FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — It’s the unlikeliest story at Bethpage Black this week: A cart driver from the 2023 Ryder Cup miraculously swapped places with his twin brother to snag the final qualifying spot for this year’s team.
But the change has been so subtle it’s flying under the radar.
“It’s been pretty easy to get into the team. I’ve been called ‘Nicolai’ pretty much half the time by everyone,” said Rasmus Hojgaard on Wednesday morning, typically deadpan.
“Nicolai” refers to Rasmus’ twin brother, who at 22 was the youngest player at the 2023 Ryder Cup. Rasmus at 24 is the youngest player at this year’s Cup. And he’s made a massive leap since serving as assistant to the assistant captain in Rome, where he served as driver (or rode shotgun) for fellow Dane Thomas Bjorn.
“I think the Rome experience made it easier for me to get to know the guys a little bit better.” Rasmus said.
Bjorn accompanied him to his pre-match press conference, this time serving as Rasmus’ wingman rather than the other way around. And all week the Euros have leaned into the plug-and-play twin-for-twin trade. They recreated the 2023 team photo, putting Rasmus in Nicolai’s spot as they’ve sought to welcome him fully to the team.
“It’s been good fun so far,” he said.
So how’d we get here? It’s the circumstances around Rasmus’ qualification that make his presence in this team room particularly remarkable.
Counterintuitively, Hojgaard’s biggest break may have come when he missed the FedEx Cup Playoffs back in early August. At the time, he was lingering at the edge of Team Europe’s automatic qualifying spots — each team takes its top six points-getters followed by six captain’s picks — but because his form had faded in recent months, he was starting to look like an unlikely captain’s pick. Other PGA Tour players had made it further in the playoffs like Harry Hall or Aaron Rai; they were among the pros in conversation for Europe’s final spot, as were veterans like Matt Wallace and Alex Noren. But Rasmus still controlled his own destiny.
Because Team Europe also allows its players to earn points on its home circuit, the DP World Tour, Rasmus was able to take a week off after the end of his PGA Tour season before returning to action at his home open, the Danish Golf Championship. He found his comfort zone and nearly won, settling for a solo second place finish that boosted him back to the edge of automatic qualifying. Suddenly, in an unlikely reversal, Rasmus headed to the following week’s Betfred British Masters in need of a T29 or better to qualify on points. He went above and beyond with a T13, leapfrogging Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka and Tyrrell Hatton all the way up to No. 5, earning an automatic bid in the process.
Rasmus admitted that was the most nervous he’s ever been on a golf course.
“I’ve been so stressed out on the course today,” he said post-round. “I was telling Tom, my caddie out there, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do this.”
So he was encouraged by his performance under the gun — and reassured when he validated his spot on the team just a week later, shooting a final-round 62 to finish T2 at the Omega European Masters.
Nicolai showed signs of form down the qualifying stretch, too — including a T2 at the Belfry the week Rasmus punched his ticket — but had left himself too far to climb. And, even more improbably, there weren’t any spots obviously open. The other 11 Europeans from 2023 has all played their way back onto the team in an unprecedented show of consistency.
“That’s unusual, it’s never happened in the history of our Ryder Cup teams in Europe, to have 11 come back. So we have a lot of cohesion,” Donald said. He talked about how part of his job as captain is to get the team together, but this year that hasn’t taken much work, given their shared history.
“Even Rasmus was on the buggy for Nicolai and spent time there,” Donald said. (Eleven and a half returning players, joked Justin Rose.)
And that’s where Rasmus can clarify what his 2023 experience had truly amounted to: not much.
“Here’s the thing: I wasn’t that much in the team room. I wasn’t that much involved with how Luke dealt with the team. I was a little bit more back with the staff,” he said. It’s clear that Rasmus didn’t want to push boundaries — and it’s clear that he wanted to earn his way into a Ryder Cup team room.
“I wasn’t in the team meetings. I wasn’t in all that because I wasn’t a player. I was driving buggies that week. I wasn’t really involved with the team. That was also a decision for me: ‘I’m not a player, so I shouldn’t be in with everyone else.’”
Now he’s earned that right. As for the transition? So far, so good.
“Obviously it’s pretty much the same thing. They only had to change one initial on the name,” he said.
And he’ll forgive his teammates for a slip-up here and there.
“It’s all right. It is what it is. I’m used to it,” he said. “I’ve been used to it for 20 years now. So it doesn’t really bother me.”
Meanwhile, Nicolai is expected to arrive in town before the matches start, on hand to witness his twin brother represent the Hojgaards on a second consecutive European team.
And they’ll hope to double the Hojgaards on the next one.
