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Last week, I wrote about how Keegan Bradley is in the worst possible spot as a potential “playing captain,” where he’s not an automatic pick, but he’s also not far enough down the points list that he’s an obvious no. There’s a good argument that he should be on the team, and a decent one that he shouldn’t, too, which ensures that if he does pick himself, it will be the main topic of conversation leading up to the Ryder Cup—and almost definitely both a huge distraction and a huge source of pressure. (How would you like to call your name Friday morning knowing that if you don’t win, you’ll get roasted in the press?) Needless to say, this is why the choice to make a potential player the team captain was risky from the start.
There was still a chance, though, that the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs could make things easier on him. If he had a great result, or other marginal contenders struggled, it would clarify the picture and make everything less controversial. But did that happen at the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, in Memphis this past weekend? Of course it didn’t! We’re stuck in a Murphy’s Law timeline where the universe seems hellbent on making the choice as hard as possible.
So, with two playoff events remaining until Bradley makes his captain’s picks (and one until the automatic qualifiers are finalised), where do we stand? Here’s the full, top-down stock watch rundown of Team USA. As a guide, here are the current standings.
The Old Locks — Stock Remains Steady
Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley, Bryson DeChambeau, Harris English
I guess you could argue that J.J. Spaun improved his lot by making the playoffs in Memphis and becoming an auto-qualifier, but let’s be real—he was already on the team. What it might do is give Bradley and the vice captains even more faith in him, because while he missed a birdie putt to lose to Rose, he was absolute nails down the stretch under pressure, just like he was while winning the U.S. Open at Oakmont in June. He currently leads the tour in a stat I’m making up called “every single time he attempts a putt longer than 30 feet, I believe it’s going in.” You want that at the Ryder Cup!
The New Locks — Stock Rising
Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin
Mike Ehrmann
In Memphis, each of these guys did exactly what they needed to erase the last bits of doubt and secure their spot on the team. Griffin needed the best showing of the bunch, and he got it, finishing T-9 and putting an end to speculation that he was flailing after a mid-summer peak. With a T-11 in Greensboro and this top-10, he’s good as gold.
Morikawa had looked like kind of a mess, harsh as that word may sound, between a couple missed cuts in Scotland and Portrush, a caddie change and his seemingly never-ending media feuds. While it would have been nearly impossible to keep a world top-10 with such a stellar record off the team, things were definitely trending downward. But his T-22 finish at Memphis was enough of a ship-steadier to put the doubts to bed, and he’s safely on.
Thomas was barely in any jeopardy, and frankly he might belong in the category above as a total lock, but another above-average finish at T-28 should wipe out the last of the speculation. At this point, if he doesn’t make the team as the best Ryder Cup player of his generation, it’s clearly a Keegan Bradley revenge mission, which would be both shocking and hilarious.
The “Thank You, I Just Needed A Reason” Near-Lock — Stock Really, Really Rising
Patrick Cantlay
Mike Ehrmann
It would take a lot to leave a guy like Cantlay off the team. He’s part of one of the U.S.’s all-time great partnerships with Xander Schauffele, and he’s proven over and over that he’s almost absurdly tough under pressure. Between the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, he’s 15-6-1, and that record plus his propensity for burying huge putts at a mathematically impossible clip is why I think of him as America’s Ian Poulter. You never want to leave this guy off … but then he missed the cut at the last three majors, was buried in the Cup standings and made you wonder if he would just fade out of consideration. Bradley had to be begging for a sign of life in the playoffs, and in Memphis, he got it—Cantlay looked more like his old self with a T-9 finish. It’s really, really hard to see him being left off the team now.
The “OK, I Think This Resurgence is Real” Contender — Stock Rising Like Olympus From the Serengeti
Cameron Young
Jared C. Tilton
It’s at least a little bit insane that Cameron Young decided to start hitting a draw, made a change to his ball and almost overnight became one of the best players in the world. Granted, we’re only looking at a two-week sample, but that sample encompasses a blowout win to get his first PGA Tour victory at Greensboro, and a solo fifth in Memphis that included the best round of the day on Sunday. Throw in the fact that he’s a ridiculous course fit for Bethpage with his length, and that he’s a hometown guy, and I have to admit I’m completely sold. Is that recency bias? Probably, at least a little, and you could have a good debate about how much the so-called “hot hand” matters in the Ryder Cup, but his game just looks so electric right now that it’s hard to imagine leaving him off. What are captain’s picks for, if not to grab up someone with this specific profile playing this great?
