Ryder Cup: Patrick Cantlay takes final automatic spot on US team

Patrick Cantlay earned the sixth and final automatic spot on the US Ryder Cup team by winning the BMW Championship on Sunday.

All that meant was avoiding a phone call from the captain, Steve Stricker, after the Tour Championship to inform him of being a pick.

On a Caves Valley course that suited the biggest hitters, facing the biggest masher of them all in Bryson DeChambeau, Cantlay delivered with ice in his veins and nerves of steel. He really only smiled after he made the last of six pivotal putts on the final nine holes — six of them in a sudden-death play-off to hold off DeChambeau.

“I’m just as focused as I can be. If I look the way I do, it’s because I am locked in and focused,” Cantlay said. “And I felt like that today.”

Because of the pandemic that delayed the Ryder Cup one year until September 24-26, qualifying began the day Tiger Woods won the 2019 Masters. It ended 28 months later with six players assured a spot at Whistling Straits, and the real drama still a week away.

Collin Morikawa, who won two majors during the qualifying process, topped the list. He was followed by Dustin Johnson, DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, all of whom had mathematically locked up their spots.

Tony Finau was in the sixth spot until he was surpassed by Cantlay’s victory. Cantlay and Morikawa will be making their Ryder Cup debuts.

The US team has six captain’s picks this year instead of four, a decision made during the midst of the pandemic and so much uncertainty about the golf schedule.

Cantlay was considered a shoo-in to be picked even if he didn’t make the team. The same goes for Finau after he won the Northern Trust last week, and Olympic gold medallist Xander Schauffele and Jordan Spieth. They are the next three in the standings.

Harris English, a two-time winner this year, is No. 10 in the standings.

Stricker will make his picks official after the Tour Championship. Among the candidates are Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson, Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns, and the curious case of Patrick Reed, who had a big week without even playing at Caves Valley.

Reed, who has a penchant for match play with his marvellous short game and relentless attitude, has been out the last three weeks, first with an ankle injury, then with what he described as bilateral pneumonia.

He faced long odds of being among the top 30 who advance to the Tour Championship, but it worked in his favour. Of the 10 players behind him in the FedEx Cup standings, only Rory McIlroy finished among the top 25 at the BMW Championship.

And when KH Lee made bogey from the middle of the 18th fairway, that allowed Reed to stay at No. 30. That means Reed, if healthy, gets a chance to play at East Lake in what could amount to an audition for the Ryder Cup.

Team Europe, meanwhile, still have two more events before their qualifying ends.