Two-time Senior Major winner Richard Bland believes the Ryder Cup is now ‘just another PGA Tour event’ after the European Team revealed a new qualifying system for next year’s edition.
The new system, which moves from two qualifying lists to one unified ranking, will see 5,000 points available for Major Championships and 3000 points for elite PGA Tour events.
In comparison, Rolex Series events on the DP World Tour will have 2000 points to play for, which is the same as what regular PGA Tour events will offer. 1500 points are up for grabs at DP World Tour “back nine” events and 1,000 at DP World Tour global events and PGA Tour opposite events.
For the 2025 European team, the top six points earners will qualify to play at Bethpage, with Luke Donald then having six picks to round out the squad.
Bland isn’t a fan of the new system and believes it will be almost impossible for a full-time DP World Tour member to qualify for the biennial contest.
“It’s sad,” said Bland, who left the DP World Tour to join LIV Golf in 2022.
“I understand that the strength plays in America, but this just basically says that no one playing full-time DP World can play in the Ryder Cup. You can’t make it. Obviously, the World Rankings have gone that way and now the Ryder Cup has gone that way.”
Bland went on to speak about Ryan Fox’s omission from the International Team at the 2022 President’s Cup despite the Kiwi finishing second in the Race to Dubai Rankings.
“When you get someone like Foxy who was second on the DP World Tour two years ago, and he can’t play,” said Bland.
“I mean, really? It seems like it’s just a PGA Tour event. And the Ryder Cup is now just a PGA Tour event. It doesn’t say much for the guys that are up-and-coming in the game. You’ve only got to look at the World Rankings, how many guys from the DP World Tour are in the top 100 in the world? Maybe two? So yeah, I think this is a sad day for the DP World Tour, if I’m being honest.”
Bland has often been an outspoken critic of the DP World Tour’s ‘strategic alliance’ with the PGA Tour, which was announced in 2020.
Three years after that deal, the DP World Tour announced the ‘Ten Cards initiative’, designed to give the leading ten players (not already exempt) on the season-ending Race to Dubai Rankings playing rights on the US-based circuit for 2024.
“I think getting into bed with the Americans was completely the wrong idea,” Bland added.
“Does anyone honestly think [PGA Tour commissioner] Jay Monahan cares about the DP World Tour? No, he doesn’t. For him that ’10 player’ deal was all about how he could get the best DP World Tour players competing on the PGA Tour. They [the PGA Tour] don’t care about the DP World Tour. They never have.
“Let’s face it, anyone who knows anything about world golf knows that the DP World Tour made the wrong decision three, four years ago when they had the opportunity to go with the Saudis.
“I think most of the players have realised that.”
