Granted, four months ago, the contest got away with the likes of Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio García not being available for Europe and Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau not in the Stars and Stripes. Experts have called the three days at Marco Simone as among the best in the match’s near 100-year history.
Yet the ignored blue-and-gold veterans were past their ‘best before’ date and in a basket so deep in talent, America could shrug at the omission of Johnson and Co. A Rahmless showdown would make it a sham and no Hatton would confirm it as a scam to anyone paying the ridiculous entrance fees.
A stuffing would then be the beginning of the end. Unless they could heal the rifts and stop the civil war.
So, if the negotiations break down, Donald could survey the wreckage of his team room in August 2025 and wonder how his selection policy had been so spectacularly been blown asunder. By then Donald would have been told that the divisions are too pronounced to hand wildcards to the rebels. And, regardless what some insist, they would not be eligible anyway.
As the regulations stands, Rahm and Hatton will pick up bans for playing without permission on LIV and as there are 14 events by the end of September, if the Tour treats these two as it has treated the rest so far, it will almost be impossible for the pair to fulfil the minimum membership requirement of four regular events.
The DP World Tour could rewrite the rules and allow the LIV players to retain their cards if they pay their fines and somehow serve their bans, but in the midst of an escalating civil war, with the rank and file questioning “what price loyalty?”, this would be a truly shocking and hypocritical climbdown.
And the PGA Tour? Well, they earn relative buttons from the Ryder Cup anyway and, with their US private equity investors putting up the munitions, they would be involved in a fight for survival and because of the “strategic alliance” with the DP World Tour, the threat to existence would be contagious.
As a Tour insider told me on Monday, “look, if we have not sorted it out with the PIF by the next Ryder Cup then I’m afraid we’ll have bigger problems”.
The good news is the word is that the talks are progressing – “very positive’ a well-placed source says – and there is genuine hope of a resolution to suit everyone. As a sign of how far they have travelled around that table, the power-brokers have stopped calling it “a merger” and now refer to the potential amalgamation “as a partnership in a new company that would eventually determine the product”.
Whatever, if your ethics allow, you should pray the “product” has the Ryder Cup at its epicentre. Otherwise, Rahmaggedon, indeed.