Midweek Musings - Ryder Cup Edition

The Wednesday Game goes a little later than is typical, so we've time for just a little low-impact blogging...

Don't Know Much About History - This will serve as an adjunct to yesterday's blogging of the most significant/controversial Ryder Cup moments.   Assuming away the space-time continuum...

Ryder Cup 2021: 8 all-time pairings we wish we could have seen

It's an eternity until Friday and the writers have used all their good stuff, so it's empty the notebook time:

Seve Ballesteros/Ian Poulter

Their competitiveness alone would be enough to kill a horse. Ballesteros, part of the European “Famous Five” that played a role in elevating the Ryder Cup to the massive institution it is today, endeared himself to his teammates and incensed his opponents with his hard-nosed, combative style and his sheer unwillingness to lose. Poulter hasn’t matched Ballesteros’ record in golf tournaments not named the Ryder Cup, but the Englishman has emerged as a spiritual offspring of sorts, serving as the emotional spark for the six teams he’s played on and compiling a 14-6-2 overall record with a 5-0-1 singles mark. There’d be fist pumps and guttural yells, belly laughs and probably an awkward moment of contention with the Americans. It’d be delicious.

OK, this one is pretty easy to dispense with.  How would they have performed?  Probably the mirror image of how Seve did teamed with that other Spaniard.  The point being what, exactly?

There's little question that Poulter does play the Seve role to a great extent.   What makes it all the more aggravating is that he's got only trace levels of gravitas on his own, he just somehow becomes Seve at this one event.  

But be forewarned, it just gets sillier and sillier:

Paul Azinger/Justin Thomas

The American answer to the above pair. Azinger and Ballesteros clashed in the 1989 and 1991 Ryder Cup, with the Spaniard accusing the Floridian of lying after a particularly testy face-off at

Kiawah Island. Azinger refused to back down from Ballesteros, beating him 1 up on European soil in the first singles match in ’89 but losing both his matches alongside Chip Beck to the Ballesteros/Olazabal powerhouse in ’91. Azinger’s overall record is a pedestrian 5-7-3, but this is less about wanting to win and more about wanting to watch him and Seve go at it. Thomas, on the other hand, is off to a 4-1-0 start in his Ryder Cup career after he was a rare bright spot for the Americans in Paris. He relished the chance to face Rory McIlroy in the first singles match and beat him, too. There’s not a more competitive player on this year’s American side and his fiery tendencies should play well in the many Ryder Cups in his future.

Justin Thomas has played in exactly one Ryder Cup.  But Zinger played a series of tightly-contested singles matches against the likes of Seve and Nick Faldo.  Thomas prevailed against the artist that was formerly known as Rory and prevailed in one of the sloppiest matches I can recall.

 But just when we think the author couldn't embarrass himself to any greater degree:

Tiger Woods/Jack Nicklaus

Who wouldn’t want to watch the consensus best and second-best players of all-time—we’ll let you decide the order—tee it up together? Nicklaus and Woods are two different men with two different styles of competing, but it’s what they share that makes this such a tantalizing what-if: prodigious length, flawless execution under pressure and a propensity for making huge putts in massive moments. Give prime Jack Nicklaus 2021 equipment and we’re willing to bet he could keep up with early 2000s Tiger Woods, who was the longest player on the planet. No U.S. captain could ever quite figure out a perfect partner for Woods—he’s an awful 9-19-1 in non-singles matches—but something tells us he and the Golden Bear would click just fine. Real recognize real, as the kids say.

Yeah, throw two guys that couldn't care less about the event together, and watch the sparks fly.

That's actually unfair to Jack, who played in an era of U.S. dominance that didn't require his competitive fire.  He managed to exert a great influence over the event notwithstanding his play, with his 1969 concession achieving iconic status, and his recommendation about beefing up the competition leading to the golden age of the event.  As for Tiger?  We'll always have Paris.

