European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington will use three wild card picks instead of four when his team defends the cup at next year's event at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

Nine golfers for the European squad will qualify through the point system. Four will be chosen from points accumulated exclusively in European Tour events, with the next five coming from the World list, where points are gained for starts on any tour.

Europe won the 2018 event in Paris, when captain Thomas Bjorn made four at-large selections.

"I have said on many occasions that one of the reasons for recent European success in the Ryder Cup is continuity," Harrington said via Golf Digest. "It is a theme that will be prevalent across my captaincy and I think you can see that in the overall qualification process for the 2020 team.

"Having said that, I am pleased that the (European Tour) tournament committee agreed to the change of wild card numbers. I have spoken to a number of people regarding the ninth player automatically qualifying for the team and, in my experience, a player is more comfortable when he has qualified, hence my reasoning behind this change."

The 43rd Ryder Cup will be played on the Straits Course at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., from Sept. 25-27, 2020. The U.S. team, led by captain Steve Stricker, will use four captain's picks.

--Field Level Media