Shane Lowry will have to wait on what he hopes is a “friendly” phone call from Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald if he is make it to Bethpage Black for next month’s defence of the trophy against the United States.
With Lowry’s destiny out of his own hands, Denmark’s Rasmus Hojgaard’s tied-13th place finish in the British Masters at The Belfry – won by Sweden’s Alex Noren – was sufficient to leapfrog him up to fifth place in the qualifying standings, moving ahead of Tyrrell Hatton, who secured the sixth automatic spot, and dropping Lowry to seventh.
Donald has six captain’s wild card picks to play with, although Lowry – who played on the losing team in Whistling Straits in 2021 and on the winning team in Rome in 2023 – looks certain to be one of the first names that will be added. Lowry’s 1,265 points was just four behind those of Hatton, which he equated to just one stroke over the entire calendar year qualifying process.
Indeed, Lowry had travelled to the Tour Championship in Atlanta – the final event of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs – believing his efforts there would still count, even though the qualifying criteria had been set out clearly in black and white with the British Masters concluding the standings.
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“I only found out about that Monday. I thought I was guaranteed getting points this week. I thought I was going to be pretty much guaranteed on the team. Yeah, I was somewhat disappointed to hear that. But the rules were made at the start for qualifying, and that was it,” said Lowry, who will no doubt get some word from Donald ahead of the official announcement on Monday, September 1st.
With Hojgaard doing what he had to do to ensure a place on the team, there was a heart-warming exchange between captain and player afterwards.
Hojgaard received the phone call from Donald shortly after signing his scorecard for a final round 71 for 280 to comfortably get inside his target.
“Welcome to Team Europe,” said Donald. “How does it feel?”
“It feels amazing! I don’t think I have been that stressed out before playing the last few holes but, yeah, it was pretty cool,” said the Dane.
“Well, you’ve earned it. You belong. And I am very, very excited to have you on the team,” replied Donald.
The six automatic qualifiers for Europe were Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Hojgaard and Hatton.
United States captain Keegan Bradley will complete his 12-man team by naming his six wild cards on Wednesday next, with a decision to be made on whether he will choose to become the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963.
Noren, meanwhile, bogeyed the final hole but still claimed the 11th DP World Tour win of his career with a final round 67 for a 16-under-par 272 that gave him a one-stroke winning margin over Nicolai Hojgaard and Kazuma Kobori.
