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Several Ryder Cup hopefuls will be under the microscope at this week’s Wyndham Championship, and American captain Keegan Bradley’s first and second round pairings may offer clues about his wild-card considerations. When the PGA Tour’s regular-season finale released tee times for Thursday and Friday at Sedgefield Country Club, fans quickly noticed that Bradley’s grouping seemed more than coincidental—he’ll be playing alongside Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak. Griffin, 29, is enjoying a breakout campaign. He captured the team-event Zurich Classic with Novak in April and followed up with a solo victory at Colonial in May. These wins, combined with eight top-10 finishes this year, have propelled Griffin to No. 7 on the FedEx Cup standings and No. 9 in the U.S. Ryder Cup rankings entering the final week before the playoffs.
The speculation hasn’t escaped Griffin’s attention.
“I feel like it’s mentioned every single day so like it’s always on my mind whether I want it to be or not,” Griffin said. “If I just do the right things each week, and this week in particular if I play really well and just focus on winning, the byproduct of that’s going to be making the Ryder Cup team, and same with each week in the playoffs.
“The more I kind of look at rankings or whatever, it’s not going to help me. The only thing that can help me is playing extremely good golf against the best players in the world every single week and if I can do that, it’s going to take care of itself. Yeah, it would be an honour to be on that team. It’s something I think everyone that’s around that’s American at least and in the mix of being in the Ryder Cup, everyone dreamed of it as a kid. So even getting on Tour and on the Korn Ferry Tour, everyone, those are events you want to play in. You want to represent your country, it’s just a tremendous honour.”
Novak, 30, is also experiencing his best season as a professional. Beyond the Zurich Classic triumph, he posted a runner-up finish at the RBC Heritage and recorded two other top-three results. Though his form has cooled slightly since spring, he showed signs of resurgence with a T-13 at the Scottish Open earlier this month.
Additional U.S. Ryder Cup candidates teeing it up this week include Jordan Spieth, Lucas Glover, Cam Young, and Bradley himself, who could potentially become the first American playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963. Several European hopefuls who haven’t secured spots include Matt Fitzpatrick, Matt Wallace, Thomas Detry, Aaron Rai, and the Hojgaard brothers.
As for his own candidacy, Griffin is not trying to dwell too much on it.
“I want to make sure like my game, like I can’t just sit here and hope to get on that team. I need to continue to play really good golf because even if I was to like not play well and still be on the team, I want to be playing really well when I’m at the Ryder Cup,” Griffin explained. “So I’ve got to continue to do the right things right now and build this next month and a half stretch leading into Bethpage to where I’m playing really elite golf and I can beat Rory McIlroy and I can beat Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton. Like I want to have that mindset when I get there and I don’t want to just sit here on a boat and just relax, I think cruise into Bethpage. I’ve got to keep the pedal down without a doubt. I’m excited for the challenge, I’m excited to tee it up each and every day and challenge myself and try to make birdies on the hardest holes out here. That’s all I can do.”
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Main Image: Jonathan Bachman
