Golf 2025 - The Majors & The Ryder Cup

The biggest challenge I had with this competition was somehow combining two completely different match formats into one ‘seamless’ competition, whilst also doing my best to make sure that the final 12 games on the Sunday of The Ryder Cup have some meaning.

You know, I think I’ve come up with something.

Something that will add a real ‘edge’ to the Picks you make across The Masters as they WILL directly influence the outcome you get from The Ryder Cup, and therefore the whole competition.

Let’s start with The Majors

They get underway with The Masters over the weekend of April 10-13, which is where we start.

The PGA Championship follows a month later over May 15-18 (same weekend as the penultimate season of the Premier League, the FA Cup Final, the Italian F1 & The Eurovision Song Contest).

The US Open is June 12-15, before we finish with The Open Championship over July 17-20.

For each of The Majors you will Pick 7 players.  There will be three groups, the top group will have the top 15, the second, the players ranked 16-30 and the final group 20 other players teeing off in the competition.

You will grab two each from groups 1 & 2 and 3 other players either from the third group, OR, named by yourself (if you know of others playing that I haven’t listed 🤔)

In Simple Terms, the better the player does, the more points you’ll win.

But it’s never that simple, is it.

Players will start each round with 85 points, pre-cut, and they will lose a point for every shot they take to finish the round.  If they make The Cut, then they start with 100 points in both rounds 3 & 4, and again lose a point for every shot they take.

Birdies will be worth 2 bonus points, an Eagle worth 3 bonus points, anything better than that worth 10 bonus points.

Shots over par on every hole, will carry a 2 point penalty for each shot over par. Finish a par 3 with a six, it will cost 6 points for the shots taken, and another 6 penalty points for the 3 dropped shots.

The Winner of each Major will then collect a bonus 100 points, Runner-up 70 points, third, 50, then 40, 30, 20, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 & 1 down to 12th place. (In the event of ties the points won will be the points for the place tied (Tied 4th, gets both players 40 points)).

But, player coefficients will kick in.

Handicaps is probably a more appropriate description in this sport. I'm taking the rankings from Here. They adjust their rankings based on average score over the last two year, and include LIV golfers/events.

At the time of putting this together, Scottie Scheffler would be handicapped as 1.00, Rory as 1.02, Shane as 1.16.  Handicaps will be capped at 1.50 and will be set at 1st April. They will come from a combined Official World Ranking and LIV table, but there’s likely to be the chance of spotting some players with a more generous handicap than they should have, due to the difficulties in setting rankings with the breakaway to LIV.

You golf fans 'in the know' might benefit from a bit of knowledge here, and be able to pick a player 'ranked' too highly. (OR too lowly, not sure what the correct term is, but you know what I mean).

But, as an example, a 200 point haul for Scottie, would be worth 200 points to you if you picked him. But for exactly the same performance, the points won for you by Shane would be, 232. AND, bold and underlined so therefore must be important, the points they win you will affect the points the players will win you in The Ryder Cup.

Actually, here is an example.

As a test I ran a few numbers during the Phoenix Open in February. Thomas Detry of Belgium won, and scored 387 points in the process. Jordan Speith came Tied 4th, scoring 245.96, whilst Scottie Scheffler finished down the field in 25th and scored 109 points.

The Picks from Groups 2 & 3 could win some big points, as evidenced by the top three above, without actually competing for the top prizes in any of The Majors as a result of their ranking, if they make the cut, and even if they don’t compete in The Ryder Cup, will have an important impact on the outcome of that for you.

So by the end of the four majors, you would have made 28 player picks. Perhaps you've picked the same 7 in every competition, perhaps you've picked 28 different picks across the four weekends.

And here’s the ‘devious’ spin that will combine your Picks from The Majors, with the points you will win in The Ryder Cup.

The Ryder Cup

You will only make TWO Picks for your Ryder Cup team, before the first shot is played, at the end of September.

Effectively TWO Wild Card Picks.

BECAUSE…… IN ADDITION

Any players you have Picked in The Majors, that play in The Ryder Cup, will also count as Picks in ‘YOUR’ Ryder Cup squad.

