How the American team is finalized for the Ryder Cup has rarely stayed the same for long. Many American captains have tweaked the qualification formula, some way or another, chasing a fairer way to separate the six best players from the pack. Jim Furyk is no different, except this time, as 2027 captain, he has torn up the formula entirely.
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The 2027 Ryder Cup will be the 46th edition of the event, and its centenary staging will be held September 13 to 19 at Adare Manor in County Limerick. The PGA of America has confirmed the new U.S. selection criteria for the 2027 Ryder Cup. Under the new system, the top six players on the points list after the BMW Championship will earn automatic spots, and Furyk will make the sixth and final captain’s pick after the Tour Championship. But the major change is hidden in plain sight.
Under the old criteria, Ryder Cup points were calculated directly off prize money. The players earned a set number of points for top finishes. Naturally, that meant a big check at a major or a signature event translated straight into a bigger points haul, regardless of how the field or the win itself compared to other tournaments.
Under the new criteria, that is pulled out of the equation entirely.
Every one of the 31 qualifying events now carries a fixed points total for its winner. It also means the points will be set in advance by tier, and everyone else in the field takes a percentage of that fixed number based on where they finished, not what they earned.
Moreover, under the old approach, points were typically accrued across two years, so wins from the year before a Ryder Cup still counted. But that won’t be the case anymore. The PGA of America confirmed that no points will be awarded for 2026 majors, wiping out any head start for this year’s championship. Here are some more changes under the new criteria:
- Qualifying runs across 31 events, starting at the American Express in January 2027 and ending at the BMW Championship in August 2027.
- The four majors (2027 Masters, 2027 PGA Championship, 2027 U.S. Open, and 2027 Open Championship) each award 3,000 points to the winner.
- The Players Championship winner will earn 2,850 points from the win.
- The eight PGA Tour Signature events plus two FedEx Cup playoff events, FedEx St. Jude and BMW Championship, will award 2,250 points to winners.
- Full-field PGA Tour events will award 1,500 points to the winner, with opposite-field events excluded entirely.
Plus, every player who makes the cut will still earn a percentage of winners’ total based on their finish. The fixed points model replaces a system that rewarded major winners disproportionately simply because major purses dwarf regular tour purses.
Announcing the process, Furyk said, “I have worked diligently with our team and am pleased to implement the new qualifying process for the 2027 Ryder Cup team. We possess an exceptional mix of veterans and rising stars, and this system will help us identify the strong players in September 2027… I’m excited for this qualification to begin in January and to watch them compete at the highest level for a spot on our team.”
Looking back, Jim Furyk had flagged the problem in May at his introductory press conference as a captain, pointing to the gap between signature event purses, north of 20 million dollars, and full-field events, roughly worth half that. Purses are so out of whack, he had said, arguing money no longer reflected who the best players actually were. This is not the first time Furyk has made a change in the Ryder Cup Qualification process either.
As 2018 captain, he made a smaller tweak to the same fault line. Major winners that year earned double points per dollar earned, while players who merely made the cut dropped to 1.5 points per dollar, all to prevent a modest finish in a major from outscoring a tour win.
Furyk explained then that a player finishing third in a major was earning more points than someone winning outright on tour and said he wanted winning weighted more heavily than money.
Nearly a decade later, the underlying complaint has stayed the same, even as signature event forces have made the math far more lopsided than in 2018. Furyk’s answer this time was to rebuild the rules more fairly.