With Open Championship on horizon, something else still looms over pro golf

Jon Rahm stepped to the podium on Wednesday at Valderrama ahead of LIV Golf Andalucia and immediately faced a question about the event looming over the world of men’s professional golf.

Not the PGA Tour-LIV deal. That’s frozen and shows no signs of thawing. Not next week’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush, the year’s final major, that’s pulling the two tours together for the second-to-last time this calendar year. Sure, the 153rd edition of golf’s oldest major will take center stage next week in Northern Ireland, but it still exists within the context of the 2025 season. And we cannot help but view much of that season through the lens of the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.

Rahm, who has not paid his DP World Tour fines and whose appeal is still in the court system, opened his presser at LIV Andalucia by repeating that he plans to play in the Ryder Cup. Next came a spicy follow-up about whether those wishes are more than a dream than reality, given his standings on Team Europe’s points list (19), the potential for his appeal to be heard pre-Ryder Cup, and the continued fractured state of men’s pro golf.

“I can still qualify, so hopefully I qualify, and it’s a reality,’ Rahn said. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to win next week, but it’s a possibility, and if not, we’ll see what happens. But I’d like to think that I’ve played good enough to, if possible, be a pick.”

Rahm wasn’t the only Spaniard to face the Ryder Cup inquisition on Wednesday.

Sergio Garcia, who claimed at the 2025 PGA Championship that he wouldn’t accept a captain’s pick given his poor form, changed his tune with the event two months away.

“I had a good conversation with [captain Luke Donald] last week, and we both know what we want,’ Garcia said. “The only thing I can do is keep working hard, keep building my confidence up, and if I’m able to do that, then it should be fine. We’ll see.

“The pick is going to be up to him. Up to me is going to be the way I play. Obviously, yeah, if I play well, I think I have a good opportunity, a good chance of being picked. If I don’t, then it’ll depend a little bit on where I stand or how things are going. We’ll see. Still early.”

Garcia isn’t the only member of his Fireballs GC team hoping for Donald to call their name for Bethpage. David Puig is among the handful of players seen as a potential option for one of the final spots on Team Europe, although it will likely require a blistering final stretch to bump him above some of the bigger names jockeying for those spots.

Last week at the DP World Tour’s BMW International Open in Munich, Germany, Donald was paired with Jordan Smith and David Puig. Team Europe often uses DP World Tour events to pair their captain with different potential Ryder Cuppers to give them an up-close look at their options. In Austria, Donald was paired with Martin Couvra and Eugenio Chacarra. This week at the Genesis Scottish Open, Donald will tee it up with Harry Hall and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen.

That pairing with Donald tells Garcia that Puig has the captain’s attention and that both of them face a vital next two months to try and secure their spot. But they have a chance.

“David played with him last week in Munich, so I think that Luke got a first-row seat to see what David is capable of, and I’m sure —I don’t like to speak for other people, but I’m sure that David is on his radar. I don’t have a doubt,” Garcia said. “I think, at the end of the day, there’s still two, two and a half months to go, and the only thing that David and the only thing that I would advise him to do is to keep playing well, keep doing what he’s doing, keep believing in himself, and then whatever must happen will happen.”

One thousand seven hundred and sixteen miles away in North Berwick, Scotland, two-time major champion and U.S. Ryder Cup staple Xander Schauffele also faced questions about the showdown at Bethpage. These queries were not about his own place on the team but about the biggest question in golf: Will Keegan Bradley be a playing captain for Team USA?

“Clearly he’s earning it,” Schauffele said of Bradley, who recently won the Travelers Championship. “If you ask him, he’s playing the best golf of his career. We just want our best 12 playing. You know, I think that’s sort of what it really comes down to. So he is just flying up the qualifying, that standings leaderboard. Would I be surprised if he got into the top six and wasn’t even a conversation anymore? I don’t think I’d be very surprised and I don’t think he would, either. If he does, it’s going to be a fun situation for himself but I think he’s surrounded himself with really good vice captains. I don’t think he’s going to make a decision he regrets.”

The Ryder Cup is the season-ending throughline that connects everything from Harris English’s Farmers Insurance Open win to Russell Henley’s Arnold Palmer Invitational victory to Brian Campbell’s unexpected two-win campaign.

When J.J. Spaun won the U.S. Open at Oakmont, it was one of the first topics brought up by his coach. Patrick Reed’s victory at LIV Dallas came with the soundtrack of fans chanting to put him on the team.

Rory McIlroy’s career Grand Slam quest — okay, and Scottie Scheffler’s ongoing dominance — owned the first part of the golf season. But ever since, the Ryder Cup has cast a shadow over everything.

It’s why Ben Griffin, Andrew Novak, Spaun, Henley and others have become main characters. Their elevated play has added to their bank account and put them in a position to be key players in upstate New York at the end of September. Sprinkle in the intrigue that comes with Bradley potentially becoming the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer plus a dose of uncertainty given golf’s continued fractured state, and you have a recipe for what has become the dominant — the only? — storyline left in 2025.

Next week, someone will capture the Claret Jug, and it’ll be a career-changing victory. Then, pretty quickly, there’s a good chance that win (should it be by an American or European near the bubble) will be used as yet another entry point to talk about what’s to come at Bethpage Black.

The Ryder Cup is everywhere. Its presence is lording over both tours, swirling around players who exist in all tiers. Because these opportunities, the ones given to 24 players this fall, are finite. They can’t be bought, and their impact on legacy is immeasurable.

“It’s hard to explain because it means so much,” Rahm said of the Ryder Cup. “It’s such a special event. The last three have all been incredibly wonderful in different ways, even in the last — the process throughout the week, the camaraderie, the friendships and the memories that are made are quite special. But the last one in Rome was so much fun. It was so incredible. We made such a fun team, such a fun week of work that I want to be a part of that again and hopefully help Europe win on U.S. soil again.”