Is Team Europe missing out on one of its best players at the Ryder Cup?
It’s impressive enough that a European team came to New York and lifted the Ryder Cup in a foreign country.
That’s even more impressive considering they lost one of their hottest qualifying players.
To be fair, they’re not actually lost he. Alex Noren works at Bethpage Black. He even wore a uniform. But his role is not that of a player, but that of Luke Donald’s co-captain, supporting the player he just beat at the BMW PGA Championship.
Now he’s beating almost everyone else again.
Some backstory: Nolen wasn’t on the Ryder Cup radar midway through the 2025 season. He didn’t start until May as he was coming off an injury – and had just one top-20 finish in his first seven starts of the season.
But then he caught fire.
Noren finished tied for seventh at the 3M Open. He then tied for third at the Wyndham Championship. He still missed the FedExCup Playoffs, so he headed overseas to fill his schedule by playing some DP World Tour events – and a few weeks later, in his next tournament, he won the Betfred British Masters, his first professional win since 2018. He was already serving as vice-captain at this point, so it was particularly noteworthy when he served as a spoiler at the BMW PGA Championship, which was actually a European training camp two weeks before the Ryder Cup, where he was victorious in the playoffs.
The win vaulted him to No. 18 in the Official World Golf Ranking, which is impressive considering his limited starts. This also puts him in the top 20 in DataGolf’s rankings. In both cases, he was well ahead of several players on the European roster. This is a particularly strange phenomenon at this Ryder Cup given that their rival captain Keegan Bradley is in a similar situation. After his most recent start, the Tour Championship, he climbed to No. 11 in the world and was easily able to make his team.
Nolen dismissed this as too little, too late and expressed his excitement for his role.
“I think the players in the squad are going to be really good,” he told Sky Sports. “I’m really looking forward to this game, the most I’ve looked forward to in a long time.” He described his role as “extra supervision over a handful of players” and volunteered to take on anything.
“I’ll do whatever they ask me to do,” he concluded.
The system he contributed to worked wonders through the first four games of the Cup, with Europe dominating the team events and leading 11.5-4.5 in Sunday’s singles. The American team immediately launched a counterattack and almost achieved a historic reversal. In the end, the European team won 15-13.
As for Nolen? He hasn’t competed since winning the BMW PGA Championship, but he didn’t appear to have skipped a beat when he returned to action this week at the Baycurrent Classic, a PGA Tour event in Japan. After rounds 69-65, he was in second place at midfield, four strokes behind leader Max Greyserman.
“I was a little rusty after almost two weeks off after Wentworth, and it was nice to have a few days off last week,” Nolen said of his return from Ryder Cup celebrations. “Coming here, it’s been hard with the jet lag, but I have my coach here, which helps. Me and my coach and my caddy are a great team and they keep me consistent and in control. So whenever I have a good few days with him, it seems like I can get back to golf.”
Nolen said he marveled at the distance his teammates Wyndham Clark and Xander Schauffele were hitting off the tee – “Sticking to my game and being inspired to work hard in the gym,” he said – but he hit 27 of 30 fairways through two rounds, playing his best game on the course and showing off an increasingly better iron game. He is also confident of his recent wins on this tour.
“Yeah, I think the biggest lesson is [wins] You don’t have to hit every shot well, you just have to keep at it, stick to your practice, stick to your routine, and the good games will come. That can get tricky if you start focusing more on your movements and emotions instead of sticking to your game plan. “
Nolen is all but assured of PGA Tour status next season. He is ranked 113th in the FedExCup (and still improving), but also has the ability to get the fourth of the 10 cards available to DP World Tour players who are ineligible. Still, he could improve the situation. He can also add to his recent trophies with a few different things:
His first PGA Tour title.
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