U.S. Ryder Cup wild-card hopefuls pressing to make final impression

J.B. Holmes is powering his way around Crooked Stick. (Getty Images)

U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III has the task of selecting three of his four wild-card picks on Sunday after the BMW Championship.

Conventional wisdom would suggest the captain’s microscope would be fixed on the players who came up just short of finishing in the top eight in points, shy of the players that automatically made the Hazeltine-bound team. Those guys would be Bubba Watson, J.B. Holmes, Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar. So far, in the final event to make an impression before Sunday, three of those four players are thriving.

J.B. Holmes leads the pack of hopefuls at Crooked Stick, flexing his power on Friday to shoot a 7-under 65 that has him at 10 under par and four back of co-leaders Roberto Castro and Dustin Johnson.

Holmes has tried to take his mind off what’s at stake, both in trying to get to the Tour Championship and represent the U.S.

“I think that I was focusing on it too much, because the last few weeks I’ve been able to kind of refocus on what I usually focus on and I’ve let it go,” he said. “Obviously, it’s in the back of my mind, I definitely really want to make the team, but it’s out of my hands now, so all I can do is just go out and play golf and do the best I can.”

Then there’s Kuchar, who has appeared at times gassed with his facial expressions and some of his on-course mistakes. Nonetheless, he’s at 7 under par and in tie for sixth place.

Bubba Watson has struggled since finishing runner-up at Doral in March. He hasn’t posted a single top-10 finish. Right now, he’s tied for 10th place, a shot behind Kuchar’s position. This weekend will be a grind in hopes of snagging the second of his two big goals for the season.

“I want to play on the Ryder Cup. My whole goal this year was the Ryder Cup and the Olympics,” Watson said Friday. “That’s all I cared about the whole year was making those two events. I didn’t care how I did it, as long as I made those events. And I got in the Olympics, so I got one more to go, I guess.”

Then there’s Rickie Fowler, who added the Wyndham Championship after the Olympics with the hopes of earning enough points to make the team automatically. He fell woefully short. Then, two weeks ago, he lost a chance to win The Barclays that would have sewn up a pick. Now he’s 2 over par and tied for 63rd place.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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