American players signed to LIV Golf will be available for selection for the 2025 US Ryder Cup team, the PGA of America has announced.
“To ensure the PGA Championship will continue to deliver the strongest field in golf and the US Ryder Cup team will continue to have access to the best American players, the PGA of America board has determined that LIV Golf players will be eligible for both,” the organisation said in a statement posted to social media.
“Going forward, all LIV Golf players are eligible for the PGA Championship and any American player who qualifies for the Ryder Cup on points or is added to the US team as a captain’s pick is eligible to compete,” the PGA of America said. “This is consistent with LIV Golf players competing in the PGA Championship the past two years.“
One of those players, Brooks Koepka, was on the 2023 US Ryder Cup team due to a grace period that allowed him to temporarily retain his PGA of America membership despite signing on with LIV.
Another LIV stalwart, Bryson DeChambeau, winner of the 2024 US Open, is sitting in third place on the 2025 Ryder Cup points list, good enough to make him an automatic qualifier for the matches in New York next September.
LIV Golf members from Europe must play in four DP World Tour events in a single season as a baseline eligibility for their Ryder Cup team.
Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, both members of the Ryder Cup winning team from Rome, appealed the fines imposed on them – but currently not paid – by the European Tour Group for playing in LIV Golf events that clash with DP World Tour events.
Should Rahm and Hatton lose their appeals – as is highly likely, based on precedent – they could be ruled out of Ryder Cup contention. An obvious way around that is to delay the formalities of the challenge until after the US host Europe at Bethpage.
Guy Kinnings, the chief executive of the European Tour Group, has conceded that the appeals process may not be concluded before the event, although he appears hopeful a deal to unite the top professional golf tours can be formalised before then, which in theory would negate the case Rahm and Hatton have against his organisation.
“The lawyers involved will dictate the legal process as to when it gets done,” Kinnings said. “There’s no fixed, set formula to that, and so we’ll just wait and see how long it takes to reach that appeal process. In the interim, the most important thing that we are also doing is continuing to have the ongoing discussions about the future and those may or may not have some impact in that process.
