Ryder Cup pressure reaches boiling point as U.S. qualifying ends after BMW Championship
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OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. – It was a statement that likely won’t appear in any PGA Tour promotional material. But to Justin Thomas, at least, it was the cold, hard truth.
“I legitimately would rather make the Ryder Cup than the playoffs,” he said.
A few cynics pounced, claiming that was an easy position for Thomas to take. He has banked more than $54 million in on-course earnings. He captured the FedExCup in 2017 and, sitting outside the top 70, he wasn’t even qualified for the postseason. But it was at least noteworthy that Thomas admitted he wasn’t so much trying to make the opening field in Memphis as he just wanted to put enough low scores on the board to give U.S. captain Zach Johnson reason to pause. Whether Thomas accomplished that is debatable; he tied for 12th at the Wyndham, his second-best finish since March, and missed out on the playoffs by one spot.
When diagnosing Thomas’ struggles over the past few months, there were several areas of concern. He sprayed his driver. His approach play wasn’t sharp. He putted as poorly as he had in his career. But to hear Thomas, his explanation focused more on his mental failings than any physical weakness: “I’m putting so much pressure on myself to play well.”
And these days, he’s hardly alone.
The BMW Championship is the final week of automatic qualifying for the U.S. team, and Johnson’s wildcard picks will be announced in 13 days. As many as 10 players at Olympia Fields have a mathematical chance to crash the top 6 and clinch a spot on the team, including Lucas Glover, at No. 16, who has won the past two weeks and rocketed from 64th in the standings.
The pressure to perform is apparent, and for proof you need only to look at the recent results of the chief contenders.
Needing one last push to solidify his spot, Cameron Young has gone missed cut-T31 in his past two starts.
One of the world’s best putters, Denny McCarthy has gone cold with two missed cuts and a T-66 in his last three appearances.
Sam Burns has just a single top-10 since his Match Play victory in March.
Tony Finau has been only slightly better – his lone top-10 coming in his title defense at the 3M, despite believing he was playing the best golf of his life.
And Keegan Bradley, on the heels of an emotional victory at the Travelers Championship, thisclose to securing a Ryder Cup spot for the first time in nine years, well, all he’s done in his three starts since was place outside the top 20.
Their disappearing acts of late has allowed an off-the-radar player like Glover, who at age 43 is vying for his first Ryder Cup appearance, to crash the conversation. None of the other cup wannabes have seized the moment.
“I think everybody does that – it’s just part of the human desire is to want things too much,” Burns said. “Do I desire to be on the Ryder Cup team? One-hundred percent. Absolutely, no doubt. That’s just part of my competitiveness, and I want to be on that team. But at the same time, I need to go out and focus on this week and try to play the best golf that I can. That’s what I can control.”
Finau was more philosophical in his approach. “Overtraining is something that you have to learn and guard against. When you’re playing at a high level, that’s clearly what you’re not doing; you’re not getting in your own way and just allowing yourself to play. There’s a freedom that comes with that, but it’s a fine line.”
The players’ intense push toward what amounts to a three-day exhibition is a welcome backdrop to another fraught year on Tour. For the second year in a row, the primary talking point has been about money. More money for the stars. More guaranteed money in the signature events. More money pumped into the Tour through the proposed deal with the Saudis. Greed and power, ruling the day. But few all-time greats have been primarily motivated by dollar signs, and that’s even more true today – the Tour’s upper echelon, the Rorys and Rahms and Spieths of the world, have already earned more than they could ever spend in three lifetimes. And so Thomas’ pro-cup stance wasn’t so much a knock on the Tour but more a reminder of what can’t be bought. Instead of chasing the $18 million prize in Atlanta, Thomas would rather play for free in Rome.
“It’s just special,” said Burns, who made his first cup team last year at the Presidents Cup. “You get to play with the best players in the world and be on their team, and that camaraderie that you have and get to experience is something that we don’t get very often out here. And to be able to play for your country, that means a lot. It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to other guys as well. You’re playing for something bigger than yourself.”
While awaiting his fate, Thomas joked that he wasn’t about to write a love letter to the captain, that his match-play record (16-5-3, by far the best of any current American) should stand on its own. Bradley wasn’t preparing any grand speech either, even as he tries to make his first cup team since 2014. But he also hasn’t completely bypassed the opportunity to stump for himself. In a press conference here Tuesday at Olympia Fields, Bradley repeatedly invoked the Ryder Cup – how much it means to him, how badly he wants to be a part of it, how neatly he’d fit into the young, hungry core. He seemed to be speaking as much to reporters as he was into the cameras, to Johnson and his assistants back home.
Bradley’s passion for the event shouldn’t have come as a surprise – this is the same guy, after all, who didn’t unpack his suitcase following the Meltdown at Medinah – but it was deeply revealing nonetheless.
“I think about the Ryder Cup every second I’m awake, basically,” he said.
And so the past few months have been agonizing. Bradley is anxious by nature, fidgeting over shots and then fretting between them. And recently, he’s had much to ponder: His victory at the Travelers Championship launched him to No. 7 in the standings, and one more high finish, especially in some of the elite events offering massive points, could push him across the line.
There was just one problem.
He hasn’t been able to do it. Yet.
“The thing that I hate most about golf is the harder you try, the worse you play,” Bradley said. “You talk about football players or basketball players, and you say that kid is tough, he tries harder, he pushes; when your team is down, we’re going to put a little more effort in. But in golf, you have to do pretty much the exact opposite. You’re always playing for something a little bit more, and my job this week is to go out and just play this tournament.
“I know what’s going to be on my mind. It’s just reality. I’ll do my best to stick to my process, but it’ll be on my mind. I’ll be thinking of it.”
At least part of Bradley’s desire stems from the fact that he didn’t know whether he’d ever be in this position again, and he’s determined to pay it off. His once-promising career took a swift downturn with the introduction of the anchor ban in 2016, but he reinvented himself on the greens and has never come close to losing his card. Still, it was clear, even to Bradley, that he’d taken a step back, especially with the emergence of so many 20-somethings who didn’t have the same scar tissue. At last year’s BMW, Bradley wasn’t invited to the stars-only meeting in Delaware that would help reshape the Tour landscape – and he took the snub personally.
“I left this tournament last year on a mission, really. I was pissed,” Bradley said. “Sometimes that’s good. It was the best thing to happen to me.”
The implication was obvious: Bradley’s peers no longer considered him a top player. He was 36, more than a decade into his Tour career. But he didn’t want to just enjoy his young family and coast to the end line. With massive Tour changes ahead, he knew, of all years, it was critically important for him to return to the game’s elite this season.
“I’ve got to give this a really hard push,” he said.
And Bradley has responded. This season has been the first multi-win campaign since his rookie year, and he enters the Tour’s penultimate event No. 11 in the FedExCup standings. A reporter tried to focus on that position, innocently asking Bradley about what spot he’d be satisfied with at the end of the week.
But like Thomas before him, Bradley flipped the conversation.
“The one spot I want to be on is on that Ryder Cup team,” he said. “Wherever that is on the FedExCup, I’ll take it. But it’s probably going to have to be higher than where I am now. …
“It’s such a cliché and so boring, but I have to go out there and do what I do best and play golf. This is what I do for my living and my job. So I’ve got to be strong out there and focus on what’s straight ahead of me.”
That’s another boatload of Tour riches – but also, perhaps more importantly, a shot at Ryder Cup immortality.
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