US captain Steve Stricker to get six Ryder Cup wild cards

US captain Steve Stricker has announced a significant change to the US selection criteria for this year's Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in September. Picture: Getty Images

A strong hint about this year's Ryder Cup going ahead as planned has been dropped by US captain Steve Stricker announcing a major change to his selection process.

He will now have six captain's picks - two more than originally planned - due to the number of automatic qualifiers being reduced to the same number.

The change has been made as a result of the cancellation of 11 events on the PGA Tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The points battle will run through to the BMW Championship, the second FedEx Cup Play-Off event, in Illinois at the end of August.

The remaining six players will then be announced by Stricker on 2 or 3 September - just before the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

The Ryder Cup is scheduled to take place at Whistling Straits on 25-27 - a week after the US Open at Winged Foot.

“With all the various changes to the 2020 schedule, it quickly became apparent that we would need to amend our selection criteria,” said Stricker, who will be captaining the US team in his home state of Wisconsin.

“After many deliberate discussions, we collectively agreed that a smaller sampling of 2020 events - including just one major championship - would justify a one-week extension of the qualification window and an increase in the number of captain’s selections from four to six.

"These changes were sparked by circumstance, but conceived with integrity in mind. In the end, we believe they will allow us to put our best team together to compete at Whistling Straits in September."

Heading into this week's PGA Tour return in Texas, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Gary Woodland, Xander Schauffele and Webb Simpson are sitting in the automatic qualifying spots.

Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods had also been in that position before this change was announced.

A number of top players, led by Koepka and Rory McIlroy, have been vocal in calling for the postponement of this year's event if Covid-19 restrictions rule out fans.

Stricker himself said last week that it would be a "yawner of an event" if it was played behind closed doors.

Padraig Harrington, the European captain, is scheduled to have just three picks for Europe's trophy defence on the banks of Lake Michigan.

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