CHARLOTTE — Luke Donald likes what he sees from European golfers entering this week’s PGA Championship.
He’ll be the captain of the European team at the Ryder Cup in September.
“It’s always nice when potential guys on your team are up there each and every week playing against the strongest fields in golf and doing extremely well,” Donald said Wednesday, the day before the beginning of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
Donald said he knows the construction of his Ryder Cup team will come from various factors, some stemming from statistics. But he said there’s also figuring out potential pairings for matches and how certain golfers might fare at the Bethpage Black Course in Farmingdale, N.Y.
With several months before the Ryder Cup, Donald said he doesn’t want to jump to conclusions in terms of the roster.
“It’s a little too early yet,” he said. “We still have three majors, a bunch of elevated events.”
There’s also evaluating golfers on the LIV Tour because they won’t naturally rank high in the points systems used. Donald said there’s so much data available that it’s relatively simple to determine how certain golfers are playing.
But with the majors, such as the PGA Championship, there’s a chance for another level of assessment.
“Obviously the majors are important,” Donald said. “I think that’s the time when everyone gets together on good golf courses and you have stacked fields. Just to see how they’re playing in those is another point that we take into consideration quite a lot.”
The European captain also said with this year’s Ryder Cup taking place on U.S. soil, that experience rates as a higher priority.
“People who have been able to handle those big moments under the most scrutiny, those major championships,” he said. “It will be something that could give someone an edge if they’re on a very similar playing field in terms of statistics.”
For instance, Donald said that he would expect that Spain’s Jon Rahm — a member of the LIV circuit — would be on the team, but there have been no assurances expressed about such a decision.
“He still needs to keep going and playing just like everyone else,” Donald said.
Rahm said there’s respect for the position that Donald is in. Rahm would like to become an automatic qualifier, so it’s not left up to a decision.
“It’s his team,” Rahm said of Donald. “Hopefully I can qualify, and we don’t have to question it.”
Meanwhile, the 47-year-old Donald doesn’t want to totally dismiss his role as an entrant in this week’s event.
“I like to work on my game, keep working at it and playing majors is always fun,” he said. “The atmosphere, playing on world-class golf courses against world-class field, testing your game. It’s going to be a test for me this week.”
–Bob Sutton, Field Level Media