I've got a new Ask Alan column that dropped late yesterday, which has bits of relevance to this subject, that I'll sprinkle in as appropriate, including this on Tiger:

Is anyone ever going to publicly say that Tiger Woods never cared about the Ryder Cup? He always said he only cared about majors and his Ryder Cup record was always mediocre even though he was the dominant No. 1 in the world. @JonathonJFelix

It’s more nuanced than that. Tiger never wants to get beat, in anything, and the U.S. futility on his watch certainly bugged him. But he spent the 103 weeks between Ryder Cups trying to intimidate every other top player, and even in the sanctum of the team room, Woods was disinclined to reveal anything from the well-guarded fortress of his inner-self. That made him a crappy teammate, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t care. For my Phil Mickelson biography I’ve been exploring the Ryder Cup dynamics around both Tiger and Phil. Stewart Cink (who played on five Ryder Cups in the Woods-Mickelson era) told me something that resonates: “Tiger’s was a much more mechanical and solitary approach. He was like, I’m going to go out there and try to win five points and that’s all I can do. He tried to break his job down into its simplest form and not get too wrapped up in the team thing.” This attitude works well enough for singles, in which Woods has a 4-2-2 record. Alas, the Ryder Cup is a team event and his record in partner play is a pathetic 9-19-1. Tiger simply didn’t know how to uplift his teammates or make them feel comfortable. Those are related to various personality defects but I don’t think apathy is one of them.

I agree that apathy isn't the answer, and that Tiger wouldn't have enjoyed the losing.  Still, there was something almost defiant in his refusal to take the event seriously.  Then again, there was this comment that always resurfaces when examining Tiger's relationship to the event:

And I might be able to give him the benefit of the doubt, if not for previous comments he made

about the Ryder Cup.

In 2002 when the event was held at The Belfry in Sutton Coldfield , England , Tiger made the comment there were "a million reasons why" he would rather win a World Golf Championship with a million dollar winner?s share, than bring the Ryder Cup back home. He didn?t do himself any more favors by deciding to practice alone than instead of with his teammates.

Tiger's body language and facial gestures always made it clear that he simply didn't want to be there.  There's also the fact that the team actually played better when he wasn't in the room, see 2008 for the most obvious example. 

 And, lest you think the beclowning has peaked, there's this scary thought:

Anthony Kim/Patrick Reed

You could put Anthony Kim with anyone and they’d probably make it on this list. That’s how much we miss AK, who was so perfectly in his element at the only Ryder Cup he played, in 2008, when he went 2-1-1 and crushed Sergio Garcia in singles. He was Captain America before Captain America, so to speak. And while Reed’s Ryder Cup reputation has taken a hit with a poor performance in Paris (and his blabbering afterwards), early career Patrick Reed was an absolutely all-time Ryder Cup character. Pairing a 23-year-old AK and a 23-year-old P-Reed would be a whole mess of chaotic brashness in the best way possible. If only.

The outcome of this pairing is completely predictable.  Justine would take to Twitter to whine about Jordan not wanting to play with Patrick.... Just when we get our hopes up that the Patrick reed era is behind us.

More Alan - Time being scarce, let's have at it:

Is the Ryder Cup overrated? Or overhyped? It gets built up like it’s a major, yet whenever I read or listen to discussions of any given player’s accomplishments, it’s generally very low on the list, if it makes the discussion at all. #AskAlan @tombagjr

Of course it’s overrated and overhyped but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to a player’s legacy. Colin Montgomerie (zero major championship victories) isn’t in the Hall of Fame without his Ryder Cup heroics. The reputations of Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and sundry other Euros (Ignacio Garrido! Peter Baker!) have also been enhanced by their heroics. The comeback at Brookline added to Ben Crenshaw’s mystique and Paul Azinger is still dining out on his stellar captaincy. I agree individual Ryder Cup records are rarely cited, but the impression the players and captains have left in the sport’s ultimate crucible certainly lingers.

Depends which player, no?  Alan gives a thoughtful answer to a question that seems to beg for derision....  The whole point of the Ryder Cup is that it presents a completely different test and challenge to the players, one that doesn't fit easily into the metrics of an individual sport.  Even players Ryder Cup won-lost records are highly suspect, given the dependence of the results upon partners' and  opponents' performance.

But to understand why the Ryder Cup matters all one has to do is watch it.... Which I wonder whether the questioner has?  

What is it gonna take to bench Brooks Koepka and get Max Homa on the U.S. team? @GregorGeal

Alas, we’re stuck with the big galoot. I think this is an important week for Koepka and he’s shrewd enough to know it. A lot of public sentiment has metastasized around Brooks this year, as his bullying/trolling has become increasingly distasteful and obnoxious. And this is the one week all year when Americans are actually rooting for Bryson DeChambeau; if Koepka subverts the U.S. Ryder Cup team with his noxious behavior the backlash will be swift.

I like Max Homa as much as the next guy, but he was never in the mix, nor did he deserve to be.  He's a nice little player that, with three wins now in the bag, could be headed into relevancy.  As for now, he's more of a PIP contender than Ryder Cup calibre player.

