2016 Ryder Cup consisting of the last three Ryder Cup captains: Paul McGinley, José María Olazábal, Colin Montgomerie, another ex-Ryder Cup player David Howell and the European Tour chief executive George O'Grady. Davis Love III was named the United States captain on February 24, 2015. He had previously captained the 2012 team. Each captain selects a number of vice-captains to assist him during the tournament. Clarke selected Thomas Bjørn, Pádraig Harrington, and Paul Lawrie as European team vice-captains in May 2016. He added Ian Poulter in June and Sam Torrance in July. Tom Lehman was named as a United States vice-captain at the
Ryder Cup usual for the captain to be one of the players. The USA only had two non-playing captains in this period: Walter Hagen in 1937 and Ben Hogan in 1949 while Great Britain had non-playing captains in 1933, 1949, 1951 and 1953. With the change to 18-hole matches and the extension to three days, it became more difficult to combine the roles of captain and player and Arnold Palmer in 1963 was the last playing captain. The captains have always been professional golfers and the only captain who never played in the Ryder Cup was J.H. Taylor, the 1933 British captain.