The “Hoo Boy, I Think I’m 12th Man At Best Now” Anxious Captain — Stock Plateauing, In a Bad Way
Keegan Bradley
In the midst of a Twitter diatribe about how ridiculous this has all become last week, I wrote that the worst-case scenario for Bradley was finishing something like T-34 and T-25 at Memphis and the BMW, and just prolonging that feeling of uncertainty. Well, he just finished T-44 at Memphis, so a little worse than prognosticated. He’s still 10th in the standings, but he fell out of the world top 10, and pretty much all he’s got going for him in the last few months is that win at the Travelers. Now, OK, that’s a harsh way to put it, since it’s not easy to win on the PGA Tour, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that if Tommy Fleetwood knew how to make a par under pressure, we wouldn’t even be talking about Bradley as a viable option. It’s also a little amazing how much this year looks like his 2023, when Zach Johnson famously left him off the team for Justin Thomas; Bradley was a little above average for most of the year, won the Travelers, then dipped at the end. In fact, he actually played better post-Travelers in ’23 than he has this year. There’s something incredible about the fact that he finds himself in Zach Johnson’s exact position about himself, and it might be even harder to make the pick because of everything that will come with it.
Allll that being said, if I were magically made captain, he’d make the team.
The “You Almost Had Something Special” Dark Horse — Stock Faltering
Andrew Novak
Novak has been sitting around 12th or 13th in the Ryder Cup standings for a while now, not quite inside the bubble but definitely not eliminated from consideration. He needed a special playoff showing, though, and for a second it seemed like he was about to get it. Through three days, he was killing it, and he had a chance in the third-to-last group to plant a flag in the ground and force Keegan and the vice captains to really consider him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop making bogeys Sunday en route to a 71, and the resulting T-6 finish, while undoubtedly solid, is just unremarkable enough to keep him squarely on the outside looking in. He’ll need to win the BMW or come very close, and then do the same at the Tour Championship, or he’s doomed to 13th man status.
The “Mirage Fading” Back-To-Earth Special — Stock Plummeting
Chris Gotterup
David Fitzgerald
Outside of Bryson DeChambeau, Chris Gotterup is about the best fit for Bethpage you can find on the American side, and for a second there he seemed like the hottest player in the states outside of Scottie Scheffler, with a win in Scotland and a third at the Open. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he’s got such a low profile, and started his campaign so late, that he needed to keep it going right through the playoffs. It didn’t happen in Memphis, where he shot three straight rounds in the 70s to hover near the bottom of the leaderboard before slightly recovering with a Sunday 66 that still left him over par for the event. That’s just not good enough, and in terms of Bradley’s stock as a player, it was the only good news of the weekend. I think there’s an extremely good argument for Gotterup being on the team, but he needs to make a big splash in a hurry, and it needs to start this week. Right now, he’s in big trouble.
The “Don’t Even Think About It” Late Bloomer — Stock Nonexistent
Rickie Fowler
I see you over there, thinking about it. Stop that!
The “Not Enough, Pal” All-Stars — Stock Flatlining
Sam Burns, Maverick McNealy, Brian Harman
Needed fireworks in Memphis, didn’t get them. Barring something crazy like a Horschel-in-’14 dark horse playoff sweep in the next two weeks, they’re done. In Harman’s case, even that might be enough, since his course fit at Bethpage is pretty rough.
The “Extremely Dead” People’s Champ — Stock Crushed Under a Bulldozer
Jordan Spieth, Wyndham Clark
Keyur Khamar
He was already never making the team, but when it comes to Spieth, people really, really want to believe. It’s time to stop believing, folks. He couldn’t even reach the second week of the playoffs, and it would be criminal malpractice for Bradley to pick him now. I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, Spieth-heads, but it’s time to give up the dream.
And oh yeah, Wyndham Clark’s dreams are as broken as a certain locker at Oakmont Country Club.
Final outlook
Barring a late wild run by one of the marginal figures, I think there are 13 players with at least a semi-realistic chance. Nine of them are absolute locks, and Cantlay is as close to a lock as you can get, so it’s down to Cameron Young, Keegan Bradley and Chris Gotterup for the final pick. If you’re Bradley and you want to play, you would love Gotterup to have another sub-par week at the BMW, and maybe even fall out of the top 30 and miss the Tour Championship. On the very far outskirts of the discussion, Andrew Novak and Maverick McNealy are the most likely guys to make a late splash, with Sam Burns as the darkest of dark horses.
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Main Image: Mike Ehrmann
