1. Scottie Scheffler earned roughly a billion Ryder Cup points (literally more than twice as many as No. 2 on this list) while playing golf at an outrageously high level all season. The World No. 1seemed destined for victory at the BMW for parts of Sunday but wound up T2, which is actually sort of a middling finish by his standards. Scheffler is clearly hitting it better than anyone else in the world. How much better? He led the field in strokes gained off the tee and approaching the green at Olympia Fields. That’s absurd. But he remains mired in some putting woes, too; he was 38th in the 49-player BMW field on the greens, continuing a trend. Still, there’s no doubt he’s the U.S. Team’s best hitter. Welcome to the team, Scottie.2. Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open, and if you win a major championship the year of the Ryder Cup you’re very likely going to be on the team. (More on that in a moment.) But Clark did more than just win that once; he won the elevated Wells Fargo, too, and he’s missed just one cut in all of 2023. He hasn’t recaptured his form from LACC just yet — Sunday’s T19 was his best result since then — but he’s a talented debutant with big plans ahead.3. Brian Harman had an appropriately gritty week at the BMW; this was the perfect way to welcome him onto his first Ryder Cup team. He drove it poorly and hit his irons okay but finished in the top five in strokes gained both chipping and putting, stringing together one sneaky par save after another en route to a T5 finish. That’s encouraging continuity for the Open champ, who now has five top-12 finishes in his last six starts and never seems to be out of a hole. His qualification also marks a shocking turnaround for a guy who admitted he felt lost in the months before that Open win. Now he’s found.4. Patrick Cantlay hasn’t won since last year’s BMW Championship but he’s established himself as one of the Tour’s most consistent performers; he has nine top-10s and four podium finishes this season. He’s also No. 4 in the world, with a big enough gap over No. 5 that Hovland’s win couldn’t catch him. And he’s half of the U.S. team’s most reliable duo…
5. Max Homa was the 36-hole leader at the BMW and then did a little bit of everything on the weekend; a triple-bogey 7 on No. 7 on Saturday ejected him from the lead but he kept hanging around en route to a T5 finish. That was his fourth top 12 in his most recent four starts, a reassuring bounceback after missing back-to-back cuts at the U.S. Open and Travelers Championship. Homa should be a central figure on this team, particularly after going undefeated as a Presidents Cup rookie last fall.
6. Xander Schauffele is the other half of that Cantlay squad and earned the final qualifying place on the U.S. team thanks to a T8 finish at the BMW. Schauffele picked up a bunch of trophies in 2022 and has done everything but win in 2023; he hasn’t missed a cut since the 2022 Masters (!) and has 10 top-10s this year. Fascinating sidenote: since that Masters MC Schauffele has played seven majors and hasn’t finished worse than T18 nor better than T10. He’ll bring that drumbeat reliability to Rome.
This isn't your first rodeo, so you know how things are supposed to play out, as the Evil Empire is supposed to send a team with dominating elite talent, guys the Euros would like to steer clear of.... Does anyone see that in that half-dozen?
How about a segue? Alan Shipnuck has displaced Shackelford as our most cited writer, due to his ubiquitous mailbag feature, but also because he's a bit of a controversy whore. Firing up the Wayback Machine, before there was Phil and Billy there was a certain column in advance of the 2018 event in Paris, which lead with this startling declaration:
The Ryder Cup is dead — you just don’t know it yet.One of the greatest events in sport is on the verge of irrelevancy. The young, talented, hungry golfers from the United States, benefiting from the cohesive leadership of the Task Force era, are going to roll to victory in 2018 in Paris. This will be the first American win on European soil in a quarter century and, coming on the heels of an overpowering U.S. win in ’16, will set the stage for a decade-plus of blowouts, sapping the intrigue out of the Ryder Cup. It’s going to get so lopsided that you can expect future Ryder Cups to have all the dramatic tension of…gasp!…the Presidents Cup.
So, how did that prediction play out in 2018? Well, that Task Force "cohesively" selected Jim Furyk as captain, presumably because Hal Sutton was unavailable, though it turns out that the supply of village idiots is more than adequate for our requirements. And, actually, that was quite the fun post-event press conference, as the winning team saluted Shipnuck from the podium. Alan took it well, while trying to remind us it was a long-term projection, though his words about 2018 seem fairly specific.
