CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — With his win at the BMW Championship, Keegan Bradley moved into 10th place in the final standings for next month’s Presidents Cup.
That’s cool ... but of course there’s also an interesting dynamic.
Bradley last month was named the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain. And soon after, Jim Furyk named Bradley an assistant for the 2024 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal.
The move was about as obvious as one could be. Bradley hasn’t played on a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team since 2014. Furyk is now in his second stint as a captain after the 2018 Ryder Cup and has been an assistant multiple times. Bringing Bradley on board to learn the ropes this year makes perfect sense.
“It’s huge,” Bradley said before the start of the BMW Championship. “I’m so grateful to Jim to give me this opportunity. He’s someone I really looked up to in my first years on Tour. I’ve always learned a ton from him and the other vice captains and I’m going to learn a lot from him that week.”
Could he be playing instead?
It’s certainly possible, for myriad reasons.
The top six automatic qualifiers were determined at the conclusion of the BMW Championship on Sunday without many surprises: Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark and Patrick Cantlay were pretty solid, with Sahith Theegala getting the last spot despite a tough week at the BMW.
After that, things are not at all obvious. Sam Burns moved to seventh on the back of a tie for second at the BMW. Tony Finau, Russell Henley, Bradley, Brian Harman and Max Homa round out the next six.
Nobody in that group of six has done anything that suggests they have to be picked, although it would be unusual for Furyk not to pick at least three or four of those guys.
Among those outside of the top 12 are Akshay Bhatia at 14th, Billy Horschel at 17th, Justin Thomas at 19th and Nick Dunlap—who wasn’t able to earn points until February—at 28th.
Furyk actually has some tough calls.
Homa would seemingly be an easy pick as he was strong in his Presidents Cup debut two years ago and was the only American with a winning record at the Ryder Cup last year.
But Homa is clearly in a slump, with no top-20 finishes dating to the Wells Fargo Championship in May. In his last seven starts, he missed the cut at the U.S. Open, tied for 61st at the Travelers Championship, tied for 70th at the Scottish Open, tied for 70th at the British Open, tied for 43rd at the British Open, finished 70th (last) at the FedEx St. Jude and tied for 33rd at the BMW.
Finau seems a pretty solid choice as he’s played decently including three top-10s recently, not to mention he has experience in these events.
But Harman just played his way out of the Tour Championship, Thomas nearly did (he got the last spot after starting the FedEx Cup playoffs 11th) and nobody has really made the case to be picked.
Bradley?
“I can't even wrap my head around it,” he said after his victory. “I really was in my hotel room in Memphis, I had a flight booked home to Jupiter (Fla.), bags packed, and just in a state of shock that I wasn't going to be able to play in my favorite tournaments that I've played in every year of my PGA Tour career.
“Then fast forward to this moment of now I've got to totally refocus here and try to win the FedEx Cup and talk to the vice captains.
“I don't know where that's going to go, but I'm happy to do whatever—play whatever role they want me to play. I think being the Ryder Cup captain has put me into this category of sort of a player when they haven't really had a Ryder Cup captain that's been playing full-time on the Tour. One of my goals was to make that Presidents Cup team. So we'll see.
“I hope I didn't throw a huge wrench in everybody's plans, but I'm proud to be in consideration.”
Bradley might also be in consideration to play on his own Ryder Cup team, although there is a long way to go there. At 38, he is the youngest U.S. captain since Arnold Palmer was a playing captain in 1963.
“I would love to be a playing captain,” Bradley said. “I know it's never—no one has really had the opportunity that I've had. I think you could have given Phil (Mickelson) or Tiger (Woods) a chance to be captain at my age and they would have played on the teams. But it's never really had a chance to happen.
“It's going to be really hard for me to make that team, but if I make the team, I'll play. I don't see myself being a captain's pick. But I'll be proud to just be the captain. If I have to go out there and play, I'd love to do that, too.”
Lydia ... again
Lydia Ko was the only player in the last 15 groups at the Old Course on Sunday to break 70, shooting a 69 in difficult conditions in St. Andrews to come from behind to win the AIG Women’s British Open. It was her third major title but her first since 2016 when she was just 19 years old.
Now 27, Ko has had a phenomenal month, winning gold at the Paris Olympics to also earn entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame. Now she’s added a major title at the home of golf.
“It's been a crazy past few weeks,” Ko said. “Something that was too good to be true happened, and I honestly didn't think it could be any better and here I am as the AIG Women's Open Champion this week. Obviously that being here at the Old Course at St Andrews, it makes it so much more special.”
Years ago, the late five-time Open champion Peter Thomson of Australia lamented that those who go to St. Andrews to compete in tournaments miss the essence of the town. That they don’t take the time to take a look around and appreciate where they are playing.
Ko, who is from New Zealand, said she embraced the experience over the past week.
“I had a lot of family members here with me,” she said. “I played here when I was 16 in 2013. I don't think I got to really enjoy and realize what an amazing place this is, and now that I'm a little older and hopefully a little wiser, I just got to realize what a historic and special place this golf course is, and it's honestly been such a fairy tale. I'm on Cloud nine, really.”
Hatton returns to DP World Tour
England’s Tyrrell Hatton will play in his home country this week when the DP World Tour plays the Betfred Masters at The Belfry in Sutton Coldfield, England. It is fitting that the venue is best known for its time as a European Ryder Cup venue because Hatton is playing to attempt to make sure he is eligible for next year’s Ryder Cup.
