With the 2023 Ryder Cup now just 3 months away, our main forecast remains similar to how it started the year: 59% USA wins, 33% Europe wins, and 8% Tie. If recent history is any indication, these numbers might mean very little; a more interesting exercise is predicting who will represent each side.

At our Ryder Cup hub we’ve published a detailed history of every match since 1979. One of the main takeaways from this history is just how much turnover there is from one Cup to the next: the American team has never had fewer than 4 new players on a team, while the European side has never had fewer than 3. Their respective turnover averages are 6.1 and 5.2! It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that future teams will closely resemble current ones, but history tells us that’s rarely the case.

For this year’s Ryder Cup, team Europe has come into focus much more than team USA. There are 8 players who are probably locks for Europe: McIlroy, Rahm, Hovland, Hatton, Fleetwood, Fitzpatrick, Rose, and Lowry. Whether you use the OWGR, DG Ranking, or SG data over any recent time horizon, these 8 make the team. Our forecast—which only uses a player’s current skill and their Ryder Cup history—has the remaining 4 European spots being filled by Meronk, Aberg, Jaeger, and Rai. These positions could definitely change over the next few months, but right now we have those 4 as the favorites.

The likely American team seems to get more uncertain with each passing week. It wasn’t that long ago that Sam Burns won the WGC Match Play and seemed certain to be on the team; Keegan Bradley’s win a couple weeks ago launched his name into the conversation; JT’s recent slump has raised serious doubts about a 3rd Ryder Cup team. There are currently 20 players that our model gives at least a 20% chance of making the team. Among those 20 are 5 LIV golfers (who, apart from Koepka and Johnson, likely have a much lower chance than the data indicates) and 3 players who have never represented the USA in team competition (Clark, McCarthy, and Henley). Cam Young and Max Homa, who seemed like sure things to make their Ryder Cup debuts at Marco Simone, now likely need a strong couple of months to secure their spots.

Up and Down

Like most of his career, Sepp Straka's 2023 season has been inconsistent. With his victory last week, the Austrian now has 1 win, 5 top-10s, and 9 missed cuts in 26 starts so far this season. His 2022 season was similar: 1 win, 5 top-10s, and 14 missed cuts in 33 starts.

How abnormal is this "hot-and-cold" start to his career? Here are the players with the highest missed cut rate before notching their second win on the PGA Tour since 2004:

1. Scott Stallings: Took 47 starts to get 2nd win, 28 missed cuts, 60% MC rate
2. Steven Bowditch: 141 starts, 80 missed cuts, 57%
3. Michael Bradley: 88 starts, 49 missed cuts, 56%
4. Ted Potter Jr: 83 starts, 46 missed cuts, 55%
5. Brendon Todd: 170 starts, 90 missed cuts, 53%
6. Troy Merritt: 175 starts, 89 missed cuts, 51%
7. Ben Curtis: 65 starts, 33 missed cuts, 51%
8. Cameron Champ: 34 starts, 17 missed cuts, 50%
9. Johnson Wagner: 117 starts, 58 missed cuts, 50%
10. Andrew Landry: 77 starts, 38 missed cuts, 49%
11. Max Homa: 108 starts, 53 missed cuts, 49%
...
14. Si Woo Kim: 56 starts, 27 missed cuts, 48%
...
25. Sepp Straka: 138 starts, 59 missed cuts, 43%

Rankings Update

Top 10 (see all)
Player	DG		OWGR
Scottie Scheffler	1	—	1	—
Rory McIlroy	2	—	3	—
Jon Rahm	3	—	2	—
Patrick Cantlay	4	—	4	—
Xander Schauffele	5	—	6	—
Rickie Fowler	6	—	21	2
Viktor Hovland	7	—	5	—
Tyrrell Hatton	8	—	16	1
Cameron Smith	9	2	7	—
Collin Morikawa	10	1	19	1
Notables
Cameron Young	33	6	18	1
Ludvig Aberg	55	11	303	225
Sepp Straka	66	31	27	10
Rasmus Hojgaard	112	25	85	34
Lucas Glover	142	28	112	20
Matteo Manassero	358	139	349	106
Alex Fitzpatrick	373	76	559	73

A T4 at the John Deere means it was another solid week for the young Swede, Ludvig Aberg, who's now up to 55th in our rankings. In each of his 4 starts since turning pro, he's shown signs of brilliance but has been undone by one or two mediocre rounds—it's only a matter of time before he strings 4 good ones together.

Alex Fitzpatrick (brother of Matt) took some positive steps last week in what's so far been a rocky(ish) start to his professional career. In addition to a solo-4th on the Challenge Tour—putting him 21st on the Road to Mallorca points list—he also secured a spot in The Open.

Lucas Glover's exceptional (relatively speaking) run of putting continued at the John Deere as he gained strokes on the greens for a second consecutive week. Glover is now back to 142nd in our rankings, but more importantly finds himself inside the top 125 of the FedExCup standings and battling for a spot in the playoffs.

Player Feature

Justin Thomas

age 30 yrs, 3 months

dg rank 39th — owgr rank 20th

weeks in dg top 100 455

dg skill +0.91 strokes-gained / round¹

style above-average distance, elite iron player

career wins
PGA Tour: 15
Korn Ferry Tour: 1
Amateur: 6

player comps
2022 Hideki Matsuyama (similarity score²: 98.4)
2022 Patrick Cantlay (88.6)
2010 Sergio Garcia (84.0)

Letzig's Insight
Thomas was one of the best approach players on the PGA Tour in each of the 2017-2022 seasons. So far in 2023, he’s gaining about a half stroke less with his iron play than he was in those years. Breaking Thomas’ performance down by approach distance shows that the biggest decline has occurred in the 50-100 yard bucket. Fortunately for Thomas, performance in this bucket is also the noisiest, meaning we should expect some regression back to his (very good) approach baseline soon.

1 Relative to an average PGA Tour field.

2 Similarity scores are uniformly distributed from 0 (least similar) to 100 (most similar). Similarity is based on overall skill and playing style over the previous 3 seasons and a measure of career-long performance. Comps are restricted to players of the same age.

Week That Was

Winner	Event	True SG	xWin
C. Smith	LIV — London	+3.31	0.04
S. Straka	PGA — John Deere	+3.11	0.085
M. Manassero	CHA — Italian Challenge	+2.24	0.003
R. Hojgaard	DPT — HimmerLand	+1.57	0.0