When will Zach Johnson announce his six captain picks for the US Ryder Cup team?

Half of the U.S. Ryder Cup team is now decided, as the top six players who automatically qualified were determined on Sunday. Captain Zach Johnson is now faced with the challenge of choosing the final six members who will compete against Europe in Italy next month.

Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman, Max Homa, and Xander Schauffele are the top six automatic qualifiers who will aid Johnson and his vice-captains to reveal the remaining six players on August 29th.

“It’s going to be hard. There’s an ample stable of American studs that we can pick from,” Johnson said in a podcast. “I firmly believe we can take a number of different tandems and scenarios with us and have a great outcome.”

There’s a list of strong candidates beyond the top six, even though Captain Johnson isn’t required to pick them. In the previous Ryder Cup, Captain Steve Stricker selected the next four in the standings, along with a couple of others, while leaving out some higher-ranked players. Two players who seem certain to join the team are Brooks Koepka at No. 7 and Jordan Spieth at No. 8.

“I don’t need to take the 12 best American players because that’s hard to pinpoint,” Johnson said. “I need to take the 12 best players that make the best team. That’s going to be on me.”

Further down the list of potential candidates are Cameron Young, Collin Morikawa, Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, Rickie Fowler, Denny McCarthy, Justin Thomas, and Lucas Glover. Many of these players hail from Palm Beach County. Of these candidates, only Thomas didn’t qualify for the 2023 FedEx Cup Playoffs. Koepka isn’t eligible due to his participation in the LIV tour. Spieth, Morikawa, Bradley, Burns, Fowler, and Glover have advanced to this week’s Tour Championship.

In past years, the captain has rarely picked players ranked higher than No. 15. The highest selections were at No. 20 in 2010 (Rickie Fowler) and 2016 (Ryan Moore).