Alan was quite certainly over-interpreting that 2016 rout at Hazeltine, one that was even more lopsided at Whisling Straits, so the U.S. seems to show up for its home games. But with only two installments in the books, shall we take a peak at what Alan thought would be the backbone of that U.S. roster?
Meanwhile, just look at the big steps taken by the U.S. players since the last Ryder: Jordan Spieth, 24, won another major and reasserted himself as golf’s alpha male; Dustin Johnson, 33, spent almost all of 2017 at number one; Brooks Koepka, 27, won the U.S. Open. You know who has never even played in a Ryder Cup? Justin Thomas, 24, merely the reigning player of the year. Throw in Rickie Fowler, 28, and Patrick Reed, 27, and you have a rock-star core for the next decade or more — not to mention the fact that these guys will be augmented by wily vets (Phil! Kuch! Zach! Bubba! Sneds! Duf!) and some spicy young comers (Daniel Berger, Kevin Kisner).
I'll give you a minute to stop laughing.....Actually, don't stop laughing, because this was the rousing coda to that famous column:
I suppose that when all of the above comes true I’ll be celebrated as some sort of Nostradamus in knickers, but believe me, I take no pleasure in writing this column. The Ryder Cup, as we know it, was great fun. I’m going to miss it.
It's actually quite amazing how this has played out, because were he actually trying to get things completely wrong, he couldn't have done better than he did. Look at that list of wily vets and "spicy" comers, not one of which still has a Tour card. Only one will be in Rome, and he won't bother to use Ship Sticks for his trip....
But the "backbone" is just epic.... OK, he didn't see the LIV thing coming, But Rickie, JT and Reed have faded into competitive obscurity on their own merits, but the life cycle is so accelerated that we're watching two of those guys try to claw their way back to relevance.....
Color me unconvinced by that top six. Scheffler is quite the conundrum, a ball-striking machine for sure, with just this one nagging weakness. here's a screen shot of his SG stats:
There are 31 golfers who have gained 50+ strokes from tee-to-green in 2023.
— Rick Gehman (@RickRunGood) August 21, 2023
Only three golfers have gained 100+.
Scottie Scheffler is the only one who has gained over 125+ and he's actually gained 214.41.
Here they are -- with their putting numbers on the other axis. pic.twitter.com/rAiKMRPxLK
What stays with this observer from 2018 is Furyk putting Phil and Reed out in foursomes, though I've been reliably advise by Alan Shipnuck that it was done cohesively, so remind me how that turned out. Does Zach understand that those stats argue for Scheffler to play alternate shot? We'll know soon enough...
The guy I like most on that list is Harman, because he can putt and has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. But has anyone broken it to Patrick and the X-Man that they don't get paid that week? Because that seems to be pretty much all that concerns them these days....
Who's next? Dylan Dethier thinks these guys are locks:
7. Brooks Koepka finished T2 at the Masters. He won the PGA Championship. He only played four events that had qualifying points for the Ryder Cup and he still came damn close to qualifying just through those. Sure, it’s juicy that he got bumped from the final qualifying spot. Sure, Phil Mickelson won the PGA in 2021 and didn’t make the team. And no, Koepka hasn’t played particularly well the last few LIV events. But we saw just how good this guy still is when the lights are brightest, and they’ll be plenty bright in Rome. The only way I see him not in Rome is if he’s got new-parent duties in Florida.8. Jordan Spieth barely squeaked through to this week’s Tour Championship at No. 29 in the FedEx Cup, but he’ll be safely on the U.S. squad that travels to Rome. No, he hasn’t won this year, but the first half of his season was a remarkable display of ball-striking and last week’s T6 showed he has enough form to find that Spieth magic in the next month. Easy pick.13. Rickie Fowler isn’t in the top 12 on points, but he put together a terrific summer that all but guarantees his inclusion. He top-20’d his way through the Tour schedule before ending his winless drought at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. His four events since then have been less spectacular but it’ll be good to see Fowler earn his way back into the stars and stripes.
