Vaughn Taylor's out-of-the-blue victory over Phil Mickelson at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday put Taylor smack in the middle of the Ryder Cup mix – he zoomed from 128th place all the way up into 12th place in the latest standings.
Taylor, in fact, has some Ryder Cup experience – after winning the Reno-Tahoe Open in both 2004 and 2005, he made the 2006 U.S. team that lost to Europe at the K Club in Ireland. He and Chad Campbell halved a foursome match against Lee Westwood and Colin Montgomerie, and lost his singles match to Henrik Stenson.
Taylor's jump was obviously by far the biggest of the week, but there was also some minor movement near the top of the points chart. Patrick Reed climbed to seventh from ninth place with his tie for sixth at Pebble Beach, while Brooks Koepka rose to eighth from 10th place with his tie for eight place. And Phil Mickelson's second-place finish solidified his hold on sixth place.
Since the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in Chaska, Minn., will be played in an Olympic year (with golf included in the Games for the first time since 1904), there have been some adjustments made to the qualifying calendar for the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Here are the key qualifying dates:
- Sunday, Aug. 28, 2016: The top eight will be finalized at the conclusion of The Barclays, which is scheduled to finish on this date, as opposed to the traditional closing of points at the conclusion of the PGA Championship, which will be played in July instead of August in 2016 due to the Olympics. It also affords players an additional two weeks from past years to earn a spot on points.
- Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016: Love will select three of his four Captain's Picks at the conclusion of the BMW Championship, scheduled to end on this day.
- Sunday, Sept. 25, 2016: Love will make his fourth and final Captain's Pick at the conclusion of the Tour Championship, scheduled to end on this day.
