Ryder Cup pressure building fast for many
Keegan Bradley was leaving his home in south Florida for a critical two-week stretch of golf when he noticed a travel bag that hasn’t been touched in nearly two years.
He brought it home from Medinah in 2012 after his first time playing in the Ryder Cup. He’s not even sure what’s in there beyond a lot of dirty clothes stained by bad memories of an American collapse on the final day.
“For a split second, I thought about opening it and getting a little motivation,” he said.
Bradley got Ryder Cup fever that week, pumping his fists, waving flags and winning matches with Phil Mickelson. He wants nothing more than to be on the next U.S. team that tries to win back the cup in Scotland at the end of September.
Bradley is No. 16 in the Ryder Cup standings. Only the top 10 players — now that Dustin Johnson is out of the Ryder Cup — earn automatic spots, and qualifying for the American team ends after the PGA Championship. U.S. captain Tom Watson gets three at-large picks, and Bradley helped his cause by taking a scouting trip with the captain to Gleneagles.
Still, he can’t count on being picked. Not with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson among those not already on the team.
Bradley is an example — and there are a lot of them this year — of how the PGA Championship features two tournaments in one every other year.
The most important is getting that big Wanamaker Trophy from winning the final major of the year. The consolation prize is a spot on the Ryder Cup team. Because points count double at majors, and the PGA Championship offers $1.8 million (U.S.) to the winner, everyone at Valhalla has a mathematical chance of making the team.
Brad Faxon once shot 63 in the final round of the 1995 PGA Championship, enough to get him the final spot on the team.
Two years later, Jeff Maggert closed with a 65 in the final round at Winged Foot to clinch a spot. David Toms qualified for his first team by winning the 2001 PGA. Bubba Watson earned a spot on his first team when he lost in a playoff at Whistling Straits in 2010. But this is not an enviable position. “It’s brutal,” Bradley said. “It’s stuff you don’t think about when you’re younger, having to grind out for spots on Ryder Cup teams.” It’s not much fun for Watson, either. The 64-year-old captain has to make decisions about bringing America’s two biggest stars. Mickelson hasn’t won since the British Open last year, and hasn’t had a top 10 on the PGA Tour in nearly a year. Woods had back surgery and missed three months of the season.
“If Phil and Tiger don’t make it in the mix there, I’ve got some real thinking to do,” Watson said at the British Open.
Woods was No. 70 going into the Bridgestone Invitational. What hurts his cause if that if he doesn’t make it into the FedEx Cup playoffs after the PGA Championship, he will have gone six weeks before teeing it up in golf’s most intense competition.