Meh! It's not that I disagree with Dylan that these guys are going to Rome, it's just that those last two I have trouble calling locks. Spieth in particular is quite the hot mess, with admittedly much improved ball-striking (at least earlier in the year), but a putter that's hard to trust.
Next we have a "probable":
10. Collin Morikawa has played with Max Homa both at the Presidents Cup and at the Zurich Classic, so he’d slot into a natural spot there. But even though he hasn’t contended much in recent months, Morikawa may be playing better than you might think; strokes gained numbers suggest he’s still performing at a top-10 level even as his world ranking slides outside the top 20. A T2 at the Rocket Mortgage was encouraging, as was a T13 last week in Memphis. It seems like he’ll be in Rome.
He probably will be, but a Top-ten performer who doesn't contend seems like a low bar, no?
And one more as well in that category:
9. Cameron Young was declared as “going to Rome” by assistant captain Fred Couples a few weeks ago, so maybe it’s silly to have him in questionable territory at all. Young is among the best young Americans and figures to be a part of this team’s future, which incentivizes leadership to make him part of its present, too. The good news is he finished T8 at the Open. The less-good-news is he’s had an uneven summer, with three missed cuts and just two top-20s since the Masters until a T15 at this week’s BMW. He won’t be in East Lake, leaving him in a slightly vulnerable spot as others make their case…
Uneven? Here's Cam's stat line:
The case for Cam seems to come down to:
- He's, well, young, ;
- Fred shot his mouth off.
15. Justin Thomas seems like the guy most likely to end up with this final spot if nobody seizes it from him at East Lake. Why? Because composing a Ryder Cup roster is a strange combination of deciding who’s the most deserving, leaning on players’ past team performances and projecting forward to who will show the best form in team match-play competition a month-plus from now. Thomas isn’t “deserving” in the sense that he just hasn’t been all that good this year and missed the FedEx Cup playoffs. But he’s also been the heart and soul of recent U.S. teams and has the record to back that up. When the likes of Sergio Garcia or Ian Poulter were in an equivalent position on past European teams, they were be picked without question. Because Thomas is in a similar role as emotional leader for this U.S. Team, he may get the nod, too. But there are other deserving players…16. Lucas Glover has the hot hand; he won at Wyndham and then won again at the playoff opener in Memphis. A new long putter has given him new life and he finished top six in three consecutive lower-tier Tour events before the back-to-back wins. The argument against Glover is that he was in the wilderness just a couple months ago; he didn’t even qualify for a major championship this year. Another top finish at the Tour Championship, though, would make it tough for Zach Johnson not to choose him.12. Sam Burns would like you to remember that he won this year’s Match Play in Austin. He would also like you to remember that the Ryder Cup … is match play! He’s No. 12 on the points list, which is automatically in the conversation. He’s close with Scottie Scheffler, and although the two didn’t play particularly well together at Quail Hollow last fall there’s no doubt the World No. 1 would like his buddy there. Burns has been in reasonable form all summer, he finished T15 at the BMW and would be a perfectly acceptable selection.11. Keegan Bradley is the top-ranked guy who appears to be on the outside looking in. Yeah, he won the Travelers. And yeah, he thinks about the Ryder Cup like, all day every day. That’s what’ll make it that much more heartbreaking if he’s Unlucky No. 13. Bradley’s win at TPC River Highlands was among the moments of the year for the Tour, but he doesn’t have another top 20 since March. He might need to win the Tour Championship — or come close — to reassert himself here.
2. Now that the BMW is complete, the field for the season-ending Tour Championship is set. We also now know the six auto-qualifiers for the U.S. Ryder Cup team in Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman, Max Homa and Xander Schauffele. Six captain’s picks will be made on Aug. 28 to round out the team. But besides the six auto-qualifiers, which other players at this point are virtual locks?Sens: Spieth, Morikawa either based on history or team pairing purposes. Everyone beyond that strikes me as a toss-up. Cameron Young for the firepower? Denny Mcarthy for the putting. The good news is Johnson can’t really go wrong. Until he doesDethier: Koepka’s in. Spieth’s in. I’m pretty sure Morikawa and Fowler are in, too. Nobody really busted through the door this week which means those final two spots are still sort of up for grabs based on play at East Lake. Cameron Young seems like a near-lock, and Justin Thomas is waiting in the wings, but there’s still a week left for Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, Lucas Glover and (perhaps?) Denny McCarthy to show their captain something dramatic.Wall: Say what you want about Koepka plying his trade on the LIV Tour, I think he’s a mortal lock for the team. Spieth, Morikawa and Fowler should get the nod, but the other three slots are total tossups.
