition against Team Europe at Adare Manor in Ireland. Expect a greater emphasis on the 2027 season.
“It’s going to be a big change,” U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk told Golfweek.
He declined to get into specifics but said that an announcement would be forthcoming after the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
“It’s going to be the right way to identify the best six players in September 2027,” he said of the automatic qualifers. He will later make his six captain's picks to round out the team of 12.
Following his introductory press conference as U.S. Captain at the PGA Championship in May, Furyk addressed the need for change to the qualification system due to the increasing difference in prize money between PGA Tour signature events with purses of upwards of $20 million and full-field events that are typically half that amount.
“We realize we have a problem. Right now everything is working off of money. Purses are so out whack,” he said in May to a small scrum of reporters. “The landscape has changed so much in the last five years. We need to come up with a fair assessment of how to identify those six players. I think we are going to end up with a point system of some sort.”
When Furyk was reminded that majors in the non-Ryder Cup years have counted in the past, he said there should be no issue with awarding points retroactively for this season’s majors. But Furyk told Golfweek that the new system will be designed to prevent the scenario where he qualified for the 2011 U.S. Presidents Cup team based primarily on his successes in 2010 when he won the FedEx Cup and was named 2010 Player of the Year. He called the 2011 season one of the worst of his career but he still qualified for the team (at No. 10 back when the top 10 automatically qualified rather than top six). The flip side of that? He went 5-0 in competition that year, so, go figure.
Still, Furyk made clear that the new point system to be implemented for '27 will be geared to making sure that, say, Wyndham Clark isn’t given too much credit for his U.S. Open win in June because 15 months later he could be out of form.
The 2027 Ryder Cup will be held in Ireland from Sept. 17-19. The U.S. hasn't won on foreign soil since 1993.
Here’s a closer look at how player’s qualified for the top six for the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage.
U.S. players earned Ryder Cup points at select 2024 events and most 2025 Tour events through the Aug. 17 conclusion of the BMW Championship, the second FedEx Cup Playoffs event, with the top six eligible players on the points list securing spots on the U.S. Team. Points distribution for the U.S. Team was as follows:
2024
- 1 point per $1,000 earned at the Players Championship and the four major championships: Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open.
2025
- 1 point per $1,000 earned at non-major PGA Tour events (excluding opposite-field events) from Jan. 1 through the BMW Championship.
- 1.5 points per $1,000 earned at major championships (Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, British Open)
- No points awarded at opposite-field events
Adam Schupak is a Golfweek senior writer covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: U.S. Ryder Cup team to overhaul qualification rules before 2027 at Adare Manor