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European Captain Luke Donald Must Feel in the Driver's Seat

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Alex Miceli | Last updated Mar 24, 2025 5:37 PM ET

It must have been fun times at the Donald house on Sunday night.

The European Ryder Cup Captain saw a surge of European talent make statements in numerous tournaments across the globe, none of which were LIV events.

The most significant proclamation came in Tampa when Viktor Hovland shook off 575 days of mediocre golf to win his seventh PGA Tour event, the Valspar Championship.

To be fair, during those 575 days, there have been times when Hovland has been downright horrible. His past good works would not provide for many more free passes, and his spot, which seemed to be cemented on the European Ryder Cup team after the Rome victory, was tendinous at best.

A win is a win, and Hovland knows that. At the same time is was an improbable win, a win that will not convince the 27 year-old he is exactly ready for prime time, but if you're Donald, you’re thrilled that one of your young stallions is back.

With the win, Hovland moved from 105 to 19^th on the European Ryder Cup rankings, but more importantly, he moved to eighth in the world rankings, the third highest-ranked European in the world.

Anything can happen, but even if Hovland doesn’t win again in 2025—which seems doubtful since he has been reunited with his old swing coach, Grant Waite—he has returned to his putter, which he called his gamer, and showed why it was called that in Tampa dropping putts left and right; the Norwegian will be a welcome addition to the 2025 European team that is focused on winning on foreign shores.

Donald can also take some comfort in the fact that Sergio Garcia finished fourth and Adrian Meronk sixth at the International Series Macau on the Asian Tour.

Both LIV players are candidates for a spot on Donald’s team, having won earlier this year in the LIV Golf League.

Donald even texted Meronk congratulations after his win in Saudi Arabia, encouraging him to keep moving in the right direction.

Neither the Pole nor Spainard will earn enough points to get one of the six automatic bids since they will likely never earn enough points playing mostly on LIV, but Donald is watching and hoping one or both will make his job much more complicated in August.

Lastly, England’s Richard Mansel won a weather-shortened event in Singapore.

His first DP World Tour win in his career put him on Donald’s radar, along with Ulsterman Tom McKibbin, who finished T3, and Englishman Matthew Jordan, who was T6.

Of course, Donald still has some issues to address, like what happened to Matt Fitzpatrick, but that’s for another day.

On Sunday, Donald must have been focused on the positives, and there were many to choose from.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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