Apparently nobody told Jonathan Wall there would be math, because he's compiling a 13-player roster. Obviously the name conspicuous by its absence is Cam Young, so perhaps the guys think Fred went rogue.
You'll note Dylan's double-dip, but he does make the point that a few of those guys have one more chance to show Zach something....
3. Brooks Koepka jumped into auto-qualifier territory thanks to his PGA Championship win, but he was bumped out of the top six after the BMW and now sits seventh. As the only LIV player with a realistic chance to make the Ryder Cup team — which Brandel Chamblee voiced his strong stance on last week — do you think captain Zach Johnson will struggle with the idea of picking Koepka now?Sens: I think we can call Koepka a lock. No matter what he does, Johnson knows he will likelytake heat from one faction or another. Might as well take a proven killer who happens to be the reigning pga champ, with a runner up the Masters this year to boot. All that said, I think the European captain picks are more fraught/interesting. Harrington or Aberg, for instance. The veteran playing well vs the young birdie machine etc. No shortage of LIV controversy either.Dethier: There’s no leaving Koepka off this team; he nearly won the Masters and he won the PGA! He’s earned his spot in Rome. And he’ll be chosen for the team. That doesn’t mean Koepka is playing his best golf of the year; he’s been T38 or worse in his last three LIV events and DataGolf’s rankings show that several other American LIV golfers have been better in the lead-up to the event. But the Ryder Cup is a big event and Koepka shows up for big events. He belongs on the team, no question.Wall: Leaving Brooks off the team would set a dangerous precedent that only PGA Tour members deserve a spot on the team. Things are tenuous at best between the Tour and LIV, so the last thing anyone wants is more chaos. Koepka is a proven name with team experience who showed up during the majors. You need a big-game hunter like Koepka who thrives under pressure. ZJ will have some difficult choices when he fills out the rest of his team — but this one is a layup. Put his name on the squad and move on.
Wall's take is curious, given that status quo ante as of June 5th.... I think the guys are right, given the current state of Tour-PIF negotiations, but a "dangerous precedent"? I've got whiplash.
4. Lucas Glover followed up his back-to-back victories with a T22-finish at the BMW Championship, and his recent surge has pushed him all the way to 16th in the Ryder Cup standings. But is it still too little too late? What kind of finish does he need at the Tour Championship to force Zach Johnson to pick him?Sens: Glover has been on a torrid run but I don’t think you take an older guy with a history of heebie-jeebies with the putter over any number of younger guys with younger nerves. If anything,though, that’s more a reflection of the depth the Us can draw on that it is a dis on GloverDethier: We’re always such prisoners of the moment with this stuff; people got understandably swept up in Glovermania following his (ridiculously impressive!) back-to-back wins. If the Ryder Cup was in two weeks I think he’d have a better argument. But we’re still more than a month out, which means Johnson will have to project forward. I think Glover needs to contend at East Lake to be in the conversation for that final spot.Wall: I’m with Dylan. If the Ryder Cup was a week or two after the Tour Championship, I think he might got the nod. A lot can change in more than a month. If Glover wants to lock up a spot, he needs to be right there on Sunday with a chance to win.
They're not wrong about the time frame, though the Glover thing is more, perhaps, than just a heater. He's always been a great ball-striker, so if he's found a way to be consistently Tour-average as a putter, that's notable and promising. He may not have played in any of the majors but, unlike JT and Young, he will be at East Lake.
I'm going to defer my opinion on picks until after the Tour Championship, but I will say at this juncture that I would not put Cam Young on the team. He doesn't bring a skill set to the table that works all that well in the team competition, as his only compelling strength is his driver, and I assume that (like Paris) the course will be set up to minimize that skill set. Even within that SG: Driving his numbers skew opposite of what I imagine will be useful, as he's 3rd in distance but 122nd in accuracy.
Catch you later in the week to talk Euros, but also perhaps those other cups as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment