Jon Rahm admitted being excited about the Ryder Cup after Luke Donald announced his European side for Bethpage on Monday. However, the Spaniard said the team remains the ‘underdogs’ compared to Keegan Bradley’s US side competing in their home turf, New York.During the Ryder Cup press conference that followed Donald’s captains’ picks announcement, Rahm addressed the team’s strength on paper. Replying to a media query about having Masters champion Rory McIlroy and TOUR Championship winner Tommy Fleetwood, among others, in the side, the LIV Golf season champion opined that the ‘on-paper thing doesn't always tell the full story.’ The 2023 Masters champ dubbed his side the ‘underdogs’ for the event on US soil.The 30-year-old golfer, worth $102M according to Forbes, reiterated that the side is the ‘underdogs at least for him.’Speaking about his team, Jon Rahm said, as quoted by ASAP Sports:“Oh, man, the on-paper thing in sports, especially in golf, it doesn't always tell the full story, and it's so hard to guess in this sport, right… If I had to say because we're playing in the U.S., we're always going to be the underdogs. It's a hostile environment in a sense for us when it comes to golf -- lost my train of thought, sorry."Yeah, so I feel like that we're the underdogs because of the environment we're in. New York can be intense. They want to get the Cup back. Just because of that, I would like to think of us as the underdogs, at least myself.”European Ryder Cup team announcedJon Rahm’s ‘underdogs’ comment came soon after European skipper Luke Donald announced the Spaniard among his six captain’s picks for the 2025 Ryder Cup in New York. The LIV star was picked alongside Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry, and Sepp Straka to join the six automatic qualifiers - Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Rasmus Højgaard, Robert MacIntyre, Rory McIlroy, and Justin Rose.The team skipper addressed the nature of the squad compared to the 12-man side that competed in Rome in 2023 and said that he is approaching captaincy from a ‘very different angle.’Luke Donald said on Monday, as quoted by the Ryder Cup website:“We are a settled and united team with a strong culture, with 11 of the 12 players from the victory in Rome returning, and an exciting, talented rookie in Rasmus Højgaard, who was around our team environment in Rome… Although the team itself is similar to Rome, I have approached this captaincy from a very different angle. A different challenge requires different thinking and strategies.”It is pertinent to note that Rahm sat alongside Fitzpatrick as the most experienced of Donald’s captain’s picks. For the unversed, the Englishman teed it up in 2016, 2021, and 2023, while the Spanish star readies to appear at the fourth consecutive edition of the contest after his 2018 debut in Paris.The European side will take on the Keegan Bradley-led US team headlined by World No.1 Scottie Scheffler at Bethpage Black, Farmington, New York, from September 26-28.