All the while, an important part of their season is being overshadowed. He’s got 10 million reasons to play well. Last year, Johnson dropped a Sunday 64 and in 2013 he shot four rounds in the 60s. Spieth said he’s anxious about both scenarios but added that he’d like to see both play well – they both are potential Ryder Cup partners, after all – but each finish no better than a tie for third. Not in history or passion, not in ticket sales or television ratings.
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The 2015-16 PGA TOUR season comes to a close this weekend with the TOUR Championship at East Lake.
The Ryder Cup might be second only to the Masters in terms of pure theater in golf.
Jordan Spieth and several members of the U.S. Now he’s got four days to change that.
Faldo teamed up with Peter Oosterhuis in both the opening-day foursomes, beating Raymond Floyd and Lou Graham, and the Friday fourballs – seeing off Floyd and Nicklaus 3-1 – to deliver the home side’s only victories from the opening two days. “However, to be able to enjoy the Ryder Cup with a team where you’ve all pulled together is a very different experience and one that will be very tough to compare with”.
The Barclays was the final tournament to earn one of the eight automatic spots on the US team, and the story out of Bethpage Black was as much about Patrick Reed playing his way onto team as it was winning for the first time in almost 20 months. He was on site at Hazeltine on Sunday and Monday as a batch of United States players joined those – Bubba Watson, Justin Thomas and Daniel Berger – who are looking to receive Davis Love III’s final captain’s pick.
Watson, the No. 7 player in the world, already is stung by not being chosen thus far. He easily qualified for the team and is trying to become the first back-to-back victor of the FedEx Cup.
Spieth played with all three at Hazeltine on Monday. A win here again would not guarantee Spieth a spot next to Woods as the only two players to win the FedExCup twice, but he does have a good chance for that to happen, as he’s now sitting in seventh.
Willett said: “It would be nice to have made the team earlier [in my career] than I have done but I get the feeling if I had made a team too early I might not have been ready for it”.
“The European team have six rookies heading to Hazeltine, but I don’t think that will be an issue or a concern”, McGinley told Sky Sports News. “I think he really feels like he needs to do his job this week”.
Spieth and Thomas have been friends since they were 14.
“The crowd, the participation and the energy that it brings makes The Ryder Cup an event like no other”, said Rose, who also defeated Mickelson in the singles on his debut eight years ago in Kentucky. Thomas missed the cut at the TPC Boston and tied for 32nd in a 69-man field at Crooked Stick. “You could see how badly each of them wanted to be there”.
Tim Finchem, in his final year as the PGA Tour commissioner, managed to take it as a compliment that the PGA of America was taking so much attention away from what tour marketing officials once described as their Super Bowl. “It’s just an environment that’s like no other to play golf in”.
Nine of the 30 players at the Tour Championship are assured of being in Hazeltine next week. Once he was overlooked as a pick, Knox has thought about only one cup.
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We look back at five of the best European Ryder Cup rookie performances…
