Jordan Spieth WD marks latest swerve in murky U.S. Ryder Cup picture

You could hear the frustration in Jordan Spieth’s voice as he explained what had happened.

“Everything was great in my gym session, and I’ve been very, very excited to go out and play. Things have been getting better and better…” he said. That’s when it began: his right scapula locked up, and as he continued warming up, the discomfort spread to the rest of his upper back and his neck. He ditched his warmup and got treatment, but to no avail — once he was on the course it just got worse. He grimaced through a dozen holes, flinching at the top of backswings, trying to trick his body into swinging through it, but to no avail.

“It’s a weird situation with an elevated event and no cut and important points and stuff,” he said. “It’s like, well, what’s the downside, if I can finish, of just finishing, even if it’s ugly? And then I hit my tee shot on 13, and it legitimately really hurt.”

Spieth is nothing if not a grinder; he said he’s never withdrawn from an event at any level. It was heartbreaking, then, to hear him ask a rules official what he was supposed to do before taking a cart ride in.

“How does this work? I’ve never done this before.”

As he spoke to media post-WD, Spieth called it “incredibly frustrating.” This was his 10th start in 12 weeks, one of the busiest stretches of his career — but he’d flushed his irons in a T23 at Oakmont and had circled this tournament on his calendar. “This is a big week,” he’d said on Wednesday. Big in his goal to qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship. And big in his quest to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team. He’s currently No. 37 in the FedEx Cup and No. 22 in Ryder Cup points, trending up but on the outside looking in.

What are Spieth’s Ryder Cup chances?

If you’re thinking, hey, wait a minute — it’s only June. Isn’t the Ryder Cup pretty far away? then I’d say you have a fair point. But 1. The Ryder Cup isn’t just an event, it’s a fascinating way to frame the current pecking order of top Tour pros. And 2. it’s actually not that far away. This week’s Travelers is the Tour’s last Siggy of the season (Signature Event, if you’re feeling formal) and the Open in two weeks will be the year’s final major. It’s go-time for everybody on the bubble, particularly for Spieth, whose wife Annie is expecting their third child in the coming weeks.

The numbers suggest that Spieth’s chances of making it to Bethpage are somewhere in the coin-flip range. (Data Golf has him at 56 percent entering this week.) But there are reasons to like his chances. Since Spieth’s return from surgery at January’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am he’s played 15 events, missing just two cuts while logging four top-10s and three additional top-20s. Add in that Spieth’s made the last five U.S. Ryder Cup teams (in other words, he’s never missed one) and you’d figure he’d get the benefit of the doubt, if he’s on the margin. But Spieth’s WD is the latest in a list of complex Ryder Cup questions facing Keegan Bradley’s U.S. squad.

Let’s answer a few of the others.

Who’s gonna be on this U.S. Ryder Cup team, anyway?

Scottie Scheffler, for sure. He has nearly 27,000 Ryder Cup points; nobody else has more than 12,500. He’s also the best player in the world by quite a bit.

Okay, who else?

Xander Schauffele’s in second in the standings and he’ll be at Bethpage. Bryson DeChambeau has been a consistent big-event contender and will be there, too. Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa are in that next tier of almost definitely. And J.J. Spaun‘s U.S. Open win boosted him into that range, too — he’s No. 3 on the Ryder Cup points list at the moment. But they’re not yet guaranteed, and after them things get even murkier.

Who’s not in the conversation that you would have thought would be?

Arguably the best player in the last few years of U.S. team golf, Max Homa, has gone missing. Big-game hunter Brooks Koepka has struggled — though he showed signs of life at the U.S. Open. Two other recent major winners and members of the 2023 U.S. team, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman, are way outside the conversation. And fan favorites like Rickie Fowler (also on that 2023 team) and Tony Finau (on the two teams before that) haven’t made much noise.

Who’s in the conversation that you wouldn’t have expected?

Spaun, for one thing. But the leader of this contingent is Ben Griffin, who has been playing spectacular golf these last few months and has picked up two PGA Tour wins — not to mention a whole bunch of ball speed. He’s the leader of late bloomers now charging toward the front of this conversation, a list that also includes Maverick McNealy and Andrew Novak. Throw in Farmers winner and PGA Championship runner-up Harris English and you have five guys currently inside the top 12 you might not have picked at the beginning of the year.

Anybody else I should keep my eye on?

That’s the thing — you have to keep your eye on basically everybody. Patrick Cantlay seems very likely to make this team; we’ll put him just ahead of Sam Burns and Russell Henley in terms of guys we’ve seen in the stars and stripes recently. There’s Daniel Berger, who has been remarkably consistent and is just a couple high finishes away from a berth of his own. Cameron Young is surging, and I like his chances better than most. Akshay Bhatia is talented. And then there’s a nearly endless list of guys who could get hot at the right time — think Denny McCarthy, J.T. Poston, Ryan Gerard, Davis Thompson, Keith Mitchell, Max Greyserman, Michael Kim, Tom Hoge and about a dozen other guys — and force their way into the conversation. And then, of course, there’s the biggest question of all:

What are Keegan Bradley’s player-captain chances?

I cringe every time U.S. captain Keegan Bradley is asked about it just because there’s nothing he can really add to the conversation; this feels like the sort of thing that he should just deflect on for a while we talk among ourselves and speculate about in pieces like this, at least for the next few weeks. But in a world where Bradley wasn’t the U.S. captain he’d be very much in the conversation for his first Ryder Cup team appearance since 2014. That’s a tantalizing possibility.

What can I do with this information?

You could write your local congressman, demanding responsible leadership. Mostly I’d suggest rooting a little harder for your favorite guys at the Travelers this weekend and beyond, knowing every point counts a little extra in their quest to be a main character when the madness comes to Bethpage this September.

Can you just predict your final team so we can laugh at you when you’re completely wrong?

Sure! Why not. Here’s my predicted squad, which I reserve the right to change tomorrow, the next day and every day after that:

Scottie Scheffler
Xander Schauffele
Bryson DeChambeau
Collin Morikawa
Justin Thomas
Ben Griffin
J.J. Spaun
Patrick Cantlay
Sam Burns
Cameron Young
Jordan Spieth
Keegan Bradley

You can find current Ryder Cup standings here. Or you can make up your own.

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at [email protected].