Patriotism Over Prize Money: Jordan Spieth Downplays Tour Championship in Front of Ryder Cup

Players who qualify for the Northern Trust, the first of the FedExCup playoffs, have a goal to advance to the Tour Championship. And then win the PGA Tour’s ultimate prize. However, Jordan Spieth has some different thoughts and has his priorities set. 

The Northern Trust is currently underway at the Liberty National Golf Course in New Jersey. And the top 125 players from the FedExCup rankings are competing to get into the BMW Championship. And then finally to the Tour Championship, where only the top 30 players from FedExCup rankings get to compete.  

“We never get team sports,” says Jordan Spieth 

Jordan Spieth recently joined ‘The Pat McAfee show’ to talk about his new Fan Duel partnership, recent resurgence, relationship with his caddie, and more. He also added a few words about the upcoming Ryder Cup, which is scheduled for September 24 to 26 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

The host asked Jordan Spieth how much is he thinking about the upcoming Ryder Cup at this point. “I’d rather play better at the Ryder Cup than in the Tour Championship,” Spieth said. “We never get team sports, so to be able to have team sports — when you win a championship in team sports, you get your parade. Right? For us, that’s the Sunday afternoon after winning a Ryder Cup on U.S. soil. Where everyone sticks around and you get to kind of party with everybody. That’s our parade. That’s what we look forward to.”  

The Tour Championship is the PGA Tour’s ultimate trophy, along with the Players Championship. It also pays out $15 million to the winner. However, Spieth has more than $47 million in career earnings and has plenty of endorsements, so probably he isn’t too worried about the FedExCup’s big bonuses. 

Can Spieth make it to the Ryder Cup team?

Meanwhile, Spieth still hasn’t qualified as one of the six automatic qualifiers for the Ryder Cup U.S. team. But looking at his current form, it is evident that he will make the team as a captain’s pick. Meanwhile, the United States has lost nine of the last 12 meetings against Europe. 

“It’s going to be hard, but our team this year looks stacked,” Spieth mentioned. “We looked that way in the last one in Paris, and we didn’t win. I think we’ll kind of go in with an underdog mentality, even though we have such massive talent on the U.S. side.”

The top six players on the points list following the BMW Championship will automatically make the team. However, the remaining six players will be picked by Steve Stricker, the skipper of team U.S., after the Tour Championship.  

“There’s no breaks coming up in these next six weeks,” Spieth said. “We look at the Ryder Cup as a major championship in our mind and try to peak for it.”

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