Two of the biggest events on the golf calendar are on the horizon, and players are still jockeying for position ahead of the 2021 Ryder Cup, which will be contested at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits in late September.
This week, the final major of the year will be contested at Royal St. George’s, as the Open Championship returns after a COVID-induced hiatus.
Defending champion Shane Lowry will finally get the chance to defend the Claret Jug this weekend, and he is currently ranked 18th in the European Ryder Cup points race.
After a week off, some of the top players in the world will convene for the Tokyo Olympics, with the men’s tournament set to begin on July 29. Five of the six top-ranked players in the world will compete in the tournament, which will be contested at Kasumigaseki Country Club.
The United States’ Ryder Cup rankings remained largely the same this week, as the top 20 players all held their positions. Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau remain in the top two spots, with Collin Morikawa, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele rounding out the top six.
Patrick Reed, Harris English, Patrick Cantlay and Tony Finau all remain within striking distance of those top six spots.
Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Rory McIlroy remain in the top four spots in the rankings, but Matthew Fitzpatrick jumped up four spots to move into the top five in the standings. He is now just 40 points behind McIlroy for fourth place, leaving him tantalizingly close to an automatic berth on the European squad.
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Bernd Wiesberger, Victor Perez, Guido Migliozzi, Paul Casey and Thomas Detry, who jumped up 11 spots in the rankings, round out the top 10.
Ryder Cup points will be tabulated through the end of the BMW Championship (in the US) and the BMW PGA Championship (in Europe). The top six players in points on the American side will get automatic berths, with the remaining six spots filled by captain Steve Stricker. On the European side, the top four players in points will automatically get in, with the next five players on the World Points list also making it in.
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The remaining three spots will be filled by captain Padraig Harrington.
