paul casey

give paul casey kudos for his runner-up finish at the bmw championship at cog hill, where he shot four straight 69s, lost by one stroke to dustin Johnson, and vaulted into fifth place on the fedex cup points list with one event remaining. coming just two weeks after captain colin montgomerie passed him over for a spot on the european ryder cup team, it was an admirable performance. we’re just not sure if it excoriated monty’s decision to leave him off the team—or justified it. on the one hand, casey outplayed all three european ryder cup members in the field in chicago: ian poulter, rory mcilroy and luke donald (not to mention padraig harrington, who didn’t even make it to the bmw). but on the other hand, casey—after getting off to a hot start in sunday’s final round and forging a three-shot lead with six holes to play—faltered badly coming in, bogeying three holes in a row starting at the 13th and frittering away the tournament. winning would have proven to everyone—especially monty—that europe’s captain made a disastrous error in leaving him off the team. losing the way he did might make fans—at least some of them—think monty knew what he was doing.