OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Here’s one of the many issues with all the speculation and analysis that comes with trying to figure out who is going to be on the U.S. Ryder Cup team:
This Friday, the first shots of the competition will still be 42 days away.
Six weeks is a long time in golf. Form is fleeting and someone who has it all going now might not necessarily see the same success in late September at Bethpage Black.
Likewise, someone whose game might not be firing now could very well be on top of things when the biennial competition rolls around.
All of which makes the case for Patrick Cantlay intriguing.
This week’s BMW Championship at Caves Valley is the final week of qualifying for one of the six automatic spots on the U.S. team. Captain Keegan Bradley will make his six at-large picks on Aug. 27, three days after last round of the Tour Championship.
Cantlay, who is ranked 22nd in the Official World Golf Ranking (he started the year at 11) is not having one of his better seasons, but he has a good Ryder Cup history and has been a strong contributor to U.S. Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams going back to 2019.
But Cantlay is languishing at 15th in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings. Despite playing all of the signature events and the major championships, he’s not been able to even crack the top 12 in the Ryder Cup standings. Missing cuts in the last three majors didn’t help. Nor did posting his first top 10 since May last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
And yet, there is that difficult-to-quantify team-golf experience. How much does it matter if you’re not playing well? Then again, how much does playing well today matter?
Cantlay played a practice round Tuesday in advance of the BMW Championship with Keegan Bradley, who is the captain and also a candidate for a spot on the team. He's 10th in the standings.
Whether the Ryder Cup has come up in their conversations is unknown, and it was unlikely that Cantlay was going to disclose much when asked.
“I've played a lot (with Bradley), especially at home,” Cantlay said. “There's not much Ryder Cup talk when you're out there on Tuesday. Just playing nine holes with a friend.”
Fair enough. They do play a lot of golf together in South Florida. They played a practice round together last month at the British Open. It’s possible that kind of relationship helps greatly.
But Cantlay’s biggest asset may be his history in team events. He was one of the stronger U.S. players two years ago in Rome, despite the lopsided American defeat to Europe.
That week he finished 2-2, the only time in five team competitions that he didn’t have a winning record.
Overall, Cantlay is 15-6-1 in team competitions. He is 5-2-1 at the Ryder Cup, having gone 3-0-1 in the U.S. victory in 2021.
He’s also been a frequent partner of Xander Schauffele, who will be on the team, although they went 0-2 when paired together in Rome.
Asked if he’d pick himself, Cantlay went the diplomatic route.
“Fortunately, I'm not in that predicament,” Cantlay said. “Keegan, however, is in that predicament. If I was the captain, I'd pick Keegan. I think he's played great.”
Bradley, who won the Travelers Championship in June, is ranked 12th in the Official World Golf Ranking but has sputtered a bit of late, having missed the cut at the Wyndham Championship before a tie for 44th last week.
The top six automatic qualifiers at the moment are Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Schauffele, Russell Henley, Bryson DeChambeau (who is playing for LIV Golf this week and can’t earn points) and Harris English. Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa hold down the next two spots and seem logical to be picked.
After that, it would appear wide open between, in order, Ben Griffin, Bradley, Maverick McNealy, Andrew Novak, Brian Harman, Cam Young, Cantlay and Sam Burns.
“Appears” is the operative word because behind the scenes it could very well be more clear cut. Bradley and his assistants, including Jim Furyk have been poring over the data for months and certainly have pairings in mind, some of which might mean more than how someone is performing well in advance of the Ryder Cup.
As for Cantlay, it’s been an odd year given that he's been such a prominent performer over the years. He’s 19th in FedEx Cup points despite not contending much and having that bad run in the majors.
“I think it would be nice to go out the next two weeks and have some nice finishes and play well,” Cantlay said. “After last week, I feel like I have some momentum going in the right direction, and I feel really good about the things I'm working on in my game.”
Four years ago, Cantlay had one of the more memorable experiences in golf, dueling DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff at Caves Valley in which he ultimately prevailed. A year later, he defended his BMW title in Delaware—the last of his eight PGA Tour wins.
Three years is a long time since his last win. Is it too long for Bradley to pick him? Or will other more nuanced factors come into play?
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Curious Ryder Cup Case for Patrick Cantlay.