Gavin Cooney
reports from Bethpage Black, New York
HOME ADVANTAGE IN the Ryder Cup is like having serve in tennis.
The last away win of any kind was Europe’s at Medinah in 2012, a miracle now in both means and ends. Europe’s last win on American soil prior to that was at Oakland Hills in 2004.
The States, meanwhile, haven’t won away from home since 1993. Hence why Rory McIlroy has called winning a Ryder Cup away from home the “hardest feat in golf.”
The home side has control over course set-up, which is something the Europeans have maximised to their advantage. In Rome two years ago, for instance, they shortened par-fives and lengthened par-fours to do their best to take wedges from American hands. Prior to that in Paris in 2018, captain Thomas Bjorn found that the Americans missed the fairways by an average of 30 feet, so he moved the galleries further back to ensure the visitors wouldn’t be whacking out of fan-trampled rough.
This all had an impact, for sure, but it can be overstated. The notion that there are vast stylistic difference between the European and American players doesn’t stand up. Both play the same bomb-and-wedge style on the PGA Tour; while many of the Europeans are living in Florida and a few speak with an American twang.
Bethpage is a monster course that favours long hitters, and the Americans have shaved down the rough to ensure their inaccuracy is not punished. This will give them an edge but it will only be slight. Rank the 24 players here by their average driving distance this year and you’ll find that Bryson DeChambeau is top, but the next four longest hitters are all European. (Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Rasmus Hojgaard, and Ludvig Aberg.)
But where all the Americans bar Collin Morikawa and Russell Henley have been driving the ball at least 304 yards on average this year, seven of the European team have all been averaging beneath that number.
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Of far more consequence is the home crowd.
The Ryder Cup is a holiday from golf’s haughty notions of decorum – the Europeans can expect to be swinging through noise – and a bombastic New York crowd will ensure this is what would happen were The Purge to meet the gentleman’s game.
The confetti had hardly settled in Rome two years ago when Shane Lowry was talking of how hostile the Bethpage crowd will be.
Enormous grand stands have been erected around the first tee and 18th green this week, and what will not be daubed with boisterous American fans has been festooned in American red, itself creating a backdrop to unsettle any European’s subconscious.
Giant PA speakers have thus bar been blasting out Bon Jovi and Kid Rock, presumably under a playlist titled Extremely American. We should at least this week be spared yet another sporting hijack of Freed from Desire.
The Europeans cannot control the crowd but they can control their own reaction. Hence Luke Donald has gone to great lengths to train his side in the art of being a punchbag. At the Team Cup event in January, Donald hired an American comedian to stand by the seventh green and hurl abuse at his players. Tyrrell Hatton was thus publicly assailed as an “Amish farmer” and a “Tesco bouncer.” (Tesco isn’t operating in America, mind, and we can’t foresee any American fans this week being so learned in trans-Atlantic supermarket chains.)
The European players were also given VR headsets pre-loaded with personalised abuse, aimed to desensitise themselves in advance to whatever will be hurled their way at Bethpage. We can’t wait to discover whose job it was to script each player’s bespoke calumnies.
Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald inspect the Cup. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
This may be judged a masterstroke in retrospect, or else Donald will be answering questions as to why he chose to use the lead-in time to psychologically attack his players. Like everything at the Ryder Cup, its genius or otherwise will only be judged after the result is known.
Europe are also playing a kind of reverse psychology with the crowd, with Donald saying that the New Yorkers may turn on the Americans if they get off to a slow start. This may be optimistic on Donald’s behalf, because this week promises to be an orgy of ostentatious American patriotism beyond even the regular standards of the Ryder Cup, for Donald Trump’s attendance on Friday will give the whole thing an injection of MAGA energy.
The Americans, meanwhile, are not exactly shying away from the Trump factor.
“We’re very proud to be Americans”, said Scottie Scheffler at his press conference on Tuesday morning. “I think the flag means a lot to us. To have our president here and for us to represent the United States of America, albeit being in a golf tournament, is extremely important for us.”
Where Donald has excelled as European captain has been to corral the European team around a shared purpose, and he is building on the tone set by Rory McIlroy at the victorious press conference in Rome, where he slammed the table as he promised that Europe would go to Bethpage and win.
Donald’s messaging to his players is that it is time that they finally win again on American soil, and so the colours of their kit on practice days is paying a nod to the colours worn by previous European teams who have won away from home.
Winning in America has always been a tall order. This era of untethered and unleashed American patriotism is going to make things more difficult still.
