Bethpage beckons: The race to make the European Ryder Cup team

We are almost at the halfway stage of the race to make Luke Donald's Team Europe for the defence of the Ryder Cup in September.

with thanks to the PGA TOUR for footage

With 20 DP World Tour events played and 23 to go before the six automatic qualifiers for the 2025 European Ryder Cup team are decided, the race is hotting up to see who will be heading to New York.

Among those 23 events are four Major Championships, a Rolex Series event at the Genesis Scottish Open and the qualifying finale on the Back 9 at the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo, with nine events on the PGA TOUR also offering enhanced points.

That means it is still all to play for for the players chasing an automatic place in the new single Points List or looking to catch Donad's eye and secure one of his six Captain's Picks.

Here is all you need to know about the race so far, the runners and riders, and what is to come.

The race so far

The chase began at the 2024 Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo, with at least 1,500 points up for grabs at that and each of the next eight events that made up the Back 9 on the Race to Dubai.

Niklas Nørgaard's maiden DP World Tour win at The Belfry saw him set the early pace but Matt Wallace leapfrogged him the very next week with victory at the Omega European Masters.

Rasmus Højgaard's win at the Amgen Irish Open moved him to the summit and he would stay there until the end of the Back 9, with Angel Hidalgo, Tyrrell Hatton, Dan Bradbury and Julien Guerrier all entering the top six at times with wins of their own.

A runner-up finish in the Rolex Series at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship moved Hatton to the top, with winner Paul Waring entering the automatic places, but Rory McIlroy would end the 2024 season on top after victory at the DP World Tour Championship, where Højgaard finished second.

There was no change to the top six across the Opening Swing of the 2025 Race to Dubai, with McIlroy, Højgaard, Hatton, Wallace, Waring and Nørgaard ending the calendar year in the coveted positions.

PGA TOUR events came into play from January 1 but the next big moves were made in the Rolex Series at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, with Hatton taking the crown and moving to the top of the Points List.

McIlroy, however, would soon be back at the summit with victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, while Shane Lowry's runner-up finish in California moved him into an automatic spot at the expense of Waring.

And Thomas Detry made one final move before the DP World Tour's current one-week break, winning the WM Phoenix Open on the PGA TOUR to leap into fifth and dislodge Nørgaard from the top six.

European Ryder Cup Points List

as of February 10 2025

The players in pole position

Rory McIlroy

OK, so we all know that barring injury or something unforeseen, the Northern Irishman is a lock to appear in his eighth successive Ryder Cup this year but by securing an automatic berth he would free up a precious pick. With two wins and plenty of points already in the bag and eight top tens in his last 12 Majors - where 5,000 points are available at each in 2025 - he is in a fantastic position to do his Captain a favour and try and pick up where he left off after collecting four points from five in Rome.

Tyrrell Hatton

The only other player with two wins in the Qualifying period so far and another who is highly likely to be on the team come September. Always a man for the big occasion, Hatton's eight DP World victories have been a hat-trick of triumphs at the prestigious Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and a record-equalling five Rolex Series crowns. His sole PGA TOUR win to date came at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which is now a Signature Event, in 2020 and his no-holding-back temprement could be just the thing to take on a veciferous New York crowd.

Rasmus Højgaard

Seeing twin brother Nicolai make his Ryder Cup debut in Rome will have surely spurred Rasmus on to make his own piece of history and who is to say they cannot do it together and follow in the footsteps of the Molinaris? If Rasmus is to make it to Long Island then consistency may well be the key as he has just one missed cut since qualiifying began, with all his other finishes inside the top 40. Factor in a win and two top fives on the Back 9 and a runner-up finish in the Rolex Series and he also looks to be a man for the big occasion. A newly minted dual member, his two top 25s on the PGA TOUR so far suggest he could have a big year on both sides of he Atlantic.

Shane Lowry

Joining McIlroy and Hatton as a man with Ryder Cup experience in the top six, the 2019 Open champion has made a fine start in his bid for a third successive Ryder Cup appearance. He remarkably finished 12th or 13th in his first five starts of qualification before finishing third at the 2024 season-ending finale in Dubai and then second at Pebble Beach. While the 2020 Ryder Cup may have been one to forget for Team Europe, Lowry provided a brief highlight with his putt and wild celebration to seal victory alongside Hatton over Tony Finau and Harris English on day two - those guts and that passion could be vital again in front of a partisan crowd.

Thomas Detry

As a man who seems to have often been in the Ryder Cup conversation without yet making it to the biennial spectacular, could this be the year for the Belgian? An outstanding amateur, he had five runner-up finishes on the DP World Tour before securing a PGA TOUR card for the 2023 season and last week became the first Belgian winner on that circuit. Now comfortably sitting in the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking, he will have greater opportunities to rack up points and Donald has already seen him at close quarters after he helped Continental Europe to victory in the 2023 Hero Cup.

Matt Wallace

The Englishman has been quite open about his desire to seal a berth after missing out on a place in the team for 2018 despite winning the final qualifying event at the Made In Denmark. While heartbroken at the time, he has said since that time has brought a better undertsanding of that decision but he clearly will not want to rely on a pick again and is "up for the fight". That is a quality that will be needed in abundance in the autumn and it should not be forgotten that he was one of just six players to finish under par when the US PGA Championship was played at Bethpage in 2019. Another PGA TOUR regular with a win on that circuit in 2023, it could be Wallace's time.

The contenders

Nørgaard finds himself on the outside looking in for the first time in the qualification campaign but his performances on the big stage since that win at The Belfry suggests he will have plenty of chances to climb back in. No missed cuts on the DP World Tour and three Rolex Series top tens have him right in the mix, with dual membership increasing his chances of gathering points.

Waring, Canter and Guerrier are all winners in qualifying who are looking for a debut while Thorbjørn Olesen in 11th, a veteran of Europe's 2018 Ryder Cup victory, has four top tens since the British Masters and is looking for a fourth consecutive season with a victory.

Rookies then occupy 15 of the next 19 places, with only Robert MacIntyre, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm and Justin Rose having Ryder Cup experience in the rest of the top 30.

What's to come?

On the DP World Tour there are 17 Global Swing events each offering 1,000 points and one more Rolex Series event at the Genesis Scottish Open with 2,000 points on the line.

The Masters Tournament, US PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship offer 5,000 points each before the race ends where it started, with 1,500 points on offer at the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo on the Back 9.

On the PGA TOUR, six Signature Events, THE PLAYERS Championship and two play-off events offer 3,000 points each, 12 regular events have 2,000 points to play for and three opposite events offer 1,000 points.

In the PGA TOUR's Zurich Classic of New Orleans, which sees teams of two compete, 2,000 points will be available with 50% of each position being allocated to each player in the team, but only if both players are European.

See full details of the qualification process here.