We're still more than two months from the Presidents Cup, but today — Wednesday, Sept. 25 — marks one year until the 43rd Ryder Cup.

Since it's never too early, here's a quick look ahead to next year's matches.

• Dates: Sept. 25-27, 2020
• Venue: Whistling Straits (Straits Course)
• Location: Kohler, Wisconsin
• Overall record since 1979: Europe leads 11-8-1

United States

Captain: Steve Stricker

Assistants: TBA

Qualifying: The qualifying window for the U.S. team extends through the PGA Tour's 2020 BMW Championship. Events that count toward qualifying include 2019 major championships, 2019 World Golf Championships, the 2019 Players Championship and 2020 PGA Tour events (excluding opposite fields), beginning with the Sentry Tournament of Champions. The top eight players on the U.S. points list at the end of the BMW Championship will make the team. Click here for the current U.S. Ryder Cup points list.

Captain's picks: Four additional selections will be announced on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020, following the Tour Championship.

Europe

Captain: Padraig Harrington

Assistants: Robert Karlsson, TBA

Qualifying: The qualifying window for the European team extends through the European Tour's 2020 BMW PGA Championship. Nine players will automatically qualify for the team, four from the Race to Dubai points list and five from the world points list. World points cannot be earned in any tournaments played during the week of a Rolex Series event. Click here for the current European Ryder Cup points lists.

Captain's picks: Three additional picks will be announced the week after the BMW PGA. 

Facts and figures

• Europe is currently in possession of the cup, having routed the American side, 17 1/2 to 10 1/2, in 2018 at Le Golf National in France.
• Europe has won four of the last five editions, seven of the last nine dating back to 2002, and nine of the last 12 dating back to 1995.
• The last three U.S. victories — in 1999 at Brookline, in 2008 at Valhalla, and in 2016 at Hazeltine — have all come on American soil.
• The U.S. has not won on European soil since 1993, but Europeans have won the cup in the U.S. three times since — in 1995 at Oak Hill, in 2004 at Oakland Hills, and in 2012 at Medinah.

Rory McIlroy is playing this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship alongside his father, Gerry.

The event is a pro-am on the European Tour, contested on the Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland.

Team McIlroy has been prepping with a little internal competition that, apparently, has been going the way of Dad.

In this clip from the European Tour, Gerry gives his son the needle.

No one gives Gerry McIlroy four a side and comes out on top. Not even the current PGA Tour Player of the Year and FedExCup champion.

Manchester United's owners, the Glazer family, have sanctioned a three-year plan to restore the club's on-field fortunes, with sources having told ESPN FC there is now an acceptance the team is unlikely to challenge for the Premier League until the 2021-22 season at the earliest.

With traditional rivals Manchester City and Liverpool setting the standard in domestic and European football, the United hierarchy have noted how at Anfield, in particular, they have arrived at their status after rebuilding behind the scenes and backing manager Jurgen Klopp during the German's difficult first 18 months in charge.

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United, the most successful club in English football with 20 league titles, have not won the Premier League since 2012-13 -- the final season of Sir Alex Ferguson's 27-year reign as manager.

And in the six seasons since, under the management of David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and now Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, United have finished an average of 21.5 points behind the eventual champions.

Under Solskjaer, United have made an unconvincing start to the campaign, with the team sitting in eighth position, 10 points behind leaders Liverpool after six games.

Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward said on Tuesday, during a conference call with the club's investors, that Solskjaer needed to be afforded "patience" in his attempts to overhaul the squad and make United competitive again at the top level of the Premier League.

And sources with knowledge of the club's plans have told ESPN FC that the "patience" of the United hierarchy extends to the belief that the so-called "cultural reset" cited by Woodward last season will require three full seasons, and accompanying transfer windows, before the mistakes of the post-Ferguson years can be properly rectified.

As well as investing in the playing squad, United are also determined to improve their structure off the pitch, with the search for a technical director still ongoing.

But while United view this summer's transfer dealings as being a positive signpost of the way ahead, it is only regarded as a starting point, with the gap between Solskjaer's squad and those at Liverpool and City still vast in terms of depth and quality.

And although the three-year plan is not a guarantee of Solskjaer being at the helm for the entire period of the rebuild, the Norwegian is aware of the club's decision to build for the long-term rather attempt a quick fix.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has said it would be a mistake for the Football Association to punish Bernardo Silva over a deleted tweet in which the midfielder compared team mate Benjamin Mendy to a cartoon character.

Silva posted a tweet on Sunday likening Mendy to a character in the logo for Conguitos, a brand of confectionary popular in Spain and Portugal, but deleted it an hour later.

