Rasmus Hojgaard needs to come back down to earth after the Ryder Cup and do it quickly. The Danish golfer, despite losing the two points he played at Bethpage, experienced the best week of his sporting career. An experience that will remain forever in his memory. Surely he would have liked to scratch at least half a point in his singles against Ben Griffin, but it wasn’t possible. Luckily for him, just before, Shane Lowry managed to fix a situation that had become very bleak for the Europeans.
And we say he needs to come back down soon because his season doesn’t end with the Ryder Cup. He still has a task to do, and it’s no small feat. It’s about saving his PGA Tour card. He’s in a good position, but by no means assured. He is in 87th place in the FedEx Cup and needs to finish the year in the top 100. That’s why he took advantage of already being in the United States to travel from New York to Mississippi, to the Country Club of Jackson, to play the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Rasmus’s goal, in fact, is to do well enough, preferably with a win, to finish the job and return to Europe to finish the season on the DP World Tour. In the United States, it’s not only about finishing in the top 100, but he also aims to get into the top 60 to secure the first two Designated events of next year.
Rasmus Hojgaard is not the only one in this situation at the Sanderson. Practically all those who earned their PGA Tour card through the DP World Tour find themselves like him. In fact, there are seven out of ten. Besides the Dane, there are his compatriots Thorbjorn Olesen and Niklas Norgaard, the Swede Jesper Svensson, the Italian Matteo Manassero, the Frenchman Antoine Rozner, the South African Thriston Lawrence. Only Paul Waring and Rikuya Hoshino are missing. The Englishman has had physical problems all year and withdrew from the Genesis Scottish Open, the last thing he played. Meanwhile, Hoshino hasn’t played since the Open. The tenth card went to Tom McKibbin, who gave up his rights on the American circuit to join Jon Rahm‘s team in LIV Golf.
Besides the European route, there are other interesting names in this PGA Tour event where all the top players are absent. On the other hand, there are Akshay Bhatia or Jacob Bridgeman, who played the Tour Championship, as well as other notable names, such as amateur Michael La Sasso, winner of the NCAA Final this year, or the defending champion, Taiwanese Kevin Yu.
