Half of the eight Ryder Cup USA automatic spots have now been clinched. And only one event remains to earn points: the PGA Championship.
With his win at WGC-Bridgestone on Sunday, Justin Thomas is the fourth player to cement his spot on the 2018 team at Le Golf National in Paris in September. Thomas' 15-under at Firestone was four shots ahead of runner-up Kyle Stanley.
Last week, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed all secured spots on the team. With Thomas' win, he jumped ahead of Reed for third in the Ryder Cup standings. Johnson moved into the first spot, using his tie for third at WGC-Bridgestone to get to 9,435.287 points. Koepka is now second with 9,338.472 points. Thomas is third with 8,427.053 and Reed is fourth (7,821.880).
MORE: Ryder Cup USA standings
With the 2018 PGA Championship this week, the winner will get a huge prize. The winner of the 100th PGA Championship will earn almost 4,000 points, at least by using last year's purse to project points. Currently, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Webb Simpson occupy the last four automatic spots. However, none of those players has clinched his spot in the Ryder Cup team yet. Bryson DeChambeau is No. 9, but he's less than 49 points behind Simpson (4,365.058) for the eighth spot.
MORE: How U.S. players earn Ryder Cup points in 2018
But DeChambeau isn't the only player close to the top eight. Six more golfers are within 1,000 points of Simpson, including Phil Mickelson at No. 10 (4,207.953) and continuting through Kevin Kisner at No. 15 (3,398.501).
Tiger Woods is No. 20 going into the PGA Championship. At 2,414.794 points, Woods needs a victory at Bellerive.
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