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The 25-year-old posted a second tweet that said "can't even joke with a friend these days... you guys" but anti-racism body Kick It Out condemned his actions saying racist stereotypes are never acceptable.

The FA have written to City for their observations on incident and Kick It Out have demanded the governing body take action.

"If they want to do that and ask for Bernardo, he'll be open to talk," Guardiola told reporters after City beat second-tier Preston North End 3-0 in the League Cup on Tuesday.

"But first, you have to know exactly which person you are talking about. If something happens it will be a mistake because Bernardo is an exceptional person.

"It's nothing to do with colour of skin or nationality."

Guardiola looked to further play down the incident, saying that Mendy had not taken offence to the tweet.

"There are many situations with white people where a cartoon will look similar. The response from Mendy was clear. They are joking all the time," Guardiola added.

"Bernardo is one of the loveliest people I've met in my life. He speaks four or five languages -- that's the best way to understand how open-minded he is.

"One of his best friends is Mendy. He's like a brother. He took a picture of Benjamin when he was young and related it with this cartoon, quite similar for the image."

Uli Hoeness has threatened that Bayern Munich will no longer release players for the Germany national team if Marc-Andre ter Stegen replaces Manuel Neuer as the country's No. 1.

According to Sport Bild, Hoeness warned the German FA that the fight for the first-choice goalkeeping spot could have dramatic consequences for them.

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He reportedly said Bayern "will never accept a change of guard" in the national team's goal following the 3-0 Champions League win against Red Star last Wednesday.

When asked about Ter Stegen potentially replacing Neuer as Germany's No. 1, Hoeness was quoted as saying: "If that happens, we will no longer release players for the national team."

However, Hoeness' words ring hollow because FIFA regulations stipulate that "clubs are obliged to release their registered players [...] if they are called up."

Following the last international break, Barcelona goalkeeper Ter Stegen said that not playing in the Euro 2020 qualifying games against Netherlands and Northern Ireland was a "massive blow" and Neuer responded by describing the comments as not helpful.

Bayern president Hoeness then attacked Ter Stegen and the German FA, instructing them to "put Ter Stegen in a corner and make him apologise to Neuer."

At the weekend, Germany coach Joachim Low, attending a Bundesliga match in Freiburg, told reporters that "something like that won't have any influence on me."

Sussex have signed Australia's Travis Head as their overseas player for the 2020 season, with Jason Gillespie again using his role as Adelaide Strikers coach to aid recruitment.

Gillespie is both teams' head coach, and Head will join Alex Carey, Rashid Khan, and Chris Jordan in playing for both clubs in recent years.

Head, who scored 191 in four Ashes Tests this summer before being left out at The Oval, will be available to play in all formats. He had been scheduled to sign for the county this season, but the deal fell through after he was named in the Ashes squad, and Sussex recruited Carey instead.

"To have a high-quality international batsman like Travis on our staff in 2020 is very, very exciting," said Gillespie.

"We wanted a top four batsman to improve our team and Travis will do that. He's shown his class in his international career so far, he brings some useful offspin and he will offer good leadership support to our captains from his time leading South Australia and the Strikers.

"We also felt it was important to sign an overseas batsman that would be able to join us for most of the season and give us some continuity.

"I've known Trav for a number of years. We have a really good relationship and after we decided here at Sussex that an overseas batsman would complement our squad next year I just knew that Travis would be ideal."

"I was disappointed not to have been able to take up my contract this summer so was thrilled that Jason and Keith [Greenfield, the club director of cricket] were keen to lock me away for the 2020 season," said Head. "I can't wait."

Head is unlikely to be the last Australian to sign a county deal for next season. The Future Tours Programme has thrown up a large gap between Australia's Test matches - from February to November - and their white-ball commitments are equally sparse.

Peter Siddle (Essex) and Cameron Bancroft (Durham) already hold contracts for 2020, while it is understood that multiple counties, including Hampshire and Yorkshire, have enquired about the availability of Nathan Lyon.

Zak Crawley is under no illusions about the task ahead if he is to secure himself a place in England's Test side.

But for a man who is not yet 22, Kent opening batsman Crawley, who this week earned his first international call-up for the two-Test tour of New Zealand in November, is not short of a plan.

"I know how selection works, you've got to prove yourself," Crawley told ESPNcricinfo. "And there's some people who have had great years this year who I'm going up against, so I'm going to have to have good practice and try and impress them that way, because obviously there's only one innings left before that tour.

"I'm not going in there assuming I'm not going to play or I'm going to play, I'm just going to try and put in the hard work and hopefully win them over like that.

