Ryder Cup Points System Changed

The PGA made it official today and announced that Paul Azinger would be the Ryder Cup captain for the 2008 team. However, the more interesting part of the news conference was the announcement that how points are earned is changing drastically. Instead of earning points by finishing in the top 10 over two years, the 2008 team will rely heavily on how players perform in the majors.

In fact, for the 2008 season, points can only be earned in the four major championships: Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship, and PGA Championship. While I applaud the PGA and Azinger for changing the system (because something needed to change), I wonder if this could backfire as well. The worst-case scenario would be that you’d see first-timers (or one-hit-wonders) running the table at the majors and Azinger would end up with an average team again. More on that next time though.

Stay tuned.