Ryder Cup cheer for Tommy Fleetwood after heartbreak in Memphis
The English golfer went into the final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis on Sunday with a one-shot lead. But a poor finish saw him miss out on a playoff by a stroke and lose the chance to add a PGA Tour title to his wins around the world.
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Toronto Star
9 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Keegan Bradley as a Ryder Cup playing captain? He has Jack Nicklaus to thank for the chance
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Keegan Bradley has the support of key players and the opportunity to become the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963 at East Lake. And it's all because of Jack Nicklaus.
Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Keegan Bradley as a Ryder Cup playing captain? He has Jack Nicklaus to thank for the chance
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Keegan Bradley has the support of key players and the opportunity to become the first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963 at East Lake. And it's all because of Jack Nicklaus. After the Americans won at East Lake against Great Britain & Ireland — back then it wasn't much of a competition — the PGA of America's executive committee changed the bylaws so that a captain could not play. It felt the captain's duties were too extensive. Fast forward to Dec. 16, 1982, when the PGA of America appointed 42-year-old Jack Nicklaus to be the U.S. captain. The committee voted unanimously to allow a captain to play. There were no captain's picks for the 1983 matches at PGA National. The PGA Championship winner was guaranteed a spot on the team and Nicklaus nearly pulled that off, finishing one shot behind Hal Sutton at Riviera. Captain's picks have been introduced, but the rule was left in place for a playing captain. Bradley would have to win the BMW Championship for any chance at the six automatic spots, but there's that small issue of whether he should pick himself. Xander Schauffele has told Bradley he needs to bring his clubs to Bethpage Black for the Sept. 26-28 matches. Patrick Cantlay on Tuesday said, 'If I was captain, I'd pick Keegan.' 'I think he's definitely one of the best American players, and his results have shown that,' Cantlay said at Caves Valley. Bradley has said he would take it up with the assistant captains and the six automatic qualifiers, the same way he would consider other players as picks. He doesn't make his picks until Aug. 27, after the Tour Championship, giving Bradley two weeks of high-end competition. He currently is No. 10 in the standings. As for the automatic six picks, Scottie Scheffler, Schauffele and J.J. Spaun are mathematically secured to make the team. They are followed by Russell Henley, Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English, with Justin Thomas just outside the top six. USGA and NBC The USGA is sticking with NBC for coverage of the U.S. Open in a deal announced Tuesday with NBCUniversal that goes through 2032 and will include an extra hour of prime-time coverage for the U.S. Open on the weekdays. NBC's partnership with the USGA dates to 1995 except for Fox Sports taking over in 2015 in a 12-year deal that lasted only five years until it was returned to NBC. NBC will be the exclusive broadcast home of the USGA's three professional events — the U.S. Open, U.S. Women's Open and U.S. Senior Open. Peacock will stream all USGA programming on NBC and have exclusive coverage of the U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open. The new deal will include 48 hours of U.S. Open coverage — 25 hours on NBC, with 33 hours when the U.S. Open is on the West Coast. The U.S. Women's Open will get 27 hours, seven hours on NBC during the weekend. The U.S. Senior Open will get 18 hours, six on NBC. Versant, the new media company that will be spun out from Comcast Corp., acquired media rights to USGA championships for USA Network and Golf Channel through 2032. USA Network will broadcast the U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open, and the other nine USGA championships will be on Golf Channel. Rickie rising Rickie Fowler made it back to the postseason by narrowly finishing among the top 70 in the FedEx Cup. That led him to a simple goal. 'The main goal last week was to have a tee time this week,' Fowler said. He got that done with a tie for sixth in the FedEx St. Jude Championship — his highest finish of the year — that moved him to No. 48 and got him to the BMW Championship for only the second time since 2019. Fowler had made it to the penultimate postseason event his first 10 years on the PGA Tour. He knows the good times. And lately, he has seen the other side. That made getting to Caves Valley that much sweeter. 'Sometimes the tough years or those downtimes, you enjoy those,' Fowler said. 'Maybe not necessarily in the moment because they do suck. But that's when I feel like you learn the most and you get the most satisfaction when you kind of overcome those hurdles.' The next stop is East Lake, and that will take some hard work. Only the top 30 advance, and Fowler probably needs his highest finish of the year. But he has a tee time. LIV schedule The Saudi-funded LIV Golf League is starting to reveal part of the 2026 schedule that will include plenty of air miles at the start of the season. LIV will start its fifth season Feb. 5-7 in Saudi Arabia and then head Down Under for its most popular tournament in Adelaide, Australia. March features back-to-back weeks in Singapore and South Africa, while the Mexico City event at Chapultepec will be one week after the Masters. The Andalucia event at Valderrama is moving up one month to be played June 5-7, two weeks before the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Sports Business Journal has reported a new event in New Orleans a week after the U.S. Open. The UK tournament is one week after the British Open. Still to be released is its three-tournament closing stretch, held this year in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. Cantlay's putting coach British putting guru Phil Kenyon began working with Scottie Scheffler nearly two years ago. Patrick Cantlay is his latest clients. Cantlay said he was in the early stages working with Kenyon and liked how it was going. 'Anything I can do to just get a little better, whether that's a technique change or some little key here and there that I can pick up on, I'm going to try and explore that to see if I can get better,' he said. 