Crawley will be vying with Dom Sibley and Ollie Pope for key batting positions at the top of England's far-from-settled top-order.

Sibley, who also earned his first Test call-up for the New Zealand tour, is the leading scorer in county cricket and the only batsman in Division One to pass the 1,000-run mark with 1,324 runs at 69.68. He scored 215 not out and 109 in Warwickshire's penultimate match of the season, an eight-wicket win over Nottinghamshire last week.

And Pope, who has played two Tests for England batting at No. 4 against India last year, is also enjoying a fruitful end to the 2019 Championship, having missed much of the season through injury. In only his fifth match of Surrey's current campaign, his unbeaten 79 against Nottinghamshire gave him 533 runs at an average of 88.83 in eight innings.

"I'm not bothered where I bat, to be honest," said Crawley. "Most likely it would be top of the order but if they said to me, 'bat anywhere', I'd bat anywhere, so I won't pigeon hole myself to one spot just yet."

With Kent's final match of the season heavily interrupted by the weather, Crawley looks set to finish his campaign with 820 runs at 59.46, including two hundreds and five half-centuries. However, his past four innings have yielded scores of just 3, 4, 15 and 0, and so a phone call from England's chief selector, Ed Smith, shortly after his duck against Hampshire at Canterbury brightened Crawley's mood immeasurably. .

"It's something I've been working for my whole life so hopefully now I can just seize the opportunity and go well, that's the plan," Crawley said. "There was an idea at the end of the tunnel where I wanted to be at, and England is definitely right up there. If and when I get the go, hopefully I can just put in a good performance and hopefully play for a long while."

Crawley credits a stint with Sydney Cricket Club in the last NSW Premier Cricket season, particularly in the T20 arena, for his impressive development over the English summer. While at Sydney, he scored the fastest century in the competition, reaching an unbeaten 100 off just 42 balls.

"I had a good winter away last year," Crawley said. "It seems to be a common theme when people have good winters, they come back and have good summers. I reckon that had probably the biggest influence on me.

"That was one of my goals in the winter, to do well in white-ball this year natually, and improve that game. This is a Test call-up so I'm more than happy with that but that was one of my main goals for the winter so that was very pleasing. I was just trying to know my game better and move forward, and I think I did that pretty well in the winter. I definitely came back to England with a clear picture of what I wanted to achieve and what I needed to do to do that."

Kent captain Sam Billings, who earned a recall to England's T20I squad for five matches in New Zealand in November, was hugely impressed with Crawley's T20 progress, which included a top score of 89 off 55 balls against Essex last month, and tipped big things for the youngster across all formats.

"With my own call-up, I was actually happier with Zak getting called up," Billings said. "His temperament is probably the most impressive thing with him, his work ethic as well. He will be a very successful cricketer around the world, not only in the four-day, five-day game but also in T20. How he just naturally picked up the game and he has all the skills to go with it, for me it's great to see him kick on and get the recognition he deserves."

Ahead of their three-Test series against India, which begins in Visakhapatnam on October 2, South Africa play a three-day warm-up match against the Indian Board President's XI, starting Thursday in Vizianagaram. Rain is forecast for all three days of the match, and both teams will hope there is enough dry weather for their players to get a decent workout before the Tests begin.

Here are some of the key issues the two sets of players will look to sort out during the game.

Rohit Sharma, the opener

Contrary to widespread belief, Rohit Sharma has done a pretty good job when he's got the opportunity to play Test cricket. Since the start of 2016, he averages 53.00 in 11 Test matches. It's a sign of the depth of India's batting resources that he can't command a consistent spot in the middle order.

Thanks to KL Rahul's long run of poor form and Prithvi Shaw's doping ban, however, he now has an opportunity to try and turn himself into a long-format opener. Moving to the top of the order transformed Rohit's ODI career. Can he make a similar move up the order work in Test cricket too?

Rohit doesn't have much previous as a red-ball opener. In 137 innings in first-class cricket, he has opened just three times, the last of those occasions - when Mumbai attempted to chase an improbable target of 155 in 11 overs - coming in December 2012.

Apart from the Test-match combination of Rohit and Mayank Agarwal, the Board President's XI squad also includes two other openers, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Priyank Panchal. Those two will probably have to accept a move down the order for now.

Can South Africa's batsmen crack the Asia code?

Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis. Only one member of that world-class middle order remains standing now.

This isn't to say South Africa have an inexperienced batting line-up, per se. Dean Elgar (56 Tests) has only played two fewer Tests than du Plessis, while Temba Bavuma (36) and Quinton de Kock (40) have been around Test cricket for a while, and Aiden Markram (17) is well settled at the top of the order.

