“IT WOULD BE very easy to drool with sentimentality over the Ryder Cup”, said Peter Allis once upon at a time. “But, at the end of the day, it is simply two teams trying to knock seven bells out of each other, in the nicest possible way.”
This is what’s attractive about the Ryder Cup: it is professional golf’s best-loved holiday from the rigid decorum that governs the game. This is a frantic, chaotic space where players and fans can indulge their otherwise suppressed ids.
The emotions that swirl around the tournament have burnished some reputations and tarnished more. Nothing so reliably makes the decorous gentlemen of golf look so silly as the Ryder Cup. Think of Corey Pavin at the drenched 2010 edition, forced to fork out £4,000 for a new set of waterproofs after his wife Lisa proposed stitching player’s names across the original set, which rendered them very water-susceptible.
Or Tom Watson, forced to sit mutely at his own post-mortem as an unsparing Phil Mickelson took apart his captaincy at the final press conference at Gleneagles in 2014.
Ignominy has not been restricted to the Americans. At which other event, for instance, would you read the headline, ‘Captain Nick Faldo defends involvement of DJ Spoony?’
But the Americans have taken the greater share of embarrassment, and this week they are in Rome to break a pretty remarkable streak across any sport: they have not won the Ryder Cup on European soil since 1993. They are usually laid low in a familiar but no-less enticing tale. The Americans turn up with the better players but are beaten by an underdog opponent who prioritise creating the best team. Think the Mighty Ducks on tended grass.
Europe’s emphasis on building and then harnessing team chemistry has made a difference at previous editions, but it was an easy edge for them to gain for a long time, given the Americans didn’t so much treat it with suspicion as not recognise it at all. How else to explain Hal Sutton’s decision to pair Tiger Woods with Phil Mickelson in 2004? It was like asking Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner to sit down for dinner.
Sutton’s attitude to the captaincy bore a lineage from Jack Nicklaus’ summation of the gig in 1983: “After we select our teams each day and hand in the piece of paper, all that’s left is to go on course and act important.”
But what has changed is the amount of work that goes in before any captain hands in the piece of paper, and Gleneagles in 2014 took it to a new level. Paul McGinley’s work ethic and attention to detail was obsessive where Watson’s was, well, not.
McGinley analysed years worth of data to decide on his picks and pairings, and then spent a week with Victor Dubuisson in Malaysia to earn his trust, explaining why he would be partnered with Graeme McDowell. He then switched attention to massaging McDowell’s ego – take the rookie under your wing Graeme, and you’ll lead us off in Sunday’s singles – for what proved to be a hugely successful pairing. Watson, meanwhile, told Bill Haas he would be his captain’s pick but then announced Webb Simpson in his place the following morning. It later emerged that Simpson pitched for his own inclusion via a 4am text message to Watson.
Mickelson’s megaphone diplomacy beside Watson in 2014 was tactless but has been undeniably successful. Mickelson and Woods were part of a taskforce set up after Gleneagles to examine everything the American side were doing. They recommended more player input and a deeper use of data, and the US have won two of the three Ryder Cups held since, the most recent being the 19-9 blowout at Whistling Straits in 2021.
European captain Padraig Harrington admitted in the bleak aftermath of that hammering that the US had effectively copied what the team-building and stats-leaning Europeans had perfected. “Every little bit of innovation that Europe has introduced to make an edge”, sighed Harrington, “they have now.”
But what made the biggest difference at Whistling Straits was the strength of the teams. The Americans have 10 of the world’s top 13 two years ago, where Europe only had Jon Rahm. This time around, Europe have three of the world’s top four, as Rahm has been joined by a revitalised Rory McIlroy and a refined Viktor Hovland.
LIV has winnowed their loyal soldiers, and so none of Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, and Lee Westwood will tee it up in Rome. Luke Donald – himself catapulted into the captain’s role after Henrik Stenson defected – has been forced to refresh the team and has seized on the opportunity to promote youth, and Ludvig Aberg will therefore become the first player in history to play at the Ryder Cup before a major. Aberg has enormous potential and his selection is less of a risk than Nicolai Hojgaard, picked ahead of the jilted Adrian Meronk.
Shane Lowry admitted his week at the Irish Open was stained by the negative talk surrounding his pick at the start of that week, but in spite of his midsummer dip in form, the notion that Lowry is not currently among Europe’s top 12 golfers is a nonsense. He will need to raise his game to meet the unique demands of Ryder Cup matchplay, but then again, so will everyone else.
For, as is custom, the US team is the better on paper. Scottie Scheffler was an inspired captain’s pick two years ago but now he’s world number one. He has been remarkably consistent tee to green this year and would have won much more than he did had it not been for his generally awful putting. But to make a simplistic point: this week he will play a format in which someone else can hole his putts for him.
