The qualification page on our Ryder Cup hub presents the case for every golfer based on their SG over various time horizons, their ranking (both DG and OWGR), and their position on the official Ryder Cup points list. An additional metric that we will be considering when making our picks today is DG Points. Here are the top 30 Americans in 2025:

One way to think about DG Points as it relates to Ryder Cup team selection is that they inform you about which players deserve to be on the team. A captain would probably never admit it, but it’s pretty clear that who deserves it? is a question that gets asked in the selection process. And we will consider that as well when making our picks.

Another way to think about DG Points—or any top-heavy points list—is that they better reflect a player’s peak performance level. In any normal week of professional golf, a player’s ceiling matters a lot: this determines whether or not they are capable of contending or winning. At the Ryder Cup, however, a player’s ceiling is less relevant: every point counts equally, whether it’s earned through brilliant play or just surviving a match. Therefore, when it comes to selecting a Ryder Cup team, we should probably care less about a player’s peak and more about their expected performance.

With that preamble out of the way, here are our picks for the American side:

1. Auto Qualifiers
Each of the 6 automatic qualifiers have rightfully earned their spot on this team. Harris English is the worst-ranked of the six at 21st in our rankings, but he is still the 10th-best American. As underwhelming as Xander’s 2025 has been from a results standpoint, he’s among the top 12 Americans in every SG time period we consider.

2. Locks
Justin Thomas and Ben Griffin both deserve to be on the team using SG or DG Points. They are also 7th and 9th respectively on the official points list, which makes their selections even easier for Keegan. We are a bit worried about JT; he's struggled since the Truist and was invisible at the 2025 majors. Griffin, on the other hand, has had a strong second half of 2025 and plays with a lot of confidence—we could see him becoming a lightning rod for the Americans if he gets it going early.

3. Near-Locks
We have Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay making this team barring a disaster at East Lake. While both have struggled in 2025 (winless, but with respectable SG numbers), they’ve both been important members of previous teams and are proven elite players with high floors—something that gets overlooked at Ryder Cups. Morikawa is primarily struggling with his putter, but is still the 3rd-best approach player in the world this year. Cantlay is probably the more controversial pick of the two, given his best finish this year is just a T4 at the Truist, but he still has the 6th-best SG number among Americans in 2025. Adding in his 5-2-1 Ryder Cup record and the spark that he—and Joe LaCava—gave to an otherwise despondent American squad at Marco Simone, we don't see how you leave him at home.

With 2 spots remaining, we still have 6 realistic options who we've divided into tiers 4 & 5:

4. Veterans
Captain Keegan Bradley is the only remaining player who is in the top 12 of both SG and DG Points in 2025. He’s also 11th on the official points list. If anyone else was the captain, Keegan probably makes our team. He doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence, but after his snub in 2023 the ‘he-just-deserves-it’ argument is a strong one. But we don’t think the pros of having him play outweigh the cons of having to do it while captaining. We are less concerned with fulfilling captain duties, and more concerned with the distraction and added pressure being a playing captain will bring. Because Keegan is not a slam-dunk pick, we have to leave him off.

While we don't necessarily value points (DG or official) that much when picking the team, there is a minimum threshold you need to hit and we don't think Jordan Spieth got there. He has had a similar year to Cantlay, just slightly worse along every dimension. Spieth’s chances of making this team took a big hit when he failed to qualify for the BMW Championship.

Sam Burns would make the team by DG rank or any of the SG windows we consider, however he’s only 16th in official points and 15th in DG Points. It’s also hard to get too excited by Burns as he is a known quantity at this point, but our perception of him did change after he was leading late on Sunday at the US Open (67% to win thru 10 holes). If he plays well this week it would be hard to keep him off the team.

5. Rookies
Cameron Young and Chis Gotterup have the hot hand among our remaining picks, although Gotterup has cooled off in the last two weeks. Both are in the top 12 in '25 DG Points and 3-month SG, but outside the top 12 in the other SG time periods and in official points. Maverick McNealy has been a part of the Ryder Cup conversation for most of this season. He makes this team by any metric we consider—including the official points list—except 6-month and '25 SG.