But all of them have poor records in Asia.

This is South Africa's first tour of Asia without both de Villiers (who averaged 54.56 in the continent) and Amla (47.66). In the absence of those two legends, their senior batsmen will have to step up and show the way for less experienced players like Theunis de Bruyn, Zubayr Hamza and Heinrich Klaasen.

Umesh Yadav's window of opportunity

He took ten wickets in his last Test match at home. During India's epic 2016-17 home season, he bowled more overs than Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma put together.

But until Jasprit Bumrah was ruled out with a stress fracture, Umesh Yadav wasn't even in India's squad for the Tests against South Africa. It is a reflection of just how vast India's pace pool is, and also of Umesh's own limitations.

If fit, Ishant and Shami should remain India's first-choice new-ball pair for the Tests, and Umesh may not get a look-in unless - and it's a big unless - they play three quicks. Still, if he can knock over a few top-order wickets in Vizianagaram, he will keep himself in the conversation.

Can South Africa's spinners surprise?

The last time South Africa toured India, they came up against some of the squarest turners seen in this country in a long time. If their batsmen didn't like it, their spinners should have enjoyed it, but Imran Tahir, Simon Harmer and Dane Piedt fell a long way short of matching the threat of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra.

Four years on, their squad includes Keshav Maharaj, who may well be their best red-ball spinner since readmission, Piedt - who has forced his way back into Test cricket after topping the 2018-19 4-Day Franchise Series wicket charts with 54 at 27.74 - and the allrounder Senuran Muthusamy.

Piedt and Muthusamy have been in India for a while now, having been part of the South Africa A touring side, and Maharaj has taken been in terrific form for Yorkshire in the County Championship, taking 38 wickets in five matches at 18.92.

With Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje in the pace mix, South Africa will use the Board President's XI match to figure out what kind of bowling combination they will take into the first Test - two quicks and two spinners, three and one, or even three and two, given the batting ability of Muthusamy and Philander.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jason Pierre-Paul have agreed to a reworked contract that includes the defensive end's compensation dropping by around $3 million for 2019, while the 2020 year of his deal was eliminated, per a league source.

Given that there are varying opinions on whether and when Pierre-Paul will be able to resume his playing career after a neck injury suffered in a car accident this past May, the contract reflects a compromise between the two sides.

Pierre-Paul was placed on the non-football injury list, which means the team was not obligated to pay him his full salary of $13.65 million for this season. With the amended deal, Pierre-Paul's compensation for the year is now $10.5 million, and the 30-year old can hit free agency in March if he is able to continue to play football, which he believes he can.

For the Buccaneers, this deal creates financial flexibility in the form of $4.4 million in cap savings, which is helpful for a team that has been tight to the salary cap.

There is no timetable for Pierre-Paul's return and the organization is proceeding cautiously, given the nature of his injury. He was cleared by the team and independent doctors to resume rehabilitative exercises last month after he opted not to undergo surgery.

Shaquil Barrett has stepped up in his absence, tying an NFL-record with 8 sacks in the first three games.

Bruce Arians said Monday that Pierre-Paul is "progressing" and that it's been good to see him at the team facility.

"Yeah, he's been in and out a bunch," he said.

ESPN's Jenna Laine contributed to this report.

Los Angeles Chargers running back Melvin Gordon could soon be moving up his reporting date, though no final decisions have made, league sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Gordon had previously planned to return at some point in October.

He must report no later than Nov. 29 to play in 2019 and accrue credit for this season toward becoming a free agent in the offseason.

Without Gordon, the Chargers (1-2) rank 13th in the NFL with 111.7 rushing yards per game as Austin Ekeler (160 yards) and Justin Jackson (142) have combined to fill the void.

Gordon, 26, continues to hold out because of a contract impasse with the Chargers. Gordon's representation asked for and was granted permission by the Chargers to pursue a trade, but so far no deal has materialized with another team.

Gordon is scheduled to make $5.605 million in the final season of his rookie deal. Just before the season started, Chargers general manager Tom Telesco announced that the team postponed negotiations with Gordon until the season is over. If Gordon chooses to report, he will play under his current contract.

Gordon desires a contract extension that will compensate him among the top running backs in the league like Todd Gurley, David Johnson and Le'Veon Bell, who earn an average of $13 million to $14 million annually. During training camp, the Chargers offered Gordon a new contract that doubled his salary at roughly $10 million annually.

The former first-round draft pick has rushed for 3,628 yards and has 1,577 receiving yards with 38 total touchdowns in his first four seasons.

ESPN's Eric D. Williams contributed to this report.