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How Europe are planning to survive a Ryder Cup atmosphere more hostile than any other
HOME ADVANTAGE IN the Ryder Cup is like having serve in tennis.
The last away win of any kind was Europe’s at Medinah in 2012, a miracle now in both means and ends. Europe’s last win on American soil prior to that was at Oakland Hills in 2004.
The States, meanwhile, haven’t won away from home since 1993. Hence why Rory McIlroy has called winning a Ryder Cup away from home the “hardest feat in golf.”
The home side has control over course set-up, which is something the Europeans have maximised to their advantage. In Rome two years ago, for instance, they shortened par-fives and lengthened par-fours to do their best to take wedges from American hands. Prior to that in Paris in 2018, captain Thomas Bjorn found that the Americans missed the fairways by an average of 30 feet, so he moved the galleries further back to ensure the visitors wouldn’t be whacking out of fan-trampled rough.
This all had an impact, for sure, but it can be overstated. The notion that there are vast stylistic difference between the European and American players doesn’t stand up. Both play the same bomb-and-wedge style on the PGA Tour; while many of the Europeans are living in Florida and a few speak with an American twang.
Bethpage is a monster course that favours long hitters, and the Americans have shaved down the rough to ensure their inaccuracy is not punished. This will give them an edge but it will only be slight. Rank the 24 players here by their average driving distance this year and you’ll find that Bryson DeChambeau is top, but the next four longest hitters are all European. (Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Rasmus Hojgaard, and Ludvig Aberg.)
But where all the Americans bar Collin Morikawa and Russell Henley have been driving the ball at least 304 yards on average this year, seven of the European team have all been averaging beneath that number.
Of far more consequence is the home crowd.
The Ryder Cup is a holiday from golf’s haughty notions of decorum – the Europeans can expect to be swinging through noise – and a bombastic New York crowd will ensure this is what would happen were The Purge to meet the gentleman’s game.
The confetti had hardly settled in Rome two years ago when Shane Lowry was talking of how hostile the Bethpage crowd will be.
Enormous grand stands have been erected around the first tee and 18th green this week, and what will not be daubed with boisterous American fans has been festooned in American red, itself creating a backdrop to unsettle any European’s subconscious.
Giant PA speakers have thus bar been blasting out Bon Jovi and Kid Rock, presumably under a playlist titled Extremely American. We should at least this week be spared yet another sporting hijack of Freed from Desire.
The Europeans cannot control the crowd but they can control their own reaction. Hence Luke Donald has gone to great lengths to train his side in the art of being a punchbag. At the Team Cup event in January, Donald hired an American comedian to stand by the seventh green and hurl abuse at his players. Tyrrell Hatton was thus publicly assailed as an “Amish farmer” and a “Tesco bouncer.” (Tesco isn’t operating in America, mind, and we can’t foresee any American fans this week being so learned in trans-Atlantic supermarket chains.)
The European players were also given VR headsets pre-loaded with personalised abuse, aimed to desensitise themselves in advance to whatever will be hurled their way at Bethpage. We can’t wait to discover whose job it was to script each player’s bespoke calumnies.
This may be judged a masterstroke in retrospect, or else Donald will be answering questions as to why he chose to use the lead-in time to psychologically attack his players. Like everything at the Ryder Cup, its genius or otherwise will only be judged after the result is known.
Europe are also playing a kind of reverse psychology with the crowd, with Donald saying that the New Yorkers may turn on the Americans if they get off to a slow start. This may be optimistic on Donald’s behalf, because this week promises to be an orgy of ostentatious American patriotism beyond even the regular standards of the Ryder Cup, for Donald Trump’s attendance on Friday will give the whole thing an injection of MAGA energy.
The Americans, meanwhile, are not exactly shying away from the Trump factor.
“We’re very proud to be Americans”, said Scottie Scheffler at his press conference on Tuesday morning. “I think the flag means a lot to us. To have our president here and for us to represent the United States of America, albeit being in a golf tournament, is extremely important for us.”
Where Donald has excelled as European captain has been to corral the European team around a shared purpose, and he is building on the tone set by Rory McIlroy at the victorious press conference in Rome, where he slammed the table as he promised that Europe would go to Bethpage and win.
Donald’s messaging to his players is that it is time that they finally win again on American soil, and so the colours of their kit on practice days is paying a nod to the colours worn by previous European teams who have won away from home.
Winning in America has always been a tall order. This era of untethered and unleashed American patriotism is going to make things more difficult still.
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Golf no home comforts Ryder Cup