Realistically only one of Young and Gotterup will get a pick. Young’s recent play has been largely fueled by his putting—which is worrisome—but his ball-striking has also turned a corner. Gotterup’s run of good play actually started well before his breakthrough in Scotland: he finished in the top 30 in 8 of 9 starts leading up to that win. Both players have a couple things going for them to get a pick: both are locals (Gotterup is from New Jersey) and both are great course fits for a bombers-only Bethpage Black. However, Young has a much stronger pedigree—reaching as high as 7th in our rankings in April 2023—and it’s hard to find a statistic or angle that would put Gotterup ahead of Young (among our metrics it’s only '25 DG Points). Young was also left off the '23 team when he could easily have been selected—he will be on our team this year.

Our final pick comes down to McNealy or Burns, who are actually very similar players: elite putters who are above-average with the rest of their games. Burns currently has the edge in all SG-based metrics, while McNealy bests Burns on all the points lists. McNealy would bring more excitement—and uncertainty—than Burns, and it feels like Burns has snuck on to some recent US teams so it wouldn’t be a big snub. If one of these guys plays well this week, that could be the deciding factor. If forced to choose now, we are taking McNealy.

6. Odd Man Out
Brian Harman holds the 12th spot on the official points list, but it feels like he’s not really in the conversation for a pick. We don’t have him among the top 12 Americans by any SG metric, and he’s 16th in DG Points this year. Harman is also not a great fit for what is likely to be a long setup at Bethpage Black.

7. Young Guns
Jackson Koivun is 59th in our pro rankings and is the 8th-best American over the last 3 months (only 18 rounds played). The 20-year-old amateur is not under serious consideration for this year’s team, but he is someone to keep an eye on in the future. He’s now 4th on our all-time amateur list—behind only Rahm, Spieth, and Cantlay, and just ahead of recent pro Luke Clanton.

8. Honourable Mentions
Denny McCarthy will make one of these teams eventually—he’s been a +1 skill player for 4 seasons now. He just didn’t put together any great weeks this year despite being very solid.

Rickie Fowler has been on quite a run of late, moving up to 28th in our rankings (15th amongst Americans). However given Rickie’s Ryder Cup history (3-9-5), and especially his play at Marco Simone, we wouldn’t put him on another US team unless it’s an obvious pick.

Akshay Bhatia looked like he would make a Ryder Cup push after finishing T3 at the Players earlier this year, but he's had a disappointing second half of the season.

Patrick Reed has been solid in 2025, and his T3 at the Masters helped propel him to 14th on the US DG Points list. But given his place on LIV it was always going to be an uphill battle to get a pick. He’s also not in the top 12 Americans by any metric we consider.

Andrew Novak is 13th on the official points list and 12th in '25 DG Points, but isn’t in the running for a pick. After going T3, 2nd, and 1st (at the Zurich team event) in April, he hasn’t done enough to warrant consideration.

Daniel Berger was all the way up to 15th in our rankings after the PGA Championship. It looked like he was building up to a win, following a very similar path to Fowler in 2023. But Berger hasn’t finished better than T30 since the PGA due to serious struggles on and around the greens.

Wyndham Clark has been a part of the last two US teams ('24 Presidents Cup and '23 Ryder Cup), but a bad run of form between the Masters and U.S. Open this year all but ended his chances to make this team.

Model Picks

Our Ryder Cup forecast is sometimes a source of confusion because it doesn’t take into account the official points lists when projecting who will make up each team. Our model uses only a player's current skill, their recent DG Points, and the number of previous teams they’ve played on to project their likelihood of making the Ryder Cup roster. Intuitively, you can think of the model as asking: Given a player with a certain skill level, recent accomplishments (DG Points), and Ryder Cup experience, how likely have they been to make teams in the past?

The 6 most likely captain’s picks according to our model are: Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Maverick McNealy, Keegan Bradley, and Cameron Young. Spieth, Cantlay, and Burns are all narrowly outside this top 6. In general, using the information it has available, the model is not seeing a lot of daylight between these pick options: Thomas has the highest probability of making the team at just 66%.