After Ryan Gerard wrapped up a third-place finish at the Tour Championship — the big-money season finale in which he beat every U.S. Presidents Cup team member not named Scottie Scheffler — he was asked where he was headed to begin his offseason. The answer, it turned out, was to another golf tournament.
“I’m going to get on a red-eye here in a couple hours to play DP World Tour next week,” he said. “We’re getting ready to grind. Season’s not over for me. Frustrated with some of the results, a lot of positives, but still work left to do.”
Gerard had teed off in the final pairing on Sunday at East Lake alongside Viktor Hovland and had shot a final-round two-over 72 — a score that left him four back of Scheffler and one back of Hovland, which left him in a nice spot but also wondering what could have been.
Still, he felt like he’d done enough to be considered for one of U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker’s six captain’s picks. That fed into his Eurotrip, too.
“Full transparency, if I get a Presidents Cup spot, I’d love to kind of roll into there being a little bit more prepared. I like to play a lot of golf. And if I don’t, I’ll probably just stay over there and play Wentworth and the French Open after that.”
By the time Gerard had made it to Switzerland, the U.S. had finalized its roster — and he wasn’t on it. Despite a strong summer — five top-25s and three top-10s in his final six starts — he finished 16th on the points list, and his Tour Championship result wasn’t enough to leapfrog those above him. Snedeker’s picks instead included multiple veterans (Patrick Cantlay and Justin Thomas, who have a 20-7-2 combined Presidents Cup record), Jacob Bridgeman (who’d started the year hot, finished with a strong playoffs and ranked 12th in points) and Jackson Koivun (who’d burst onto the scene with a win at the 3M and is expected to be a fixture on future U.S. teams).
So Gerard plowed ahead with his European plan instead.
He didn’t play particularly well that week at the Omega European Masters, finishing T30 playing his sixth week in a row. But after sitting out last week he arrived at this week’s BMW PGA Championship fully reset, he said — and it showed in an opening-round five-under 67 that has him just one shot off the lead.
“Really nice,” Gerard said of his week off. “A lot of sleeping. Feels good to kind of be fresh this week. So, excited to continue playing, but it was a nice week off.”
The BMW PGA Championship is the flagship event of the DP World Tour — its equivalent to the PGA Tour’s Players Championship — and because it’ll contribute to his four DPWT starts this year, Gerard, who prides himself as a global golfer, will also maintain membership for next season.
“It’s cool. I feel like we got some big crowds today. I don’t know if they were watching us or just waiting for Rory [McIlroy] to come in behind us, but a lot of people are really stoked to be here and that’s awesome,” Gerard said. “You can feel the energy. It’s a great tournament. It’s very well run from top to bottom, and they do a great job of treating it like a flagship event.”
In other words, he’s plenty happy to be here.
Interestingly, Gerard isn’t the only Presidents Cup could-have-been playing at Wentworth. Patrick Reed opened with 68; he’s the current points leader of the DPWT’s Race to Dubai but spent this year serving a PGA Tour suspension, which means he’s been playing a sparse schedule and didn’t do enough to earn a pick.
There’s also J.J. Spaun, who finished 10th in points but withdrew from the Tour Championship, which undoubtedly hampered his candidacy. Finally there’s Alex Smalley, whose season peaked in May with a T2 at the PGA Championship; he landed at No. 18 in the U.S. team standings.
Both Spaun and Smalley shot 70 on Thursday.
Because of its spot on the schedule, the BMW PGA can serve as a reminder of just how much talent is left off Ryder or Presidents Cup teams. Last year, Alex Noren beat the entire European Ryder Cup team en route to winning at Wentworth — but he’d already been left just off the team and headed to Bethpage Black as assistant captain instead.
Gerard won’t be serving in that capacity next week. Instead we expect he’ll have a tee time — just that it’ll be at Le Golf National instead of Medinah. But a trip to contention this week would at least have U.S. team leadership wondering who they’d let escape across the pond.
