OverDrive - Faxon on Bradley's choice at the Ryder Cup, the teams overview and Fleetwood's first victory

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

NBC Sports Golf Analyst Brad Faxon joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around Tommy Fleetwood's incredible win at the Tour Championship, the shots leading to the victory, Patrick Cantlay's slow pace at East Lake, Keegan Bradley's choice to play at the Ryder Cup, the rosters for USA and Europe and more.

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Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada, the station that champions Canadian music. Loud, crowd, and all yours. No passports required, just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca. or the free iHeart radio app here's long time pro himself we love having him on one of our favorites here's brad faxon how you doing facts um pretty good gentlemen how are we doing i i just want you to get um don't get too nervous that these boston red socks are creeping up on you guys i know we're not worried you're not healthier we're not worried i know you're not worried we're not worried

still a five game buffer i got a message i got a message for brian i hear he's not practices in putting all he doesn't care how far he hits it. He's like Bryson. That's precisely who I am. And I need to work with you, folks. I need to meet you. I don't know. Where do we meet? Down in New York, can get me on bed page? We can work on the practice green down there or what? Seriously, we'll get a big crowd out there. Yeah, no kidding, man. What a scene over the weekend.

You know, Tommy Fleetwood, I got a chance to meet him and playing the pro with him up here at the Canadian Open a few years ago. Awesome guy. What a player. and I was nervous for him because, you know, Cantley kind of opened the door for him the first couple of holes going bogey double to allow Fleetwood to breathe a little bit. How substantial do you think that was

the way Cantley started his own round? The way Sheffler started his own round going OB off the tee off his first shot of the day. Do you think that fact that didn't Fleetwood breathe in a little easier? Well, it's crazy, isn't it, to see what happened in just that short amount of time. like you said, the double boge and the boge and a double bogey,

like a four-putt for camp. Well, you never see that. Technically, it was a three-putt, but he was on the fringe putting. And Schephel, I don't know if he's hit out of bounds this year. He looked a little bit out of sorts of the whole round. He hits a shot in the water on that precious 15th hole. And Tommy Fleetwood, I mean, what a year he's had, but what a playoff run. You know, he had a good British Open, finished tied for 23rd,

but has a chance in Memphis to win and messes up on the 16th hole, the easy par five doesn't really get the job done there. And then he goes on this role and then everybody's pulling for me. He's talking about, hey, listen, I'm gaining experience. This is where you'd want to be. I haven't won over here 164 times. I mean, a guy with the most amount of money that hasn't won, the most amount of top tens, top five that hasn't won.

And like you said, like universally loved. Americans love them, the crowd in America, in Atlanta, cheering Tommy, Tommy Ladd. It was dynamic television. And, you know, Justin Rose took down J.J. Spahn and Memphis in that playoff. Then Sheffler did what Sheffler does to take down McIntyre. You know, these are all potential Rider Cup matches. and then Fleet would, like you said, playing with Cantley, gets that incredibly good break that the slow start.

But it wasn't until the back nine where Fleet would really start hitting some good shots and made a bunch of birdies. It was great television. So it took him this long to win one. Is it true that just now is just a mental hurdle he's cleared and he could maybe play different or play looser, I guess, when times get tight in the journeys? It's funny the pressure that coming over to play the US PGA Tour has on some of the greatest European players of all time.

Colin Montgomery never won on the PGA Tour. He won eight money titles in a row in Europe. And Tommy Fleetwood, who has won seven times on the D.P. World Tour. I mean, big events. He beat Rory on the last hole in Dubai, a huge put on the last hole. played in, I think, three Rider Cups about to be his fourth. The great swing, but something down the stretch has held them back, whether it's a tentativeness of some of these putts coming up short

or just hitting a bad shot. Maybe when he lost to Keegan Bradley on that final hole, it took he and his caddy Ian Finnis, another great guy, too long to hit this shot. And now you're wondering, what's going to happen here as he gets up on this 15th hole? and it was tense. You know, he's on that 220-yard par three talking with his cat.

He Bones, Mackay, our lead guy on the ground is saying, I haven't seen a guy take this long. He's in between clubs. He hit it in the water the day before. And he hits what was a pretty good shot over the green and makes a four, which I think he would have taken from the T. But you didn't know what was going to happen. Cantley was fine in his game.

Our golf ratings had been up, you guys. both CBS and NBC and for Fleetwood to come down the stretch and make the the birdies he did, he birded 11, he birded 13, piped to drive there on 16, 17, and it was kind of all over.

