How do you like having your favorite blogger providing weekend content? Well, you wouldn't know it from the traffic stats, but that's what happens when I've nowhere to play....
Alan Shipnuck leaves no metaphor behind with this lede:
CHASKA, Minn.—Patrick Reed roared. Davis Love III doubled down twice…and cameup aces. Lee Westwood got yippy, Rory McIlroy got chippy and Phil Mickelson played his way back from the brink yet again. And now, at the end of a thrilling second day of the 41st Ryder Cup, the U.S. holds a 9½ -6½ lead. Having lost three Cups in a row, six of the last seven and eight of the last 10, the Americans are on the brink of a cathartic victory, which would cap two angst-filled years that featured an unprecedented level of preparation. And yet, having presided over a blown 10-6 lead in 2012 during his first stint as U.S. captain, Love knows the hardest day of golf is still to come. "It's been a heckuva couple of days, and I'm really proud of my team," Love said on Saturday evening. "But if anyone thinks this thing is over, they're crazy."
Well, hate to be a nag here, but it is pretty much over.... when the pudgy guy from Augusta State brings the Poultergiest, who ya gonna call?
Shipnuck, to his credit, deals with the curious decision making from our Task Force Captain Phil:
For Love, the events of the afternoon validated a series of risky decisions. The second-guessing began at 7:35 a.m., when Mickelson went out in the day's first match alongside Rickie Fowler, even though Phil couldn't keep the ball on the planet the day before in the same format and he and Fowler had been very, very lucky to escape with a win. (What's more, Dustin Johnson was riding the pine, even though his long, straight drives can be a massive game-changer.) This time, against Europe's new dream team of McIlroy and Thomas Pieters, Mickelson and his little buddy never led while getting demolished 4 and 2. McIlroy has been a revelation at this Ryder Cup, with macho golf and in-your-face emoting. Once again there is no disputing who is the sport's alpha male; Johnson and Jason Day have nearly as much game but nothing like Rory's force of personality. As for why Mickelson was sent out in a format for which he is ill-suited, Love said, "I didn't do that for Phil. That wasn't a gift to him. I truly believed they would win. You saw me talking to [Bob] Rotella; he's here for a reason. He and Tiger both keep telling me, ‘You gotta go with your gut.' I felt like Phil would bring it."
My only quibble would be that the decisions weren't so much validated as overcome by greater roster strength. Shipnuck's colleague Gary Van Sickle devoted his column exclusively to curious captaining:
6. The Philharmonic orchestra. Mickelson and Fowler swiped a point from McIlroy onFriday morning despite both Americans struggling off the tee. A point is a point, however. McIlroy probably wanted a rematch, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that Phil likes to go off first, so Clarke sent Rors and Pieters out and they drubbed the Americans, who really struggled with their tee balls again. That’s why it was so shocking when the 46-year-old Mickelson went back out in the afternoon with Kuchar, who had not looked good Friday. Especially with Snedeker available. Mickelson and Kuchar won a point, helped by Kaymer’s dismal play. Sometimes curious moves pay off. This one did.
It's certainly arguable, but I'm not going to be critical of Davis for having Phil out in the afternoon, because that's the format for which his game is actually suited...
And while I've previously admitted to being the '62 Mets of golf predictions, even that team won some forty times.... I've got a bit of a shoulder strain from patting myself on the back over yesterday's discussion of Westwood and Kaymer, with which Gary is in agreement:
3. Where did all the rookies go? Europe’s captain Darren Clarke, still stuck with two players who hadn’t seen action, had to work them in Saturday morning. To do that, he broke up his strongest team, Justin Rose and Stenson. Rose paired with Chris Woods, the PGA BMW champ, who played really well in a 1-up victory while Fitzpatrick held his own until late in the match, when he dunked a shot into the water at the par-5 16th and lost their match to Snedeker and Koepka. In the afternoon, Clarke went back to his veterans, bringing in Westwood and Kaymer. Neither won a point.