But I think Alan is spot-on as relates to Koepka.  I do think his frat-boy mien is getting old at speed, and Bethpage seems an eternity ago.  He needs a good week, both in term sof results but also in perceived attitude.

Is it OK if I mix in a non-Ryder Cup Q&A as long as there's a clear segue?  OK< that was actually rhetorical...

Which Cal golfer has a better career, Max Homa or Collin Morikawa? @JStew68129215

Oh, c’mon. Winning two major championships is, almost always, a Hall of Fame career, and Morikawa is already there. For sure Homa has gone to a different level with two wins in his last 18 starts. He excels on firm, fast courses where par is at a premium, so expect him to start contending in majors soon. But he’s six years older than Morikawa! Credit to Homa that he’s even in this discussion.

Interestingly, the profound stupidity of the question has me respecting Homa all the more.  But two majors at age 24 is Tiger-Jack territory.  All credit to Max Homa who gets a lot out of his talents, but is there anyone that thinks Max Homa will win two majors?  Kinda answers itself, no?

Does the Pope s**t in the woods?

Does the PGA of America have a feud with the USGA? Hale Irwin and Lee Janzen have five U.S. Opens between them but never a Ryder Cup captaincy. Sutton, Azinger, Stricker, Lehman combined have three majors but all got the nod. #AskAlan @BradleySmith328

Yeah, there’s always been a low-key feud between these powerful institutions, but Pete Bevacqua and now Seth Waugh have helped to mellow out things. Janzen’s snub reflects the hard truth that he wasn’t popular with his peers. Irwin not getting the nod is more baffling. He’s a badass, an intellect and would have been a stirring leader of men. I’ll never understand that one.

There's folks that are still manning the barricades for a Larry Nelson captaincy...  This has always been the case though, as Alan Gently notes, Lee Jantzen is not the bridge to die on.

#AskAlan I saw some people complaining that Captain Stricker actually played in a Senior Tour event this week instead of working and reworking his lineup. I say get away and then work your tail off this week. What say you? @wadster13

Yeah, he’s had three years to grind on this stuff! The demands of the captaincy are so overblown. Stricker has had an army of vice captains and statisticians at his disposal for months—if he needed all of last week to figure this stuff out, the U.S. is in trouble.

Yeah, not much of an issue back here on Planet Earth.

Who gets more points next week: Morikawa or Poulter? #AskAlan @BrooksieGolf

Fifty years from now, when I’m in hospice, I’m still going to be thinking of how Poulter dusted Dustin Johnson in singles in Paris. There is literally not a single thing Poults does better than DJ on a golf course, and there’s lots of stuff at which Johnson is superior. But you can’t measure heart and guts and balls on a Trackman. At the same time, Morikawa is a killer and his precision will be such a weapon, especially in alternate shot. I’ll take the Champion Golfer of the Year by half a point.

Morikawa is a killer, though a seemingly inconsistent killer.  Not sure what to expect the first time, but I'm on record as suggesting that the Euro old guard will end up looking, well, old.

Could anyone, like Anthony Kim, play in the Ryder Cup if used as a Captain’s Pick? @robmillertime

Yep. There used to be all kinds of red tape, like you had to be a Class A member of the PGA of America; this prevented Hal Sutton from playing on the ’83 team even though he was one of the two or three best players in the world right then. But all the unnecessary criteria has been stripped away. I think the sun has set on AK, but it would be cool if someday a U.S. captain plucked a red-hot player off the Korn Ferry Tour.

The Anthony Kim fetish just gets weirder and weirder.  But how bat-guano crazy is that suggestion from Alan?  First of all, the "hot golfer" is like the great white whale....  Not only do they cool off in a hurry, but you'd actually pick from the demonstrably inferior talent pool?  A captain would be crucified for doing so, and would deserve it.  At the end of the day you pick the best players and hope they show up... And, taking that logic to it's obvious extreme, why not Nelly Korda?

Has there ever been a player with a stranger career as of today than Rory? To win four majors so early and now not have added to that total for a decent spell but still playing great golf; has there been another player like him career-wise? #AskAlan @TheGhostofhogan

Ernie Els, a little bit. He won a U.S. Open at 24, and had a second one by 27. Then he suffered a five-year drought during which he was a very productive player but couldn’t win another big one. Maybe Els offers hope for McIlroy, in that he capped his career by winning the Open Championship when he was 42; the 18-year span between first and last major is one of the longest ever. Most players, even all-time greats, tend to win their majors in bunches: Palmer won his seven in six years; Watson eight in eight; Faldo six in nine; Seve five in nine. By next year’s Masters McIlroy will be going on 11 years since his first. Clearly he is a transcendent talent who can find “it” at any moment, but golf history is beginning to work against him.

