REED & WEEP! Pat’s Black win is failure for Fowler

RICKIE Fowler will have to wait to find out if he will be joining Barclays champion Patrick Reed on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Reed clinched his second straight spot on the American squad by catching and then pulling away from a self-destructing Fowler, the third-round leader, on the back nine at Bethpage Black on Sunday to finish The Barclays at 9-under par for his first PGA tour win this season.

Reed opened the week ranked seventh in the Ryder Cup standings and gained 1,530 more points to seal a spot in the topeight positions for automatic inclusion on the U.S team that will oppose the Europeans in the three-day competition at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota beginning Sept. 30.

“It was very important. I want sweet revenge just like our whole team does,” said Reed, a member of the 2014 Ryder Cup team that lost in Scotland. “Now I finally get to play for the United States in the United States, and I cannot wait to see how the fans are, and just have the whole crowd on our side this time…I know we’re going to work so hard to keep that cup back home.”

Fowler came into The Barclays in a more precarious position than Reed — 12th in Ryder Cup points. He unequivocally had stated on Thursday that earning a berth on the U.S. squad was “100 percent, all of” his motivation to win this week in the first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Still, the mustachioed and colorfully attired Californian tumbled all the way into a three-way tie for seventh place at 6-under par by bogeying four of his final eight holes and three of the last four — including a double on 16 — after posting only one bogey through the first three-and-a-half rounds.

“I mean, I’m just trying to win the tournament, really. If I win, then it takes care of both things,” Fowler said. “So yeah, very disappointing. Not the way I’ve been playing the back nine all week.”

Dustin Johnson, who closed the week at 2-under following a final round of 73 on the par-71 public course, Jordan Spieth (5-under), Phil Mickelson, Jimmy Walker and Brooks Koepka previously had clinched spots on the U.S. team. Reed, Brandt Snedeker and Zach Johnson also qualified on Sunday.

Fowler, who moved up just barely from 12th to 11th in the rankings, and others will have to wait until U.S. captain Davis Love III picks the final four players on the roster: three on Sept. 12 and the final spot during halftime of “Sunday Night Football” on NBC on Sept. 25.

“I’m not worried about resumé or anything like that. I’ve just got to continue to work on the game, continue getting better,” Fowler said. “It was almost really good this week.”

Almost. Fowler began play on Sunday with a one-stroke lead and methodically continued carding mostly pars until Reed finally pulled even with a birdie on the par5 7th.

But he bunkered his second shot on the par-4 11th hole and then missed a sevenfoot putt to save par by a few inches, falling one stroke behind with seven holes to play. Fowler also landed in a green-side bunker off his approach shot from the high rough on No. 15 and bogeyed again to give Reed — his U.S. Olympic teammate earlier this month in Brazil — a three-shot advantage with just three holes to play. While Fowler slid down the leaderboard, the 26-year-old Reed still held a two-stroke lead entering the final hole. But his drive on No. 18 landed in a leftside fairway bunker and he settled for a bogey to seal the one-shot victory over Sean O’Hair and Emiliano Grillo. “Any time you can come from behind on Sunday to win a golf tournament, you must be doing something right,” Reed said after his fourth career win and first since the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions. The FedEx Cup playoffs feature a progressive cut through three events to determine the final 30 players to qualify for the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in late September, with the winner of that tournament taking home $10 million. The Barclays field will be whittled down from 125 eligible players to 100 (plus ties) at Deutsche Bank and then to 70 players and ties for the BMW Championship. Reed’s win helped him zoom from seventh to first in those rankings. “(Winning) takes care of a lot of things,” Reed said, “so that was the only goal coming into the week.”