I think that Westy's horribly-missed 3-footer on No. 18 will be the signature moment of this Cup, that moment when the outcome became preordained. No doubt that if he had a mulligan Darren Clarke would have rolled with the rookies (not to mention have Russell Knox in the building), but that's easy second-guessing... He was dealt a week hand and his play wasn't irrational....
The Tour Confidential panel was asked to pick the winner, and it's mostly what you'd expect.... except for this:
Michael Bamberger: I think it is actually pretty easy to make a case for why the Europeans will win eight points on Sunday and win the Ryder Cup, and of course even easier to make the case that they will win 7.5 points, tie the day but keep the wee trophy. The pro-American fan noise, for one thing, could work in their favor. I don't agree with Mark--I think the European rookies will do just fine, right down to Matt Fitzpatrick in a match that could decide the whole thing. But when it's all over, I can't bring myself to say that the Europeans will win. I don't believe they will. I think the Americans will get to 14.5, but it will be way late in day before they do. 15-13, U.S.
Is there an open seat at your poker table, Mike, because apparently you think it's pretty easy to draw to an inside straight?
Shack had this on the Captain's Picks:
Davis Love's captain's picks through two days of the Ryder Cup, with Sunday singles remaining:Rickie Fowler 1-1Matt Kuchar 2-1J.B. Holmes 1-1Ryan Moore 1-1Darren Clarke's picks:Lee Westwood 0-2Martin Kaymer 0-3Thomas Pieters 3-1
Geoff does note that Thomas Pieters was the third of the three, although thse numbers look very different if Lee Westwood makes the above-noted 3-footer (which was against Holmes and Moore).
I do hope that in the aftermath of this even we revisit the Horschel rule.... Ryan Moore could certainly redeem himself today, but thus far he has seemed uncomfortable in the arena. It seems uncontroversial to want the hot player, but we're talking about a game where past results may not be indicative of future performance, on an hour-by-hour basis.
Before we get to the singles pairings, this is the "peter was on to something" portion of our programming....ESPN's Bob Harig tells us it's getting ugly out there, and this anecdote really struck home:
Even after Danny Willett's round -- a 5 and 4 defeat with Martin Kaymer to AmericansBrandt Snedeker and Brooks Koepka -- when he retreated to the driving range, with only American J.B. Holmes also hitting balls, there was an inebriated spectator yelling at him from the grandstands, taunting him with the various unoriginal barbs that made all those around uncomfortable."Nobody was doing anything when he was hitting shots, but there was plenty of abuse out there," Pete Cowen, Willett's swing coach, told ESPN.com. "He played OK, but it's a shame as this has spoiled his week through no fault of his own.
What ever happened to Minnesota nice? So it was ugly out there, and the range isn't really, you know, out there....
Shack filled in some details:
Speaking of those details, John Huggan is guy you'd expect to have little tolerance for the miscreants:
Sadly, the crowds here at Hazeltine National, while dominated by real and true fans with no agenda other than cheering for their team, contain a sizeable rogue element, one seemingly ignorant of golf’s peerless and traditional etiquette. Time and again this week the matches have been scarred by incidents that have more in common with football or soccer matches, so vitriolic and abusive have been the exchanges between spectators and players.
Much of the problems are, inevitably, alcohol-induced. The number of empty beer cans littering the premises is testimony to that unsavory truth. Besides, how else can we explain what happened on Saturday afternoon by the seventh green? It was there that a member of the gallery (let’s pray he isn’t a golfer) screamed, “Suck a d--- Rory!”
In the 45 seconds or so before the security men hauled away the miscreant, McIlroy was up to the challenge. “If you want to back that up, I’m right here,” said the young Irishman.
