Reed wins The Barclays, secures Ryder Cup spot

Patrick Reed overtook a stumbling Rickie Fowler to win The Barclays, take the lead in the FedEx Cup and secure his place in the U.S. Ryder Cup team for Hazeltine.

Rickie Fowler had the lead at the start of the final round of The Barclays but Patrick Reed made an early move with three birdies in the space of four holes from the 4th.

Reed missed a few chances to gain the advantage but he moved two clear after he’d made a birdie on the 12th and Fowler had dropped a shot on the 11th.

Fowler was unable to close the gap to Reed and he then stumbled further on the run for home. He needed to finish alone in third place to secure automatic qualification for Davis Love III’s Ryder Cup team but he bogeyed the 15th and then doubled the 16th to fall right back into a tie for seventh.

Reed was able to make a few mistakes on the run in and still claim an important victory. He bogeyed the last hole to fire a closing 70 and finish one clear of Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo and Sean O’Hair of the USA.

3 Talking points from The Barclays

1 – This victory means a number of things to Patrick Reed. He has climbed to ninth on the Official World Golf Ranking, he’s moved to 1st place on the FedEx Cup standings, he’s assured of a chance to win the $10 million top prize at the Tour Championship and he has secured his place in the U.S. Ryder Cup team. “Everyone's been talking about the Ryder Cup, been talking about, `Oh, you're in the eighth spot and you're on the bubble' and all that," Reed said. "If you go and win, it takes care of everything else. ... It takes care of everything."

2 – Rickie Fowler still had a chance to claim automatic Ryder Cup qualification with a birdie on this final hole. But he suffered another bogey and will now have to rely on a Captain’s pick to be in Hazeltine. After the round he was trying to take the positives from the performance as he heads on to the The Deutsche Bank Championship next week, where he defends the title. “It's (a Ryder Cup start) not for me to worry about right now,” Fowler said. “I've just got to go out and get ready to play next week. Coming off a win there last year, I feel like I'm in a good spot. I played great this week, and I'm not worried about resume or anything like that. I've just got to continue to work on the game, continue getting better. It was almost really good this week.”

Rickie Fowler swing:

3 – With the top-100 on the FedEx Cup standings moving on to the Deutsche Bank, there was a secondary competition being played out at Bethpage. Sung Kang fired a brilliant 64 to match the course record and climb from 122nd to 88th place while John Huh, Tyrone Van Aswegan and Derek Fathauer all played there way in. Those missing out will be Shane Lowry, Peter Malnati, Robert Streb, Lucas Glover and Jonas Blixt.

The Barclays Bethpage Black, Farmingdale, New York Aug 25-28 Purse $8,500,000, par 71

1    Patrick Reed (USA)    66    68    71    70    275    $1,530,000 T2    Emiliano Grillo (Arg)    67    69    71    69    276    $748,000 T2    Sean O’Hair (USA)    69    69    72    66    276    $748,000 T4    Jason Day (Aus)        68    70    70    69    277    $351,333 T4    Adam Scott (Aus)        69    72    65    71    277    $351,333 T4    Gary Woodland (USA)    71    69    68    69    277    $351,333 T7    Jason Kokrak (USA)    74    66    69    69    278    $264,916 T7    Ryan Moore (USA)    69    68    72    69    278    $264,916 T7    Rickie Fowler (USA)    67    69    68    74    278    $264,916 T10    Jordan Spieth (USA)    71    67    72    69    279    $221,000 T10    Justin Thomas (USA)    71    71    66    71    279    $221,000

Note: Player score in bold signifies Titleist ball usage