After ACC and others throw support behind 24-team CFP, the ball is now in the SEC's court
The ACC and others back a 24-team CFP, awaiting SEC's decision.
U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk plans to revamp the player qualifying process ahead of the 46th Ryder Cup in 2025. He aims to address the impact of financial changes in golf on player selection.
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NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. â The 46th Ryder Cup is 16 months away but one of the first orders of business for U.S. captain Jim Furyk is devising a new plan for determining the 12 players who will compete against Europe at Adare Manor in Ireland next September.
Furyk only recently was chosen to lead the U.S. team again after serving as captain in 2018 in Paris. On Wednesday at the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, the former U.S. Open champion noted that changes almost certainly will be made to the player qualifying process.
âEverything's working off money. The purses are so out of whack,â Furyk said. âYou know, when just the role of [money] in golf and the tour has changed so much the landscape in the last five years, and so we really need to take a look at kind of a fair assessment of how to identify some simulations.â
Paul Azinger changed the qualifying system in 2008 to award points based on earnings and abandoning the outdated structure in which points were accumulated for top-10 finishes. He also expanded wildcard picks from two to four players after Jack Nicklaus lobbied to add captains picks for the 1989 edition following the Americansâ first home loss in 1987 at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Nicklausâ team was made up of the top 10 in points (via top-10 finishes) and winners of the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.
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Azingerâs logic was simple when he altered the process, arguing that âonly two things make guys chokeâmoney and prestige.â Therefore, his automatic qualifiers had been playing well under pressure.â
Money is now a poor barometer for assessing clutch play. There is so much money in golfâ71 players already have surpassed $1 million this year on the PGA Tourâand there is such a considerable disparity in purses among majors, signature events and other tournaments that a straight cash-to-points scheme seems, well, pointless.
In the past several Ryder Cup cycles, the majors from off years counted in team standings. That might still be the case, even though two of the yearâs four majors will be completed by the end of this weekend. âI don't think there's any issue with a retroactive [system] because there's already been a precedent set. We already done that in the past,â he said.
Furyk didnât say how the points could be recalculated, again expressing his intent to have numbers crunched and simulations conducted. He added that he would retain six captains picks, which has been the number since the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Jim Furyk is proposing to revise the player qualifying process to better reflect the financial landscape of golf, moving away from outdated point systems.
The 46th Ryder Cup is scheduled for September 2025 at Adare Manor in Ireland.
In 2008, Paul Azinger changed the qualifying system to award points based on earnings instead of just top-10 finishes, and increased wildcard picks from two to four.
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