FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (AP) Rickie Fowler lost the lead, the tournament and a guaranteed spot on the Ryder Cup team. And he secured a spot on the US team at Hazeltine that will try to win back the Ryder Cup.
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“Very disappointing”, Fowler told reporters after Sunday’s final round of The Barclays.
CHAMPIONS: Bernhard Langer made a 3-foot birdie putt on the first hole of a playoff with Woody Austin and Kevin Sutherland to win the Boeing Classic in Snoqualmie, Wash., for the second time.
He unequivocally had stated on Thursday that earning a berth on the USA squad was “100 percent, all of” his motivation to win this week in the first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Having just seen both a $1.5 million FedEx Cup playoffs payday and that Ryder Cup guarantee disappear, Fowler said something to Reed before he went into the good night. Patrick Reed won The Barclays to earn a spot, joining Brandt Snedeker and Zach Johnson.
Frazier finished with 79 yards on 11 carries, and Creighton Prep grad Easton Stick threw for 194 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. He needed to finish alone in third place to secure automatic qualification for Davis Love III’s Ryder Cup team but he bogeyed the 15th and then doubled the 16th to fall right back into a tie for seventh.
That’s when it all went wrong.
“I wasn’t trying to get a decent finish”, Fowler said.
Reed, who was top scorer for the United States with three-and-a-half points from four matches at Gleneagles in 2014, started the final round a shot behind playing partner Fowler and fell further adrift after three-putting the third. “But it’s only going to make it better for next week”.
“If I gave myself a few more opportunities coming into the green hitting the fairways, I think I may have had a good chance”.
Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III has four weeks to find four players to fill out his USA team, and there won’t be a lack of information. The fourth player won’t be announced until the Tour Championship ends September 25 and players head for Hazeltine for the Ryder Cup the following week. Fowler is joined by the likes of Bubba Watson, J.B. Holmes and Matt Kuchar in the next four out in the standings. That was two years ago in a World Golf Championship, when winning was still new to him. But he was also teetering on the edge of a Ryder Cup spot, a position he felt was a testament to close calls that often don’t add up. Five of the eight automatic qualifiers this time also played on the losing 2014 team – Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Jimmy Walker, Reed and Johnson. They are: Rory McIlroy, Danny Willett, Henrik Stenson, Chris Wood, Sergio Garcia, Rafael Cabrera Bello, Justin Rose, Andy Sullivan and Matthew Fitzpatrick. Captain Darren Clarke is expected to fill the three remaining wildcard spots this week.
Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood are likely to be two of the picks, and Thomas Pieters of Belgium made a strong case to be a pick when he won in Denmark on Sunday.
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