Reed wins Barclays, Fowler loses Ryder Cup spot

Rickie Fowler was all smiles when he left TPC Boston a year ago as the victor of the Deutsche Bank Championship.

He has a different look – and it’s not just the mustache – as he enters this week’s FedEx Cup playoff event in Norton.

Fowler, who outdueled Henrik Stenson previous year in Norton, shot 4-over par over the last four holes of The Barclays at Bethpage Black on Long Island Sunday to go from a possible win to a tie for seventh. His late meltdown sent him to a 74, a tie for seventh and kept him off the Ryder Cup team. That, he said during a recent visit to Norton, was among his top priorities for 2016. “So now, I finally get to play for the United States in the United States and I can not wait to see how the fans are, and just have the whole crowd on our side this time”, added the 26-year-old.

US Olympians Patrick Reed and Rickie Fowler are focused on winning another Ryder Cup in the last round of New York’s The Barclays. Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Jimmy Walker and Brooks Koepka already had clinched spots.

And not the part where Zach Johnson, who hasn’t won since last summer, backed his way onto the roster with a 48th-place finish.

The way Fowler finished only leads to two weeks of uncertainty. He needed to finish third or better to secure his position after starting the tournament 12th on the list but slumped over the closing stages, dropping three shots in the last four holes to finish joint seventh.

That’s when it all went wrong.

The Barclays marked the start of the PGA Tour playoffs but it also signalled the end of the Ryder Cup qualifying for the Americans. He took the lead outright when Fowler finally dropped a shot at 11 and went up by two with a birdie at 12. “Go ahead and do what you can do and get the job done, ‘” he explained.

“You can’t play from the rough out here, especially on the weekend in the afternoon”, Fowler said.

“So going into today, I knew that one shot is not a lot around this golf course to make up”. It was the fourth time Fowler has failed to convert a 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour, though he remained optimistic.

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. Holmes parlayed an impressive start into a 41st-place result, or where Jim Furyk also finished 41st, or where Matt Kuchar was 64th, each of them unable to mount a serious challenge for one of those automatic berths.

That gives the Americans two of this year’s major champions and only one rookie.

Spieth, Reed, Walker and Snedeker will be playing on their second Ryder Cup team.

The nine automatic European spots had already been filled, but only five players on the US team were guaranteed a place before the points closed on Sunday following The Barclays.

Captain Davis Love III has four wildcard picks for the team.

“Probably the biggest difference between this week and that week was I had another guy in black and red in the group in front of me”, Reed said with a smile. The Masters champ pulled out of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

And Stenson might not be around either. He withdrew from The Barclays but says he may play at TPC Boston, where he won in 2013.

That’s significant because Reed now is assured of being among the five players who only have to win the Tour Championship at East Lake to capture the FedEx Cup and claim the $10 million bonus, the richest payoff in golf.

Each of the past six Deutsche Bank Championship winners have come from behind on the final day. You know, being able to do it for the first time overseas at the Ryder Cup was just awesome.

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