Which Las Vegas golfers could make cut for Ryder Cup teams?

Three Las Vegas golfers are in line for spots on the Ryder Cup teams when the two squads are announced this month.

Final qualification for the U.S. team is this week, with the top six players in the points standings earning automatic bids following the BMW Championship. Captain Keegan Bradley will fill out his team with six picks a week later.

The top six for the European team will be finalized Aug. 24, with captain Luke Donald filling out his roster a week later.

Las Vegans Collin Morikawa, Maverick McNealy and Harry Hall could be part of the Ryder Cup, set for Sept. 26 to 28 at New York’s daunting Bethpage Black.

For the U.S., the top six players are virtually locked in: Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley, Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English.

The first three captain’s picks seem obvious: Justin Thomas, Ben Griffin and Morikawa.

Then it gets tricky for the final three, starting with whether Bradley chooses himself as a playing captain. Others in the mix include McNealy, Andrew Novak, Brian Harman, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young and Chris Gotterup.

On paper, McNealy (six top-10 finishes but none since May) and Novak (five top-10 finishes, including a win and a playoff loss) are the strongest choices. Young and Gotterup had pedestrian seasons but have gotten hot over the past month. Harman and Cantlay bring experience, but don’t have the record of the others in 2025. Cantlay, in particular, has four backdoor top-10 finishes without seriously contending all year, as well as three missed cuts in majors.

On the European side, the top six are Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre, Tyrrell Hatton and Sepp Straka, and four of the captain’s picks are locks: Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg and Jon Rahm.

That leaves two available spots, with Matt Fitzpatrick pretty close to a sure thing. Hall’s chances are iffy, but it’s hard to argue anybody else deserves it over him.

Hall has four top-10 finishes, is riding a streak of 15 consecutive cuts made and has been all over leaderboards this summer. And he’s the best putter on the PGA Tour.

Hall leads everyone in putting average, putts per round, birdie or better conversion rate and total putting. Those are stats Donald certainly can’t ignore.

Chip shots

— Ian Fritz didn’t pout after coming up just short at the Nevada State Amateur. Instead, he turned around a week later and won the Nevada Match Play Championship, taking down Raymond Kim 5 and 4 in the 36-hole final at Red Rock Country Club.

Fritz, a senior at Pacific and a former Coronado High standout, dominated the final, turning a 2-up lead after 18 holes into a 8-up margin after 28 holes. Michigan sophomore R.J. Arone and Phillip Reedy, Hall’s former caddie, fell in the semifinals.

— It wasn’t Min Woo Lee’s week at the St. Jude Championship, with the Las Vegas golfer finishing all four rounds at the bottom of the 69-player field. But Lee did show PGA Tour golfers can play fast. Playing the final round as a single and the first player off, Lee went around TPC Southwind in 2 hours, 10 minutes.

— Viewers of the U.S. Women’s Amateur last week might have caught a glimpse of a local legend. Warren Schutte, who claimed UNLV’s first individual NCAA championship in 1991, was on the bag for his daughter. Abbey Schutte, a junior at Arkansas, lost in the round of 64.

Contact Greg Robertson at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.