USA Ryder Cup chances of Ryder Cup glory was given a boast on Sunday with team member Brandt Snedeker winning the FedexCup by three shots.
Northern Ireland’s finest, Rory McIlroy, was widely expected to go into the annual battle between Europe and the USA some $10m richer after some brilliant golf on the Fed-Ex Tour, but the world’s top-ranked player did not do himself justice and dropped down the order well before the finish of what turned into a three-cornered battle between Snedeker, Justin Rose and Ryan Moore.
With the points reset to allow the top five to win the prize with victory in Atlanta, the man who started in fifth place, Snedeker, pulled it out of the fire on the day to grab the money.
Rose moves up to a career-high position of five thanks to his runner’s-up effort, but that was not enough to help McIlroy, as he pointed out later to his Ryder Cup teammate, saying simply: “I wish you had done me a favour.”
Luke Donald’s back-to-back 67′s over the weekend helped him into a tie for third with the American Moore, who bogeyed the last three holes after drawing level with Snedeker.
The world No 3 said: “It’s the Ryder Cup, and some of my best moments in golf have been during that event and obviously being in Chicago, the place I’ve lived for the last 15 years. Hopefully I can take away a small percentage of the home crowd support.”
Lee Westwood stays No 4 in the rankings despite finishing in last place in Atlanta, 25 strokes behind Snedeker.
He said: “The speed of the greens came as a bit of a shock this week, but my game’s not far away. It was my first time in the play-offs and I’d only played Bethpage [of the four courses] before.”
USA 8/11
Draw 10/1
Europe 11/8