Europe have the edge in stardust but the US have the greater depth. All of the American players are inside the world’s top-25, where Europe have three guys outside the top 50, and two of them are ranked in the 80s. They have also cracked the chemistry which was once the preserve of the Europeans. Justin Thomas’ collapse in form has not cost him his place on the team, as he gels well with Jordan Spieth. Sam Burns is in ahead of Keegan Bradley as a kind of companion pony for Scheffler, while in Xander Schauffele, the Americans have even found someone who has chemistry with Patrick Cantlay.
Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman have played their way onto the team by winning majors, while it looked for most of the year that Brooks Koepka would do exactly the same. In the end Koepka was included as a captain’s pick, and is the only LIV member involved this week. His form has tailed off since winning the PGA Championship, so his performance is one of the few unknowables on the American side
Europe, by contrast, are shrouded in more doubt. Nobody quite knows their ceiling nor their floor. Bob MacIntyre qualified via the European points list, but his recent form is so bad – he missed the cut at the French Open at 2018 Ryder Cup venue Le Golf National last week – that he probably wouldn’t have been among Donald’s picks. Had Meronk simply played another couple of events in Europe rather than take up invitations Stateside, he would have nudged MacIntyre out of the picture.
Europe won’t win without McIlroy, Hovland, and Rahm all turning up. By his own standards, McIlroy’s Ryder Cup record is average. He has played arguably the best golf of his career since he wept with guilt and disappointment in his post-round interview at Whistling Straits, but it will be fascinating to see how he handles being Europe’s senior man, Justin Rose notwithstanding.
McIlroy is the most consistently excellent golfer on the planet, and his only true failures in recent years have happened when he allowed too much external pressure distract his mind from his processes and basic talent. (Think the first day of the Open at Portrush, or the Friday of this year’s Masters.) Perhaps his foursome partnership with the experienced Tommy Fleetwood has been designed with this in mind: it allows McIlroy focus on himself rather than guide a rookie through the bearpit.
The home side is allowed to decide on the course set-up, and the brutal rough in Paris five years ago has been cited as one of the reasons Europe won so convincingly, playing as it did to American weaknesses. The rough this time around appears just as penal, but the knotted thickets are comparatively further back from the fairway. Donald may have placed a higher premium on driving distance over accuracy this week: there are three drivable par fours on the course and Hojgaard, for instance, bombs it off the tee, but often errantly.
The course may not actually suit Europe’s relative lack of depth. It’s a brutally hilly venue which, combined with the heat, may preclude anyone from playing in all five sessions. Donald has drafted in extra caddies to deal with the topography, while Zach Johnson has had a set of lighter bags designed.
Donald has broken with European tradition by putting the foursomes – Europe’s favoured format – first tomorrow morning, in a bid to get off to a fast start. It may well work, but the last time a European captain decided to start with foursomes was in 1993…the last time the US won the Ryder Cup away from home.
Perhaps you’re an ardent European fan, and will spend the weekend in blue face paint, slipping between different languages when not standing to attention for Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. But it’s much more likely that you are like the rest of us: you’ll support Europe but not at the expense of a narrow, drama-packed American victory.
We haven’t been gifted a genuinely close Ryder Cup since Medinah, but that trend should be corrected in Rome. The Americans’ superior depth gives them the edge, but hey, this is the Ryder Cup, the only competition out there which agrees to the heresy of ignoring golf’s stringent liturgy.
Team Europe
- Rory McIlroy
- Jon Rahm
- Bob MacIntyre
- Viktor Hovland
- Tyrrell Hatton
- Matt Fitzpatrick
- Tommy Fleetwood*
- Shane Lowry*
- Sepp Straka*
- Nicolai Hojgaard*
- Ludvig Aberg*
- Justin Rose*
Team USA
- Scottie Scheffler
- Wyndham Clark
- Brian Harman
- Patrick Cantlay
- Max Homa
- Xander Schauffele
- Brooks Koepka*
- Jordan Spieth*
- Collin Morikawa*
- Sam Burns*
- Rickie Fowler*
- Justin Thomas*
* denotes captain’s pick
Friday foursomes times and details (all times Irish)
6.35am: Scheffler/Burns v Rahm/Hatton
6.50am: Homa/Harmon v Hovland/Aberg
7.05am: Fowler/Morikawa v Lowry/Straka
7.20am: Schauffele/Cantlay v McIlroy/Fleetwood
Rest of schedule
Friday afternoon schedule
11:25am Fourball match 1
11:40am Fourball match 2
11:55am Fourball match 3
12:10pm Fourball match 4
Saturday morning schedule
6:35am Foursomes match 1
6:50am Foursomes match 2
7:05am Foursomes match 3
7:20am Foursomes match 4
Saturday afternoon schedule
11:25am Fourball match 1
11:40am Fourball match 2
11:55am Fourball match 3
12:10pm Fourball match 4
Sunday
11:35am Sunday singles (12 players tee off every 12 minutes)
