Should Alex Noren Be On The Ryder Cup Team? Even He Admits Return To Form Was 'A Little Bit Too Late'

Alex Noren defeated Adrien Saddier in a playoff to win the BMW PGA Championship for the second time, and questions immediately turned to whether the Swede should be playing for Team Europe next week at Bethpage Black.

Noren missed out on a wildcard pick for Luke Donald's side after winning his first title in seven years at the British Masters.

Less than a month on and he has just won the biggest event on the DP World Tour schedule and has risen up to 18th in the Official World Golf Ranking - putting him ahead of four players on Team Europe.

After winning for the second time at Wentworth, the Swede, who was out from October to May with injury, went straight to the airport to board the plane to New York with the Europeans as one of five vice-captains.

There's certainly an argument to be made that he is now comfortably one of Europe's top 12 players and Donald has missed out on having him in the line-up.

So should he be on the team? Noren himself doesn't think so.

"I think the other guys have played better than me throughout the year," he admitted.

"I've had a great result now the last month but it came a little bit too late. I think the guys on the team is going to be fantastic.

"Yeah, I don't know, the different mental aspects, I remember back in 2018, I wanted to perform well to kind of show that I could play a lot of matches in the Ryder Cup, and I got three. I think that was fair.

"You've got to just play really well all the time, and that's what the best players do. I think we have a great team and I think it's the right 12 guys that are playing.

"I showed good form late, but it was the wrong time, and I didn't really show the form I needed to show when I started playing, and too many kind of bad tournaments in the middle of the season. Then way better the last six starts."

Noren will make his debut as a vice-captain in New York, having been part of one Ryder Cup as a player in 2018 at Le Golf National.

He won two points from three matches that week, which included a singles victory over Bryson DeChambeau.

Noren says his role will be to do whatever he needs to to help the team in any way.

"I think my role is an extra set of eyes for Luke," he said.

"He's doing the most part, and the other captains have done a lot of work. I think -- and everybody else involved in the Ryder Cup, knowing about a month and a half ago I was going to be a captain, and I asked Luke, what do you want out of me. Obviously I'm not going to coach or captain much.

"'You're going to be an extra set of eyes over a few players and be of any service they need.' You know, I've only played one time but I know it's different to play Ryder Cup than anything else.

"I'll do whatever they ask me to do. I'm really happy to be part of the team because I think Bethpage will be an incredible venue for the Ryder Cup."

Should Alex Noren be on Team Europe as a player? Opinion

Noren was superb at Wentworth and looks like his old self again when he was ranked as high as 8th in the Official World Golf Ranking.

I think he is right, though, in admitting he did not perform well enough during the season to warrant a pick and this great recent form has come too late.

Europe has a superb 12-man team who are all very justified to be there so it would be difficult to pick Noren over any of them right now.

In my view he has also not performed well enough in the US historically to really be one that got away this time around. He has 12 DP World Tour wins, 11 in Europe and one in South Africa, but no PGA Tour victories from his 192 starts. He does have three runners-up finishes and over $17m earned in the States but 11 of Donald's team are winners in America - which I think is important especially at an away Ryder Cup.

Some will question his driving distance for a big course like Bethpage, too, with Noren averaging 'just' 295.9 yards on the PGA Tour this season.

Either way, it is fantastic to see him back to his best and he should be a great vice-captain for Europe with his experience on both sides of the pond and the respect he commands from his peers.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below