'That's really the root of the change.' He is 78th in the PGA Tour's key putting statistic this year, down from 28th four years ago. Divots Melanie Green is leading the Epson Tour points list and already has clinched an LPGA card for 2026. 'Everybody wants to have a phenomenal LPGA career, but to have a phenomenal Epson Tour career as well is great to take you to the next step,' she said. … Justin Rose's victory assured his return to the Tour Championship for the first time since 2019. Rose won the FedEx Cup in 2018 and remains the only player to have captured the cup without having won a postseason event … Scottie Scheffler has gone over the $20 million mark in official PGA Tour earnings for the third consecutive year. Stat of the week Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. Scottie Scheffler is assured of being the No. 1 seed at the Tour Championship for the fourth consecutive year. Tiger Woods is the only other player to have been the No. 1 seed three times (2007, 2009, 2013). Final word 'Sometimes the workload is going to be more, sometimes the workload is going to be less. Compared to the last couple years, I would say at this point we're in a 'less' moment in time.' — Patrick Cantlay on serving on the PGA Tour policy board. ___ AP golf:
Winnipeg Free Press
12 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Golf is not like team sports. It was never meant to have a finish line to the season
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Instead of outrage and grave concern that Rory McIlroy chose to sit out the first FedEx Cup playoff event — without dropping a single spot in the rankings — let it be a reminder that golf is not like other sports. These are not the 'playoffs.' That's for team sports. This is golf, which has never had a defining finish to its year and never will. The FedEx Cup attempted to create a finish line until the tour tried to promote it as so much more. What it did was create an incentive for the best players to compete after the majors were over. That part has worked beautifully, and it still does, with or without McIlroy. Perhaps one reason McIlroy's absence got so much attention was no one had skipped a postseason event (barring injury) since Webb Simpson five years ago. Simpson pulled out of the BMW Championship at No. 3 in the FedEx Cup, saying he wanted to be fresh for the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake. McIlroy had said in June he has earned the right to do whatever he wants, and that includes skipping a $20 million tournament (for the third time this year), and sitting out the first round of what the PGA Tour calls its 'playoffs.' He remains at No. 2. But he certainly wasn't the first to do that. Tiger Woods was a no-show for the first playoff event in 2007, and he still went on to win the FedEx Cup. Phil Mickelson skipped the BMW Championship that year when it was the third of four postseason events. Sergio Garcia? He missed seven postseason events when he was eligible (and presumably healthy), one year taking time off in Switzerland and Spain because he wanted a break. McIlroy finished up nine holes of practice at Caves Valley on Monday afternoon as some of the players who advanced to the second stage were still on their way to the BMW Championship after a steamy week in Memphis, Tennessee. Given the heat, he's probably fresher than most. He first raised the question last year when he was No. 3 in the FedEx Cup, finished next-to-last in Memphis and wondered what he was doing there. He only dropped to No. 5. It changed nothing. So it was no surprise McIlroy sat this one out. Scottie Scheffler could have easily done the same. The TPC Southwind is where he last missed a cut (in 2022, when the postseason opener had 125-man field and a 36-hole cut). The FedEx St. Jude Classic also gave him a sponsor exemption when he was 17, and he has never missed it as a PGA Tour member. His choice. But playoffs? Jim Mora and his infamous 'Playoffs?' interview comes to mind this time of the year. The FedEx Cup might be a lot easier to understand — and appreciate — if the PGA Tour had just stuck to the right language when this season-ending bonanza first was unveiled. It was at East Lake in 2006 during the Tour Championship — remember, that was the year Woods and Mickelson both decided to skip the PGA Tour's finale — when former Commissioner Tim Finchem laid out the details of the FedEx Cup. He said golf was the only major sport where the regular season was more compelling than the finish (he apparently didn't think much of tennis). And so Finchem introduced a concept referred to as a championship series of four tournaments. He used that phrase — 'championship series' — 20 times in a lengthy news conference. The eight times he mentioned 'playoffs' was comparison with other sports, and how the championship series would be 'our version of the playoff system.' And then some marketing genius leaned on 'playoffs,' the word was painted onto a grassy hill at Westchester Country Club, the term stuck and it still doesn't make sense. That especially was the case when it began with 144 players, leading Jim Furyk to do the math. 'In football, there's 32 teams in the NFL and if I'm correct, 12 teams go to the playoffs,' he said in 2007. 'This year, 125 guys also keep their tour card and 144 people are going to the Playoffs. So that's roughly 110% of the league.' Golf is not like other sports. The concept is fine. The PGA Tour's version of the playoffs is working because it provides three weeks of its best players competing for a trophy that is slowly gaining in stature. It's not one of the four majors. It's probably still a notch below The Players Championship. The PGA Tour has tweaked the format five times, seeking a solution that doesn't exist. The most recent format — 'starting strokes' — was the most controversial, with the No. 1 player starting at 10-under par before the Tour Championship began. Not even Scheffler liked that. But it at least rewarded the players who performed the best throughout the year. Now the 30 players who emerge from the BMW Championship this week will all start from scratch at East Lake, and the low score wins. The 'season-long champion' could be someone who wins for the first time all year. How is the FedEx Cup trophy any different from the old Tour Championship trophy? Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. The money is better. And unlike the last Tour Championship before the FedEx Cup began, at least everyone will show up. ___ On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. ___ AP golf:
