Ryder Cup 2021: With eyes on Bryson-Brooks feud, how much does team chemistry matter?
The Europeans have it, the Americans don’t. That is the oversimplified, surface-level, talking-head take on Ryder Cup team chemistry, an opinion aired when trying to explain why the U.S.has underperformed for the better part of two decades while Europe’s sum is continually greater than its parts. Those in and around both teams will tell you those sentiments are not entirely true: The Americans are not plagued by eternal dysfunction, and the Europeans are not the merry band of brothers they are made out to be. One does not need to be an insider to realize this conjecture is not wrong, either, particularly on the American side. A good team culture does not beget task forces and back-stabs.The matter of chemistry is especially tantalizing at Whistling Straits, as it converges—maybe the better word is collides—with the overriding storyline of the season: the feud of one Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau. The two have said their feelings toward each other will not interfere with the team dynamic, captain Steve Stricker even reportedly getting personal assurances. Of course, they also said their feud was once over and we’ve seen how that song and dance has played out. To think it won’t be hovering over the proceedings like a storm drifting in off Lake Michigan is to be blissfully obtuse.
All leading to this imponderable:
So what weight does team chemistry have at the Ryder Cup?
Which he answers by going to two bit players whose experience is dated at best (as is the accompanying photo above):
“I think it plays to it, in some part,” says Justin Leonard, who appeared on two winning U.S. Ryder Cup teams. “I haven’t been in those team rooms since 2008. But I can tell you in the Ryder Cups that I did play, we had very good chemistry and you come together really quickly.”Adds Paul Lawrie, who played in two Ryder Cups and served as a vice captain for Team Europe in 2016. “There are so many points up for grabs in the four-balls and foursomes that pairings and the relationships between players is very important.”
Maybe the relationship between the pairs that actually play together, although that might not even apply to fourballs... But wait, it gets even weirder, because the sine qua non of European chemistry attributes that chemistry to....well, individuality:
Paul McGinley competed on three Ryder Cup winning squads as a player and navigated Team Europe to victory in 2014 as a captain. When he was at the helm, McGinley understood this dynamic of the individual and competitor. Which is why he didn’t alter it but embraced it.“I let them be 12 individuals rather than a team,” McGinley says. “We had this massive quote ‘The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.’”McGinley achieved this by allowing the players to bring their own ecosystems with them. For example, Viktor Dubuisson had three friends who followed the Frenchman wherever he went, providing the social support Dubuisson leaned on throughout the year. That’s the antithesis of most Ryder Cup environments, where team and event organizers keep players on a tight, strict schedule that’s a departure from their usual regimen.
As that picture above hints, the article will ultimately devolve into an ode to Captain Azinger and the wonder of pods:
A member of four Ryder Cup teams as a player, Azinger then led the team in 2008 in a captaincyviewed as the paragon of American leadership this century. He did it, in part, by realizing his old-school insights into the biennial match may not be shared by his team. So Azinger introduced the pod system at Valhalla in 2008, putting four players in the same group to foster unity in a relatively small group.Three three-man pods were generated from eight automatic bids, with captain’s pick Steve Stricker rounding out the list. Azinger organized those groups according to personality, with each pod picking the fourth player to fill out their group to match their vibe.“My hope was to give ownership to the players and boost chemistry,” Azinger explained. “Whether you were picking your fourth or being picked as the fourth, I wanted guys engaged and ready to run through a wall for their teammates. I think the real key was that I communicated to the players according to their personality types. From that point on, it was up to the players.”
Mebbe, but the lesson to me of 2008 has always been much simpler. The absence of the albatross named Eldrick allowed the U.S. team to play underdogs, resulting in Boo Weekly and J.B. Holmes putting like Bobby Locke all week, which is usually the providence of the Euros. Oh and it doesn't hurt to have Nick Faldo helming the opposition...
Amusingly, despite using the Brooksie-Bryson manspat as a header framing device, CTRL:F-Koepka yields all of one result (well, two, if you include the photo caption). ESPN's Bob Harig comes at the issue head-on:
If Joel Beall's choice of experts was amusing, Harig's go-to source is likely to cause a spit take:
The long-time narrative is once again in play: Can the U.S. put aside any so-called differences, bond as a team as Europe has seemingly done, and prevail?Does any of it even matter?"Honestly, at the end of the day, the captains and assistants will take care of all that,'' said Patrick Reed, who was asked about the controversy before his own issues surfaced that caused him to miss out on a captain's pick. "It's 12 going out there and playing golf. Whether they can't stand each other, whether they like each other, whatever it actually is, they don't want to lose a point because of stuff like that."They're not going to let it bother them. They're going to go out and play, and play the best they can and try to bring the Cup home.''
It's hard to find a better expert on team harmony than PReed for sure, a man so toxic that he had Captain Stricker rooting for the bilateral pneumonia...
Though Harig does ultimately get to another niggling little detail, to wit, that there are several undercard tiffs to watch as well:He divided his team into three pods of four players each, and the pairings all came from that. The U.S. has varied from that approach at times, but has used versions of it in recent years. Look for Koepka and DeChambeau to be in separate pods.
There were reports that Brooksie and BFF Dj had to be physically separated in the Euro team room on Sunday night in Paris...
For what it's worth, there is this report that one of the combatants wants to sue for peace:
The feud between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau has been one of golf's biggest storylines all year—not to mention one of the most interesting subplots entering this week's Ryder Cup. But Bryson wants to put it behind him once and for all, according to his longtime coach.“Whether or not they are both doing it to maximise their global profile, Bryson wants it over,” Mike Schy told the Irish Times on Monday. “Move on. The bottom line is two big egos.”
Hey, Mike, there's $40 million large of PIP money to be had.
Of course he wants it over, as he's had a miserable time out there recently with all the heckling. But riddle me this, Batman? Given that a signature moment of their petty feud came when Bryson attempted to deliver a message to Brooks through his caddie, I'm guessing that this trial balloon will garner a similar reaction.
The History Thing - Lots of Ryder Cup moments being recycled, starting with this one:
It also appears that the format of the text precludes cutting and pasting, so you're on your own. I was going to excerpt No. 12, but can link you to this piece instead:
When Samuel Ryder turned 50, he didn’t join the senior tour because there was no senior tour, or any other organized professional tour, this being 1908. No, the Englishman picked up golf inmiddle age not for a long-repressed passion for the sport but rather for his health, to get some fresh air and exercise, as his friend, a preacher and golf enthusiast, had suggested.Financing his new hobby wasn’t a problem. Though Ryder grew up without great means, he’d found his way into prosperity. One of eight children of a gardener father and a dressmaker mother, he was on course to become a teacher — he’d even taught Sunday school as a youth — but ill health led him to drop out of college before graduating. This proved fortuitous, at least financially, as did having a falling out with his dad. In combination, these events led him to move to London to join a seed merchant firm and then to start his own company in St. Albans selling mail order “penny packets” of seed, at one cent each, from his house. Make a fortune from the comfort of home: Ryder was ahead of his time.
Ryder is on the left in the photo, with Abe Mitchell, his instructor on the right. The figure on the Cup is a likeness of Mitchell.
I was also going to excerpt No. 11, a curious bit of Task Force triumphalism that seems to strange with the passage of time. I get that everyone was happy to jump on the Phil-inspired hostile takeover in the glow of the 2016 victory, but didn't 2018 rain on that parade? The very guys to whom we gave the keys folded like a cheap suitcase. Just sayin'.
But was that Reed-Rory match consequential in any sense? I mean, there's a reason that the item specifies the 8th green , because that's where the match peaked. After that, Rory basically folded like a...what's that expression< a cheap suitcase.... So, consequential for Rory who was trying to avenge his Masters Sunday no-show, but for the event?
This offering is more in our wheelhouse for sure:
A couple of amusing equipment-related bits form the Wayback Machine, just to remind folks that, Jack and Tony notwithstanding, there's always been a chippiness to these matches:
STICKING IT TO THE YANKS: MOORTOWN GOLF COURSE IN 1929Talk about giving the others guys the shaft. By 1929, the USGA had approved the use of steel shafts in competition. But the R&A had yet to do so. So, when the Americans showed up on English soil steeled, as it were, for battle, their opponents made it clear: steel-shafted clubs were a no-no. The Americans went back to their old equipment, and Great Britain went on to victory.
GETTING IN THE GROOVES: PORTLAND GOLF COURSE IN 1947
Compared to some of the testy exchanges we hear about today, this one comes off as throwback quaint. Rest assured, though, playing captain Ben Hogan and his team were far from pleased when Great Britain captain Henry Cotton called for an inspection of the grooves on the irons used by the opposition. This was just before the competition started. By the time it ended, the Americans had delivered an 11-1 whooping. Oh, and by the way, their grooves were deemed legal.
Interesting in the context of Bobby Jones' 1930 Impregnable Quadrilateral, in which he used hickory shafts in all four events.
Zinger shows up more than once, and many will think we could use a few of his ilk the4se days. But here's the one that pays off the header:
NICK FALDO VS. PAUL AZINGER: THE BELFRY IN 1993A rivalry born at the 1987 British Open at Muirfield, where Faldo bested Azinger by a singlestroke, took on a fiery new dimension at the Belfry, where the two men met in the final singles match on Sunday. Both were at their icy best. After Faldo aced the par-3 14th to go 1 up, Azinger responded with a birdie on the next. But Faldo had regained a 1-up lead as the match moved to the 18th green. Faldo made par, leaving Azinger with a six-foot birdie bid for the halve. Though team USA had already clinched the Cup, Faldo declined to concede the putt. Azinger drained it. Not long after, he would begin treatment for melanoma, which he survived, competitive spirit intact. “Look at that,” he would say, two years later, while reviewing tape of his singles match with Faldo. “I had cancer and he still couldn’t beat me.”
This one is obligatory, though the factual error is a bit off-putting:
THE STAMPEDE: THE COUNTRY CLUB IN 1999A day that began with an egregious fashion faux pas (what were they thinking with those shirts?) ended with an even more sensational offense. Having scratched back from 4 down to all square inhis singles match against Jose Maria Olazabal, Justin Leonard faced a 45-foot putt birdie on the 17th green. Back went his blade, and off rolled his ball, over a swale and down into the cup, a birdie bomb that triggered a stampede of U.S. players and their wives (as well as TV cameramen) onto the green — all before Olazabal had a chance to attempt his own putt to extend the match. In the wake of the euphoria, the Europeans put on their own demonstration. They made it pretty clear they were aghast.
If Josh took a moment to Google the event's results, he'd be shocked to find that Leonard and Olazabal halved their match. Olazabal's putt was not to extend the match, it was to halve the hole and thereby keep the match all-square. In going one up with one to play, Leonard guaranteed the half-point that put the Americans at the magic number of 14 1/2.
And this obvious walk down memory lane:
CATCHING HAL: OAKLAND HILLS COUNTRY CLUB IN 2004
Hindsight is 20/20. And its steely eyes stared holes in U.S. captain Hal Sutton, who caught after-the-fact flack for his decision to pair Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods in both matches on Friday. The duo came away with exactly zero points. To Sutton’s critics, the captain should have seen that the partnership was doomed from the beginning, since the two stars, for all their celebrated talent, were also famous for not getting along. As time wore on, Phil and Tiger forged something of a friendship. But Sutton’s decision proved a stubborn source of friction, sparking headlines more than a decade later as another Ryder Cup approached (more on that below).
There were some great moments form that fiasco, none better than the two of them standing on opposite sides of the first tee box (though the photo of Tiger standing where Phil's 18th hole tee shot went OB comes close), but to me the better point is that pairing the two guys that couldn't stand each other was only the second stupidest thing Hal did that week.
One last bit of history before we move on. Before there was Seve and before there was Poults, there was this guy:
Plenty are those of a (contemporary) European persuasion who will insist the inspirational figure of Ian Poulter is the ultimate “Mr. Ryder Cup.” And they would not be wrong, given theEnglishman’s already legendary propensity for heroics—see Medinah, 2012—in golf’s biggest biennial battle. But they would not be completely right, either. That tribute and unofficial title was originally given to another, a man who played in nine Ryder Cups, captained the then Great Britain & Ireland team on five occasions and was good enough to go head-to-head in singles with major champions Byron Nelson, Jay Hebert, Doug Ford and Ed Furgol—and beat all four.Dai Rees has been gone for nearly 40 years, but his memory deserves recognition beyond reference in dusty history books. No one has ever displayed more enthusiasm for the Ryder Cup than the wee Welshman who was also three times a runner-up in the Open Championship. You had to be way better than good to beat him. All-time greats Ben Hogan (1953), Peter Thomson (1954) and Arnold Palmer (1961) were the men who most cruelly denied Rees his biggest lifetime ambition. Which is not to say that 1946 at St. Andrews, where he shot 80 in the final round when 74 would have won the claret jug, was not most painful.
Give it a read if you're unfamiliar with the man's body of work.
About Those Pairings - Josh Berhow is reading tee leaves, using the media schedule as a window into possible pods/pairings:
TUESDAYU.S.: Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie SchefflerEurope: Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Lee Westwood, Sergio GarciaWEDNESDAYU.S.: Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Dustin Johnson, Collin MorikawaEurope: Ian Poulter, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Bernd WiesbergerTHURSDAYU.S.: Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau, Daniel Berger, Harris EnglishEurope: Paul Casey, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, Jon Rahm
You could certainly see where some of those, Spieth-J.T. and X-man Cantlay, are likely to happen.
More interesting might be guys like DJ. On the one hand his game and personality should be suitable for either format with almost anybody. On the flip side, he hasn't been playing very well and hasn't ever been a factor in the event....
On the Euro side, the affinity pairings of Rory-Lowry and Rahmbo-Sergio don't fit in this model.
Dylan Dethier takes his own shot at it for the Yanks in his Monday Finish column:
POD 1Justin ThomasJordan SpiethBrooks KoepkaDaniel BergerPOD 2Patrick CantlayXander SchauffeleDustin JohnsonCollin MorikawaPOD 3Harris EnglishBryson DeChambeauTony FinauScottie Scheffler
Interesting that they both happened upon that DJ-Morikawa pairing, which one assumes means that they're both wrong. I've heard English thrown out as a possible pairing for Bryson, though mostly because English isn't of sufficient stature to be choosy.
But let me just say that I love the Finau-Scheffler pairing, especially in foursomes. No issue with them in fourball, as they both make plenty of birdies, but those guys both need to play both sessions of foursomes, whether or not in each others' company.
I shall leave you here and pick up these themes over the next few days.
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