Justin Rose calls for "eight picks" in 2020 European Ryder Cup side

Justin Rose believes 2020 European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington might want to consider the possibility of "eight picks" - instead of three - given the circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Rose, who has played in the past five Ryder Cup matches, is currently ranked outside the automatic nine spots in Harrington's side as things stand, and that is unlikely to change any time soon given no tournaments will tee off again until the end of May at the earliest. 

The Englishman was speaking to PA news agency just hours after learning his Olympic gold medal title defence has been pushed back until the summer of 2021 following the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics.

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"I think the Ryder Cup deserves to be the highlight of the schedule and deserves to have the players look forward to it and the fans to be excited about it," said Rose, who currently ranks 39th in the European Points List and 28th in the World Points List. 

"It would be a shame if it just kind of fell into a rhythm of golf and there wasn’t as much build up. That’s what creates some of the excitement about the Ryder Cup, the talking about it for a year, the anticipation of it.

"The qualification period for the Ryder Cup would also be very condensed. Looking at it personally I’m not in as good a position as I’d like to be so it makes qualification trickier with events being stripped out so the teams might look a little different this time around.

"If it goes ahead in 2020 I don’t know if it’s more important that we change the qualification criteria and Padraig [Harrington, Europe’s captain] gets eight picks maybe given the circumstances.

"Rules are rules and you’ve got to have some type of guideline but it’s an imperfect world at the moment and we’ve got to make the best of a bad situation and either keep it where it is and the teams fall where they may, or you move it a year and try to make it a bit more of a highlight.

"The most important thing is that the health of the world is better because the Ryder Cup is such an international event."