Cameron Young for the Ryder Cup? Why is Rory McIlroy skipping Memphis? PGA Tour roundtable

New York Times

3 days ago

We're entering the final stretch of the PGA Tour season, with the beginning of the three-event FedEx Cup playoffs in Memphis. It'll be the return of Scottie Scheffler and a majority of the game's other stars after they all took off for vacation after the Open Championship, though Rory McIlroy is skipping the St. Jude Championship.
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Does that mean anything? Something? And what about the Ryder Cup? The Athletic's Brody Miller, Gabby Herzig and Hugh Kellenberger are here, to talk through the biggest storylines in men's golf at the moment.
Brody: At this exact moment, it should not be real at all. One (absolutely awesome) tournament performance in an overall pedestrian season is not enough reason to pick him. We always do this with every recent winner. We must stop! He's No. 34 on DataGolf. There are so many more trustworthy golfers who bring the same traits he does. Now, if Young continues this through the playoffs and contends multiple times this month, I'd welcome him on. He's so talented, an excellent course fit, and his aggressive style should be great in cup golf. But he needs to go earn it.
Gabby: I'd say an in-form Cameron Young (No. 15 on the points list) feels not quite as 'in the conversation' as Sam Burns (No. 16). Young will bring new life to the team, he's trending at the perfect moment, and he once won the New York State Open at Bethpage Black as an amateur — so the course fit is there. But if Young doesn't perform in the playoffs, it would make perfect sense for Bradley to take someone like Burns, who is putting lights out this year, is Scottie Scheffler's best friend, and has Ryder Cup experience.
Hugh: While I respect Young finally converting an opportunity into a win on the PGA Tour, I'm just not ready to think this is anything more than a guy having a really good week at an opportune time. He's a more familiar name than many of the other bubble candidates for the final two or three spots on the U.S. team, but Ben Griffin, Harris English and Chris Gotterup all have better strokes-gained numbers over the last three months than Young. So is he even the best 'hot at the right time' candidate?
Gabby: It almost felt like Bradley was a lock to play after he won the Travelers, but things can change quickly during pre-Ryder Cup summers. Bradley followed the victory with a T41 in Detroit, a T30 at The Open and a missed cut at the Wyndham. If he doesn't make a run at one of the playoff events, I think he'll have a hard time selecting himself. The playing captain role is a lot of pressure for Bradley to willingly endure if there are other Americans who could contribute to the team without distraction. Short of that playoff success, I'm starting to think Bradley should fully devote himself to the captaincy and take the variables off the table.
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Brody: When he won the Travelers, he was objectively playing better golf over the last 12 months than all but maybe four or five Americans. I thought it would be a huge mistake to leave off a good golfer solely because we place so much weight on the importance of the guy picking teams. But his last three starts have been a regression. So, I'm less adamant in my thoughts if he ends the season as, say, the 10th-best American. The question really comes down to how important you think this whole captain thing is. Unless he thrives in the FedEx Cup, he's probably not playing well enough to truly validate being a playing captain.
Hugh: He's going to be on the team, that much I'm sure of. I don't even know if there's a way he's not, short of falling out of the top 12 in points (which could happen, I suppose). However, this is falling perfectly into place for the murky middle worst-case scenario we all discussed when he was selected as captain a year ago. If the U.S. doesn't win, it'll be viewed as a massive mistake, no matter how well Bradley plays. And if the U.S. loses AND Bradley struggles, oh boy … there'll be some Stephen A. Smith-level takes coming out of that media center.
Hugh: While understanding all the reasons why the PGA Tour has to hold a playoff, it highlights the fact that golf and a playoff are just never really going to happen. The sport is too sponsor-dependent to select a format that has real, win-or-go-home stakes. But the tour needs some incentive to make sure Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy and the rest don't disappear after the Open Championship, so here we are trucking through the American South in August with big piles of cash on the line. It's not a problem if McIlroy is the outlier, but it becomes one if this is the start of a trend.
Brody: It's a problem in the big picture of the playoffs. McIlroy is making it abundantly clear that a top player doesn't need to play in the first round of the playoffs to qualify for the Tour Championship, and in the new format, his place in the top 30 won't matter. That is a pretty substantial problem for trying to make all three events matter. It's still a good tournament with plenty of stars in Memphis, and the intrigue of golfers trying to make the season top 50 always interests me. But I'm worried about what McIlroy's absence says about the new Tour Championship.
Gabby: Yes, but this is an extremely Rory McIlroy-specific problem. McIlroy has elected to skip several signature events in the past, and he's been vocal about his shifting priorities after winning the Masters. I don't see this being a prevalent loophole used by other top stars (that, if you're firmly in the top-30 in the FedEx Cup, there is no incentive to improve your status in the ranking — starting strokes at the Tour Championship don't exist anymore). That being said, the PGA Tour should absolutely have its top players locked in to play each of the three playoff events to close out the season with must-see TV. Perhaps McIlroy wouldn't feel compelled to skip Memphis if the event … wasn't in scorching hot Memphis.
Brody: Spieth. Schauffele's frustrating 2025 can be written off as a weird, injury-delayed outlier in an otherwise consistent career. He has absolutely nothing to prove, and it helps that Schauffele has played well in all four majors with four top 30s and two top 10s. But Spieth is both fighting to make a Ryder Cup team and to return to being an elite golfer. He's shown progress since his 2024 wrist surgery, but if he still misses the Tour Championship, it will be three years without a win and four years since he's played like a top-tier golfer. That's more difficult to come to terms with.
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Gabby: Spieth needs to make it to Atlanta if he has any chance of making the Ryder Cup team. He's coming off his wrist surgery and managed four top-10 finishes this season, but we really haven't seen Spieth truly contend for a win since 2023. Spieth already had to rely on sponsor exemptions to get into several signature events this year, and any downward mobility would put him at risk of needing those again in 2026. But really, Spieth has to give Keegan Bradley a reason to pick him for the U.S. team these next few weeks. Schauffele has had a strange year with costly absences and rust, but he won half of the majors last year. He'll be fine.
Hugh: As much as I'd love to make the contrarian argument that Schauffele deeply needs to be at the Tour Championship, I can't. Injuries stopped his season before it started, and he just never got it going, but he still won two majors a year ago and will be on the Ryder Cup team. He's fine. And in the big picture, the top 30 alone does not change Spieth's career, either. But if he's going to make a Ryder Cup team, it would help! Moreover, he needs to stay in the top 50, because it would be a terrible look to spend another year picking up sponsor exemptions just to get into signature events.
(Top photo of Cameron Young: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)