John lays down a marker that we'd all be wise to consider:
Thankfully, physical confrontation has yet to darken the Ryder Cup’s door. But it would be best not to get complacent, even if so much of the yelling and screaming has more to do with adolescent attention-seeking than anything else. Which is not to say that the nonsense is confined to the young. The gentleman screaming “go, go, go” as a European ball trickled slowly down a slope away from the hole on the eighth green was easily into his 60s. Such vein-popping exhortations towards an inanimate object are not the actions of a rational person. Or, one must suppose, someone who has played golf for any length of time.
More amusing is the old line that says, “If it wasn’t for us [America], you [Europeans] would all be speaking German.” Which is fair enough, except when it is directed at former U.S. Open and PGA champion Martin Kaymer, a native of Dusseldorf.
That WWII reference, wasn't that about the last time our guys won a Ryder Cup? In any event, I'll go with that one over the fellatio reference above...
I don't know what the answer is, as the players seem to have moved on from the animosity of the Seve-Azinger-Faldo era, but the U.S. fans are bitterly clinging to it. And I am nowhere near as convinced as Huggan and Dan Hicks that these are not golfers....
But with Bethpage on the horizon, I think we need to focus that Ryder Cup task force on how we keep this thing playable...
Shall we talk for a moment about the singles pairings? I finished my tape of the fourball matches at about 9:30 last night, and headed for bed without peaking at the singles draw. As I was nodding off my thoughts turned to today, and I considered what might be the pefect missed-opportunity pairing of the event.... And, no surprise, the two guys who have moved the needle have been Reed and Rory, though with a blind draw we shouldn't get our hopes up....
So, imagine my surprise when I awoke to this:
Sunday Singles matches (all times local, CT)11:04 a.m.: Patrick Reed vs. Rory McIlroy
11:15 a.m.: Jordan Spieth vs. Henrik Stenson
11:26 a.m.: J.B. Holmes vs. Thomas Pieters
11:37 a.m.: Rickie Fowler vs. Justin Rose
11:48 a.m.: Jimmy Walker vs. Rafa Cabrera Bello
11:59 a.m.: Phil Mickelson vs. Sergio Garcia
12:10 p.m.: Ryan Moore vs. Lee Westwood
12:21 p.m.: Brandt Snedeker vs. Andy Sullivan
12:32 p.m.: Dustin Johnson vs. Chris Wood
12:43 p.m.: Brooks Koepka vs. Danny Willett
12:54 p.m.: Matt Kuchar vs. Martin Kaymer
1:05 p.m.: Zach Johnson vs. Matthew Fitzpatrick
Wow, wow wow! First thing though, Rory please note that CT stands for Central time.... Because Reed is no Keegan Bradley....
Now we've seen this movie before, and Captain Ben taught us that when facing a large deficit, put your show ponies out first and hope the back end goes along for the ride.
So, I have to ask, was this wise of Davis? I'm guessing that Darren and Rory smiled when it was announced, as they have nothing to lose at this point. Here was Shack's take:
Trailing 9½-6½, European captain Darren Clarke has stocked the top of his lineup in extreme fashion with Rory McIlroy leading off and rookie Matthew Fitzpatrick in the anchor spot.
U.S. captain Davis Love III made out his lineup, led by match-play star Patrick Reed and anchored by Zach Johnson. The blind pairings, made after each team submits a lineup, provide three enormous must-see matches: Reed vs. McIlroy, Jordan Spieth vs. Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson vs. Sergio Garcia.
Didn't Tom Watson lead Sunday singles with Reed and Spieth as well? He was behind and away, plus I have it on good authority that everything he did was wrong....
I found this comment from Davis a trifle odd:
Speaking to Golf Digest years after the Brookline comeback but before his Medinah captaincy, Love said the art of constructing a lineup to finish off the matches with your ideal closer is, well, not easy.
“It always seems to fall on the wrong guy anyway, no matter how you do it,” Love said.
The wrong guy? You mean like Tiger in 2012?
Enjoy! After today we'll be starved for significant golf until mid-April.
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