The PGA Championship is over and now golf fans can start looking forward to one of the most exciting events of the golfing calendar – The Ryder Cup. This year’s event takes place in Paris from 25th–30th September. The race to make the teams is really heating up now and Europe’s remaining qualifying events are the Nordea Masters and the Made In Denmark Championship.
Olesen and Bjorn’s friendship
Thorbjorn Olesen is a player that needs to do something special if he is to qualify through points. What makes the situation more difficult is that his close friend Thomas Bjorn is the captain of the European team and he does not want people to think he is calling in favours, if he makes the team.
At present, Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose, Tyrell Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood are all sitting pretty in the standings, with Jon Rahm, Thorbjorn Olesen, Rory McIlroy Alex Noren making up the top eight of the European points list.
US Ryder Cup team’s automatic qualifiers
For the US Ryder Cup team, their eight automatic qualifiers were announced after the PGA Championship and they are Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Webb Simpson. Three of the remaining players will be announced after the Dell Technologies Championship on 3 September and the last one after the BMW Championship on 9th September.
The hopefuls for making the European team can win themselves a place in Paris with good results in their last two competitions and Olesen finished with a one-under total at the PGA Championship yesterday. On 6th August in Akron he finished six under par, bringing him closer to the automatic qualifying spots. He really does not want to be picked on a wildcard by his close friend Bjorn, so now he has to get there on merit.