OK, so bear with me, this came to me whilst walking the dog, one warm February afternoon.

If during The Majors you have picked Scottie, or Rory or Viktor, then they will automatically be in ‘YOUR’ Ryder Cup Squad (if they are selected for the Competition). In fact you could have covered all 24 players in the picks you’ve made in The Majors, and therefore have all 24 in your squad.

Every time a player in ‘YOUR’ squad scores points in The Ryder Cup, they will win you points in this competition. So if Rory beats Scottie, and you’ve picked him in at least one of The Majors, then the point he wins in The Ryder Cup will win you points in our competition.

Actually, the better the win, the greater the points he wins. So it's not just 1 point for a win here as it is in The Ryder Cup.   For every additional hole the win margin is increased by, the point won increases by 0.2.  So if Rory wins 3&2, the win is worth 1.40, if he wins 6&5, it’s worth 2.00.  If the game is drawn then both players will score half point, as per The Ryder Cup

OK so far.   Good.  But it doesn’t stop there, oh no.

This is why your Picks in The Majors will be so critical to your outcome in the competition.

The points your squad players win you in The Ryder Cup, will be adjusted by the points they won you in the Four Majors we’ve contested.

To be precise, you will get 10% of the points they won you across The Masters for every point they win in The Ryder Cup to be precise.  If you picked Scottie once and he won you 200 points in the PGA, then he’d be worth 20 points to you for each point he wins in The Ryder Cup.  

Actually, here's another example from the good old Phoenix Open. I've obviously made a couple of assumptions on players being picked to play in The Ryder Cup here.

But the table shows the value for each point won in The Ryder Cup the players would score.

If you'd Scottie in The Phoenix, as well, as the PGA mentioned above, then actually he’d be worth 30.90 points for every point he wins you in The Ryder Cup. (10% of the 200 assumed for the PGA and 10% of the 109 in the table above).

I think it’s highly unlikely that you will have all 24 Ryder Cup players in your squad.  You could have picked Scottie and Rory all 4 times, and their value in The Ryder Cup for you will be 10% of the Total Points each won you across The Four Majors, I’d guess around 80 points will be the maximum (800 points across the four Majors), for every point they collect in the Ryder Cup.

You could end up with all 24 players in your Ryder Cup Squad, you could end up with just 7, I think it’s more likely to be around 12/15 players, some of which you would have picked 3 or 4 times, some perhaps once.  Actually the picks for the last of the Majors included in this, The Open Championship, could become really strategic 😳😳

The chances are though, that also during The Majors, you would have picked players that haven’t qualified for The Ryder Cup, because they’re not good enough, or not European or American (some would argue that’s the same thing!!!).

These Picks though will though directly affect the points your TWO WILDCARD Picks you will be allowed for The Ryder Cup win you, as their values will be determined by the average values of the picks you made across The Majors, THAT ARE NOT TAKING PART IN THE RYDER CUP.

So back to this table as an example from the test I ran in Phoenix. Even though I Picked them, let's assume MacIntyre, Speith and Conners don't get selected or qualify for the Ryder Cup in September. (Canada isn't yet the 51st State of America)

Therefore, the points they won me in Phoenix will actually have a direct impact on my eventual points MY WILDCARD picks have at Bethpage Black, with the average of all non-selected players I've picked across all the Majors, becoming the Ryder Cup value of both my Wild Cards (I've nominated Aberg and Alexander as WCs in the above). One last thing to note on the WildCards, they must be players you haven’t picked in ANY of The Majors.

There will be a few other ‘tweaks’ and bonus points on offer throughout both The Majors and The Ryder Cup, but the above is the crux of it…..

Fancy It, then just sign up here for now, and I will chase you nearer the time when Picks are needed for The Masters early in April.

I'm in, obviously, and will be hoping that 'Sultans Of Swing' are top of the charts come the end of the competition.

Just sign in below. £20.00 will get you in, and, a percentage of that will be donated to Help For Heroes with contributions also collected from those of us playing along with the Premier League Darts competition.