Was Team Europe missing one of its best players at the Ryder Cup?

It’s impressive enough that Team Europe went into New York and emerged with the Ryder Cup on foreign soil.

It’s that much more impressive considering they were missing one of their hottest eligible players.

In fairness, they weren’t actually missing him. Alex Noren was at Bethpage Black. He was even in uniform. But his role wasn’t as player but instead as vice captain to Luke Donald, supporting the players he’d just beaten at the BMW PGA Championship.

And now he’s beating just about everybody else, again.

Some backstory: Noren was on exactly nobody’s Ryder Cup radar midway through the 2025 season. Because he was coming off an injury, he didn’t make a start until May — and recorded just one top 20 in his first seven starts of the season.

But then he caught fire.

Noren finished T7 at the 3M Open. He followed that with a T3 at the Wyndham Championship. He still missed the FedEx Cup playoffs, so he headed overseas to fill in his schedule with some DP World Tour events — and a couple weeks later, in his very next start, he won the Betfred British Masters, his first pro win since 2018. He was already in position as a vice captain at this point, so it was particularly noteworthy when he served as spoiler at the BMW PGA Championship, effectively Europe’s training camp two weeks before the Ryder Cup, where he triumphed in a playoff.

That win vaulted him to No. 18 in the Official World Golf Ranking, impressive given his limited starts. It also put him inside the top 20 in DataGolf’s rankings. In both cases that put him well ahead of several players on Team Europe’s roster. It was a particular oddity at this Ryder Cup given the fact that their opposing captain, Keegan Bradley, was in a similar situation; after his most recent start, the Tour Championship, he was up to No. 11 in the world and easily could have made his own team.

For his part, Noren shrugged it off, dismissing his performance as too little, too late and expressing his excitement for his role.

“I think the guys on the team are going to be fantastic,” he told Sky Sports. “I’m really looking forward to the match more than anything in a long time.” He described his role as “an extra set of eyes over a few players” and volunteered for anything and everything.

“I’ll do whatever they ask me to do,” he concluded.

The system to which he contributed worked like magic for the first four sessions of the Cup, with Europe dominating team play and opening an 11.5-4.5 lead that they took to Sunday’s singles matches. That’s where the U.S. roared back, nearly pulling off an all-time comeback before Europe ultimately prevailed 15-13.

As for Noren? He hasn’t played a tournament since his BMW PGA win but when he returned to action at this week’s Baycurrent Classic — a PGA Tour event in Japan — he didn’t appear to have skipped a beat. After rounds of 69-65 he sits T2 at the halfway mark, four shots off leader Max Greyserman.

“I was a little rusty after pretty much two weeks off after Wentworth and then it was good to get a few days last week,” Noren said, speaking to his recovery from Ryder Cup festivities. “And then coming here, it was tough with the jet lag but my coach is here, which helps a lot. And me and my coach and my caddie is a good team, they keep me in line, in check. So whenever I get a good few days with him it seems to do the trick and like, just getting back to golf.”

Noren described himself as wowed by just how far playing partners Wyndham Clark and Xander Schauffele hit it off the tee — “stick to your own game and get inspired to work hard in the gym,” he said — but hit 27 of 30 fairways through two rounds, best in the field, and showed off an increasingly stellar irons game. He also has the confidence of a recent multiple winner on this tour.

“Yeah, I think the biggest lessons from those [wins] is you don’t have to hit every shot good, you just have to stick with it, stick with your practice, your routines and the good play will come. If you start kind of like going more through your motions, emotions and not stick to your game plan, then it’s tricky.”

Noren is all but assured of PGA Tour status next season. He’s No. 113 in the FedEx Cup (and improving) but is also in position to snag the fourth of 10 cards available to DP World Tour players who aren’t otherwise qualified. Still, he could improve on that status. He could also add to his haul of recent trophies with something that a little bit different:

His first PGA Tour win.

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