Well, you talk about Cantley finding his game, Brad, and he sure takes his time looking for it. And, you know, if Tommy's win was the biggest story, I think the second biggest story of the day was all to talk about Cantley's very, very slow play. I think the NBC guys were timing at one point. I think he took 38 seconds

at one point. They hit a T-shot after addressing the ball. I mean, this is an eternal debate in golf, but it did seem excessive in Cantley's case, and where are you on what the tour needs to do about it? Well, a couple things here. Remember, I don't know if you remember in 2003

when the first U.S. Open came to Beth Page, and Sergio Garcia was in the hunt with Tiger and he had the re-gripping over the ball issue where the fans started counting how many times he re-gripped, re-gripped, and it was awful to watch, and he was driving it beautifully. And then on the first hole,

now you'll appreciate this doing what you guys do. In television, when we have the call of a player on the first tee and our guy hits, I'm not, I'm the analyst, I'm not supposed to talk after he hits that drive because we don't want to hear, lose the same. sound of the guy on the first tee that's announcing the player. Well, I couldn't believe how long he took to hit this shot. And I said something after his shot.

My producer got in my ear, do that. You've been doing this too long. You've got, you know, so I got yelled at. And I go, Jesus. And it was pretty funny, but they got warned about being out of position as they were making the turn, and they were out of position before that. And one of our rules officials, Mark Duce Bobb, who works for the PGA Trobe,

but he also does a very, very good job on NBC helping us with any of the rules situations. He made a comment that I thought was interesting. He said, listen, given the enormity of this event, and the enormity of the event was, this is not only the Tour Champion, it's the FedEx Championship, we didn't have the staggered start that we had in the past.

So the winner of the top 30 players that got there that's through the season-long point system, if you won the tournament, even if you were 30th, if you were Akshay Batia, and you somehow managed to win that tournament, you're going to beat Scotty Sheffler as the FedEx Cup player of the year. But I'll tell you what, there was a lot more drama to it with all the players starting tied for the lead on Thursday morning. And, you know, Mark DeSpobik went on to say, you know, given the enormity of this tournament,

we're telling him to warn up, we're not putting them on the clock right away. so they were a full two holes behind at one point if that's a normal tournament they're on the clock immediately and he would have been definitely at least fined or given a stroke right and I like the fact that it felt like a real tournament right like it felt that way East Lake's such a great place who's great TV NBC Golf Channel you guys crush it like you always do but now that we've you know there's no more playing

and we're going to hear about the Ryder Cup in the next 48 hours. Let's get right to it here, facts. Keegan Bradley, should he be playing for the American team? So this has been something that we've talked about on and off for a while. We're so obsessed with it that the PGA tour actually called NBC on Saturday and said, listen, you're talking way too much about the Ryder Cup. We've got to talk about the Tour championship in the FedEx. And we're like, oh, my gosh, this is one of the reasons why people are watching. So Scotty Sheffler, J.J. Spawn, Zandershoffley, Russell, Henley, Harris, English, and Bryson DeChambo.

They qualified after the BMW. Those guys are six automatic picks. Now, Keegan Bradley has said all along, I'm not going to pick myself if I don't automatically qualify. Well, after he won the Travelers overtime, he was like, boy, you better play, you better play. He's got five vice captains. Jim Furrick, who captained the President's Cup of Montreal last year, one of them, Webb Simpson, one of Gary Woodland, one of them. Kevin Kisner. He's got plenty of guys to help them out.

Now, seventh and eighth, they're almost locks. Justin Thomas and Colomarokawa. I mean, two big names that have plenty of Ryder Cup experience. I don't see how they don't get picked. And then it gets a little bit funny. How do you pick the next few guys? Because we have a young player named Ben Griffin, who's played outstanding this year.

He's won twice. He's ninth on the points list. He played well again in the playoffs. Maverick McNeely, who kind of has come out of nowhere and is a very long hitter and an excellent putter, something that will need at Best Page. And he's a guy that can play both formats. And I think if you're going to pick a rookie,

both of these guys would be Ryder Cup rookies. It's better to do it at home. We know that. Kegan Bradley sits there at 11th on the points list. If Kegan Bradley plays, he limits himself in a little bit in what he can do on the golf course because he has to have some captaincy role

and he's going to be preoccupied thinking about all the other matches. But think about this. Think about how well he played during these playoffs in order to move up the list and stay in this top 12th. If you went and polled those top eight players I asked you about every single one of them are going to say, Kegan, you should play. There's probably some ego in here, too. If I'm the playing captain and I win, nobody's done that since Arnold Palmer in

1963. Ironically, in 1963, it was at Eastlake where we just were for the Tour Championship. So, and then you have other players. Brian Harmon, British Open champion from a couple years ago at Royal Liverpool, shot 63 to final round. Does his game fit?

