Talor Gooch has revealed it would be a 'dream' to represent the USA and defeat fellow LIV Golf star Ian Poulter at the Ryder Cup.
Gooch has announced himself as the man to catch on the breakaway series this campaign, having won three of the eight LIV Golf titles in 2023. His hot form sees the American sitting pretty at the top of the LIV standings following his latest win at Valderrama last week.
On the back of his victory in Andalucia last Sunday, Gooch has set his sights on a Ryder Cup spot, with the matchplay event taking place at Marco Simone in Rome later this year. One man who knows all about the Ryder Cup is Poulter, having starred as Europe's talisman during his impressive career in blue and gold.
And for Gooch taking on the Englishman in a Ryder Cup singles Sunday clash and beating him would be a dream come true.
Speaking at LIV London this week, he said: "There’d be nothing cooler than beating Poults on Sunday. The idea of beating one of the greats of all time in Europe– it’s what dreams are made of." Much has been said about whether LIV Golf players would be included in the teams in Rome in September.
Gooch however is hoping his performances out on the golf course will have done enough to catch the eye of captain Zach Johnson. He added: "In spite of me choosing to come and play LIV Golf a year ago, that doesn’t extinguish my hopes and dreams and desires of competing in a Ryder Cup and competing in majors – none of that has changed.
"You have to hope in the end the people making the decisions are taking everything into account and not just eliminating one side just because of everything that’s happened. The only voice I have is my scores. Anything I say to Zach Johnson isn’t going to make a difference, so the only thing that’s going to make a difference is the way I compete.
"I’ve said it a few times, I call it rule 67. If I go shoot 67, then everything will take care of itself." Despite his LIV allegiances, Gooch's closest friend in the game is PGA Tour star Max Homa, and he revealed the pair had previously dreamt about making the Ryder Cup team together.
The LIV leader added: "Max Homa is one of my best buds and we’ve talked for a while about wanting to team up in Rome. Right after the last Ryder Cup, we started talking about the next one being in Italy. Italy is one of my favourite places in the world and we’ve had discussions for years.
“We haven’t talked about it in the last couple of weeks but I know that we would both love to team up there.”