European players are required to play four times on the DP World Tour each year in addition to the major championships. Hatton played the Hero Dubai Open, where he tied for ninth in January before making the move to LIV Golf a few weeks later.
Where this becomes murky is the fact that Hatton—like any player—is required to pay fines and serve suspensions related to playing LIV events without a conflicting event release.
Unlike the PGA Tour, which simply doesn’t allow players to compete on LIV without being banned for a year, the DP World Tour allows it with the stipulation that fines must be paid and suspensions served.
In Hatton’s case, he has appealed his suspensions and so is allowed to play. The status of his fines is unclear. The DP World Tour does allow for suspensions to be served even if the player was not planning to play an event. And for each player, the penalties are different depending on the event.
Hatton has said he will also play the Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews and the Spanish Open, both of which come after LIV Golf’s season concludes in September.
J.T. and the waiting game
After a lackluster BMW Championship that saw him shoot scores of 76–72–74 to fall out of the projected top 30 for the Tour Championship, Justin Thomas rebounded with a 68 on Sunday to put himself on the bubble and begin the waiting process.
He wasn’t going to stick around.
“There's no need for me to sit here and stress this out all afternoon,” Thomas said. “It sucks, but it's the position I put myself in. I'm happily just going to go home and get a couple nights at home and then hopefully head to Atlanta on Tuesday.”
Thomas can thank Alex Noren for gifting him a spot at East Lake. The Swede was in position to push him out of the top 30 but made a couple late bogeys on Sunday to hurt his own chances.
That means Thomas managed to secure the 30th and final spot—after making a 6-footer for par on the last hole himself.
Earlier in the week, Thomas pronounced this a “good year” despite not winning a tournament for the second full season and seeing himself on the outside looking in again as it relates to a team competition, this time the Presidents Cup.
Remember a year ago, Thomas didn’t even make it to the postseason, falling one spot short of the top 70 and the FedEx Cup playoffs. That meant he wasn’t automatically in any of the signature events, although he managed to get in seven of the eight due to being ranked among the top 30 in the Official World Golf Ranking or qualifying via one of the run-up categories to the events.
That, ultimately, helped him get into the playoffs. He tied for sixth at Pebble Beach and tied for fifth at the RBC Heritage and the Travelers. That went a long way toward making up for missed cuts at the Players Championship and Masters.
But for the year, Thomas has just five top-10 finishes and for a two-time major winner with 15 PGA Tour wins, that can’t be satisfying.
Earlier in the week, Thomas said: “I feel like I've done a lot of really good things. I just haven't scored as well as I feel like I've kind of played, especially these last couple tournaments.
“The biggest thing is I just haven't won, and I think that's really the only thing or the difference of keeping it from being a really, really good year, and I have two weeks left to try to capitalize on that and see if we can't make it a great year.”
This past week wasn’t so great. But he does have one more opportunity in Atlanta.
A quick primer on the Tour Championship format ... and other notes
Players have been earning FedEx Cup points all year, going back to the season-opening event at the Sentry in Hawaii. For the past two playoff events, the points were quadrupled from a regular event (500) to the FedEx St. Jude and BMW Championship (2,000 points each).
Now, it all gets reset.
The PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup finale the Tour Championship, features what is called “FedEx Cup Starting Strokes,” a staggered strokes format that assigns each player a position in relation to par to begin the 72-hole tournament.
Scottie Scheffler will begin at -10. Xander Schauffele will start at -8. Hideki Matsuyama will start at -7, with Keegan Bradley at -6 and Ludvig Aberg at No. 5. Players in sixth through 10th will start at -4, 11th to 15th at -3, 16th to 20th at -2, 21st to 25th at -1 and 26th to 30th at even par.
That means, in theory, those players who just made it to East Lake have to chance to win the FedEx Cup. They’ll have to make up 10 shots over four days, but it’s possible.
For the first time, the Tour Championship will offer $100 million in bonus money, with $25 million going to the winner.
And a few more things
> Adam Scott was unable to win his 15th PGA Tour title, but he did qualify for the Tour Championship after starting the week 41st in points. It will be the 10th time since the start of the FedEx Cup in 2007 that he is making the Tour Championship. Last year is the only time he failed to qualify for the playoffs.
> Scottie Scheffler had a rare off week at the BMW Championship although it didn’t cost him in the FedEx Cup standings. Scheffler never shot in the 60s and had only one sub-par round to tie for 33rd. It was just the second time all year that Scheffler finished outside of the top 20.
“Overall pretty frustrating week,” Scheffler said. “I felt like today I played quite nice. My back felt a little off the first day. Last two days I was kind of battling my swing and wasn't holing a bunch of putts. But today I went out there and played what I felt like was a really good round of golf. Hit a lot of good shots. It's just I had trouble with the wind and the elevation.”
> It’s been a strange couple of weeks for Rory McIlroy, who appeared tired at times during his golf at the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the BMW Championship. He tied for 68th out of 70 players in Memphis and then flirted with contention in Colorado but had trouble avoiding big numbers. On Friday, he tossed his driver into the water and on Sunday he leaned on it a bit too hard and snapped the shaft. He ended up in a tie for 11th but has dropped from third to sixth in the FedEx Cup standings.
> These nine players will be making their first start in the Tour Championship: Ludvig Åberg, Shane Lowry, Byeong Hun An, Akshay Bhatia, Robert MacIntyre, Matthieu Pavon, Taylor Pendrith, Aaron Rai and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Next Month's Presidents Cup Could Have an Unexpected Player: Keegan Bradley.