Betts page, a long course with a lot of shots. You've got to have, you know, a high trajectory. Harmon's a low-ball hitter. You have a young player named Andrew Novak, who's played well, but not well at the end. He will not get picked. And then, all of a sudden, you get these trio guys. Cameron Young, Patrick Cantley, and Sam Burns.

All of them peaking. It's what you want as a captain. Players that are playing well at the end. Players that played well at the end when it mattered the most. Cameron Young won his first time. Excellent putter. New York guy. He'd be the perfect guy for the situation.

Patrick Cantley, who hasn't had a great year until recently starting to find his game, you have to pick Patrick Cantley, particularly what he did last year in Italy against Rory McRoy and having his cadd, New Yorker Joe La Cava. And then Sam Burns, a guy that's played with Sheffler in a lot of different formats. I think there's some really interesting choices here

for Keegan, but if I were one of the vice captains, I would convince Keegan that you need to play. And I'm talking a lot here. I would have, if I was Keegan, probably ask the PGA of America and say, look, this is too big of a responsibility now. It's not like it was in 1963

with Arnold Palmer. I want to be a player. If you would ask me a year ago when you called me to be the captain, I would rather play than captain under the condition that you let me captain again in the future. It's going to be hard for him to play again.

You know, the next Rider Cup will be 40 years old. I think you get on the course and then you're done. Play, let somebody else take the responsibility. It might be too late for that. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's become such a cool, unique story. I want to see him play.

You know, I want to see Keegan Bradley play now. I think I can speak for everyone around the world. It's a golf fan that's looking forward to this. But it's become somewhat of a circus because of the responsibility and you've got all these different people chiming in. I saw that, you know, I think Donald Trump was tweeting about it last night saying he's got to play, got to play, got to play. So you got the president now chiming in on what's going to happen at the Rider Cup,

which brings a completely different element to it. But what's amazing to me, fact, is I look at it, like at Whistling Straits four years ago, they absolutely mopped the floor with the Europeans. And at that point, you thought the Americans are never going to be stopped. Schaffler was just getting on the scene. DJ was still a stud. You had Kepka was still a stud.

You know, Deschambo was coming alive. Thomas and Speeth were still in their element. And now I look at it on paper. I think the European team's better personally. Like McElroy, McIntyre, Fleetwood, Rose has been great. Manhattan, Lowry, I put Oberg on there, I put Hovlin on there. I don't know. I think it's going to be close.

Like, how do you see Europe matching up with the Americans? Well, I think they're going to be incredible. You know, John Ron will make that team. Right. You know, because he's playing live, he's nowhere near on the points, but you know they're going to pick John Rom. And like you said, McElroy, you know, obviously the second best player in the world, McIntyre who's played incredibly good lately.

Fleetwood, Rose, who just. one. This guy, Rasmus Weigard, his brother, Nikolai, played in Italy. But Raspus has played well in the U.S. He's played well in Europe. He had a great week last week, and he hits it miles, as far as Rory Miles, putz really well. Tirol Hatton, who he's not going to be afraid of anybody. Shane Lowry, Sepsrake, Oberg, Obland, like you mentioned, Matt Fitzpatrick. And then you add Rom. I mean, this is a veteran team with tons of experience. Luke Donald knows how to captain this team. And if there's anybody that wants Keegan Bradley to play,

it's this European team because they'll know how difficult that is. Right. Wow, what a scene it's going to be, man. What a scene. We've got to wait a month. I wish we could be quicker than this, though, are you, Dave? Oh, yeah. One more thing about that, waiting a month.

Yeah. After this week, after the playoffs, we have the 12 players that we'll know by Wednesday morning when Keegan selects them. The U.S. players are only going to play one more tournament. They're going to try and get all the team to go play the event in Napa so they can bond a little bit or talk more about what's going to happen. I think the Europeans, they're going to play the Irish Open next week, and then they're

going to play BMW at Wentworth, and that's a big event. That's a huge event. So these guys aren't going to be rusty. They're going to have a week off between the BMW and Bethpage. They're going to come and do a team. trip to Beth Page just to get on the soil over there before the crowd show up. I don't think this is going to be a runaway by any means. I think this is going to be one of the

most exciting rider cups of all time. Cannot wait for it. Always great catching up with your facts. We'll hopefully do it before we get to New York, if not shortly afterwards. Enjoy it and thank you for doing this as always. Look forward to it. Love talking to you guys. You got it. There's Brad

Faxon of NBC and the Golf Channel. Yeah, man. I He's right about wrong. The biggest songs in the world. You've heard them countless times. Now, learn the details of how they came to be. Join Ruby Carr for Encore, the stories behind the songs you love. New interviews and newly unearthed archive footage make for a fascinating weekly deep dive.

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