Tom Watson reduces wildcard picks for Ryder Cup

US Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson has cut his number of wildcard picks from four to three for next year’s Ryder Cup tournament.

The American captain has reduced his number of captain’s picks from four to three for the 2014 contest at Gleneagles in Scotland.

Nine players will now qualify for the Gleneagles team from the Ryder Cup points list, which begins at the Masters next month, with Watson adding three captain’s selections around a month ahead of the match.

Announcing the move, Watson said: “There’s not a lot of method in my madness, I just truly think the players themselves ought to have another shot at getting on the team because of their merit, because of their play.

“I will use all possible resources in choosing these three captain’s choices to complete the best possible team in order to win the cup back for the United States.”

Watson also revealed he had consulted “three or four” recent USA captains including Azinger, and added: We had long conversations about it and all of them said it was a good decision.

“I talked with Paul and he was behind it 100 per cent. He had some good thoughts about how he comprised the team and what he did with the team to get them some ownership in the process.”