Welcome to the Monday Leaderboard, where we run down the weekend’s top stories in the wonderful world of golf. Grab an Arnold Palmer, pull up a chair and get ready for the Ryder Cup debate to end all Ryder Cup debates …
Captain Keegan’s Conundrum
As the Ryder Cup continues to grow in importance in the golf universe, its every plot twist becomes fodder for Golf Twitter and podcast debate. The key issue now: Should Captain Keegan Bradley select Keegan Bradley as a player? On one hand, the duties of a captain are all-encompassing, requiring a complete knowledge of your players’ tendencies and demanding the ability to make strategic decisions in real time. On the other, it’s a bit of a run-’em-out-there-and-see-what-happens task, and you want the best “‘em” available. And at the moment, few players are working at a higher level than Bradley.
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He won the Travelers Championship for the second time in three years on Sunday, and rallied from three or more strokes behind for the fourth time in his career. That’s the kind of in-round resilience you want out of a player. Bradley entered the week ranked 17th in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings, but should move close to automatic-qualifier status. No captain has played in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963, although Tiger Woods did so in 2019 at the Presidents Cup.
The question isn’t whether Bradley belongs on the Ryder Cup team; he’s pretty close to answering that in the affirmative. The question is whether Bradley as a player would be effective enough to warrant splitting his attention from captaincy. Playing a tournament with no other focus than yourself is very different from playing with one eye constantly on the U.S.-vs.-Europe leaderboard. (One wild idea making the rounds on Twitter: Name Woods the de facto captain and let Bradley play in peace.) Bradley and the U.S. team have a huge home-field advantage, but every Ryder Cup hinges on a couple key decisions … and this might be one of them.
Fleetwood Cracked
There are few players on the PGA Tour who are as cheerful, amiable and easy-to-root-for as Tommy Fleetwood. There are also, unfortunately, no players on the PGA Tour since 1983 who have carded as many top-10 finishes — 42, including Sunday at the Travelers — without a win. Fleetwood has won seven times on the DP World Tour, so it’s not like he doesn’t know how to get it across the line, but for whatever reason he can’t close the deal even when carrying a three-stroke lead into Sunday … or a one-stroke lead into the final hole.
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Fleetwood struggled from the jump on Sunday, posting bogeys on three of his first four holes. Leading Bradley (and Russell Henley, who had already finished) by a stroke on the 18th at -15, Fleetwood bogeyed, rolling his eight-foot par attempt past the hole and leaving Bradley five feet for a tournament-winning birdie.
“I’m upset now,” Fleetwood said. “I’m angry … Right now, I would love to just go and sulk somewhere, and maybe I will do [that]. But there’s just no point making it a negative for the future.”
Feels like the Ryder Cup has already begun.
Minjee’s Major, LPGA Players’ Complaints
Over at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Minjee Lee also began the day with a substantial lead — four strokes, in her case. And Lee also coughed up three bogeys over four holes on the front nine at Fields Ranch East in Frisco, Texas. But she remained steady enough to hold on for a three-stroke victory over Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen. Lee now needs only one more major to complete the LPGA Grand Slam; while there are five LPGA majors, only four are necessary for the Slam. She is the 16th player to win the 16 LPGA tournaments this season.
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On a less positive note, LPGA players blasted the PGA of America for what they called brutal and unfair course setups, which they blamed for rounds lasting six hours and ugly scorecards. Players blamed hole locations “on the side of hills,” as Stacy Lewis put it, and greens that were impossible to stick on approach. Not a great moment for a major.
What’s up with the club-tossing?
We are apparently in a new golden age of club-tossing. Long an outlet of frustration for both pros and amateurs alike, club-tossing is having a moment, thanks first to Wyndham Clark. The 2023 U.S. Open champ took heat for slinging a club at the PGA Championship and nearly braining a volunteer:
Clark put himself in more trouble at the U.S. Open with his destruction of a couple of Oakmont lockers. He apologized this week at the Travelers, but several other players joined his ranks, like Cameron Young with this blast of rage:
And Justin Thomas “failed” to hold onto his club after an errant shot:
But the unquestioned club-tossing GOAT of the moment is none other than Rory McIlroy. Sure, he’s taken out his frustration a few different ways, but check out how smooth this particular toss is:
So what’s to be done about this epidemic of club-tossing? Well, it doesn’t seem quite fair that we want players to show emotion, then get all pearl-clutchy when they actually do. On the other hand, golf probably doesn’t want to start getting to the point where the gallery stands the possibility of getting an iron in the teeth. Perhaps a stroke penalty if a club leaves a player’s hands? And if they don’t throw it ahead of themselves — you know, so you can grab it on the way to the next hole, rather than doing a walk of shame — then that’s an instant DQ for poor situational awareness.
Was this the greatest golf week ever?
You probably don’t know Myles Creighton. You probably didn’t know that there was a Wichita Open this past weekend on the Korn Ferry Tour. But you can definitely wrap your mind around this: Creighton carded an 11-under-par 59 on Saturday thanks to a miraculous chip-in on the 18th hole:
Oh, but there’s more. Creighton recorded his first professional ace on Friday. And on Sunday, he went out and won the entire tournament by a stroke! How’s that for a run? Not bad for a guy ranked 442nd in the world, without a top-10 finish in any of the 13 Korn Ferry events he’s played this season.
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Creighton’s 59 was the 15th under-60 round in the history of the Korn Ferry Tour. Oddly enough, Adrien Dumont de Chassart also carded a 59 in the Wichita Open on Thursday. But Dumont de Chassart would go on to finish four strokes behind Creighton.
This week: PGA Tour: Rocket Classic (Detroit), LPGA: Dow Championship (Midland, Mich.), LIV Golf: Dallas, PGA Tour Champions: U.S. Senior Open.