Five years is the new eleven?  The bigger issue with Rory is that he now doesn't so much as compete in the biggest events.  Maybe I overinterpret Portrush and Augusta, but the more it matter it seems the worst the guy plays.  Which makes this week kind of an interesting test, no

You’re Captain Stricker…and it’s all tied after Saturday. Who’s the name in the last group for Sunday? @HofSpillane

Justin Thomas. I love Spieth’s grit but this is a lot of golf course for him. (I’d put him out first.) Dustin Johnson has the game for Whistling Straits but I don’t think he wants that smoke. Koepka is too much of a wild card with his injuries; if he plays well over the first two days he would merit consideration, but you gotta wonder how he’ll hold up physically (and if he’d be honest if he’s hurting). Thomas has the talent but, more importantly, he has the spice.

Obviously there's a bunch of golf writers that think JT will be a breakout star this week and in future cups, which is certainly among the range of possibilities.  Not only am I not sure that JT is the guy, I'm also unclear that, given a tie heading into Sunday, you want your best horse going out last.   Most of my concern about the guy is that he just hasn't played very well lately, with that Players Championship seeming more and more of an outlier as we get deeper into the tear.

That's all for today.  I know, a little short, but we'll make it up in the next couple of days.  I plan on blogging tomorrow, but due to an early morning commitment it likely won't get posted until mid to late morning.

 

Ryder Cup Tuesday

Can you feel that intensity gradually rising?  Seems an eternity until Friday, no?

The Chemistry Thing - They have it and we don't, but is that an adequate explanation for losing nine out of twelve?

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 captaincy

viewed 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:

Can the U.S. Ryder Cup team get along for one week?

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:

The 15 most consequential moments in Ryder Cup history

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 in

middle 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:

‘He still couldn’t beat me’: The 15 most controversial moments in Ryder Cup history

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 1929

Talk 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 1993

A rivalry born at the 1987 British Open at Muirfield, where Faldo bested Azinger by a single

stroke, 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 1999

A 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 in

his 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 the

Englishman’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:

TUESDAY

U.S.: Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie Scheffler

Europe: Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia

WEDNESDAY

U.S.: Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Dustin Johnson, Collin Morikawa

Europe: Ian Poulter, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Bernd Wiesberger

THURSDAY

U.S.: Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau, Daniel Berger, Harris English

Europe: 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 1

Justin Thomas

Jordan Spieth

Brooks Koepka

Daniel Berger

POD 2

Patrick Cantlay

Xander Schauffele

Dustin Johnson

Collin Morikawa

POD 3

Harris English

Bryson DeChambeau

Tony Finau

Scottie 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. 

Weekend Wrap - Ryder Cup Preview Edition

A tough day to get started at the keyboard.  Sure, there's too much to cover and a challenge to logically organize, but the bigger issue is two hyper-kinetic kitties to whom attention must be paid...

Mad Max - I was modestly intrigued to see if Maverick McNelly, often better known as Mr. Danielle Kang, could get it done (though his father is also somewhat prominent).  The answer, alas, was "no":

Who won: Max Homa (seven-under 65, 19 under overall)

How it happened: McNealy was three under on the front on Sunday and turned in 17 under overall, enough for a two-shot lead over Marc Leishman, who shot 65, and a group of others stuck at 14

under. Max Homa took a big bite into the lead with a hole-out eagle on 12 to get within a stroke, and his birdie on 13 — he drained a 21-footer — tied him at the top. As McNealy couldn’t do any better than pars to start his back nine, Homa took the lead on the par-5 16th, two-putting for birdie and getting to 18 under. McNealy tied Homa with his own birdie on 16, but it didn’t last long. On the 17th, Homa rolled in a big breaking right-to-left putt to regain the solo lead at 19 under. Minutes later, a wayward drive on 17 led to a disastrous double bogey for McNealy. His approach from 189 yards missed the green, and he two-chipped and two-putted for a 6. That gave Homa a three-shot lead, and his par on the 18th was plenty good enough to shut the door. Homa finished the weekend with back-to-back 65s, and his Sunday 65 was tied with Leishman for the low round of the day. McNealy drained a long eagle putt on the 72nd hole to shoot 68 and finish solo second, one behind Homa, but the double bogey came back to haunt him.

Homa's a fave of the blog, given that he has an actual sense of humor and seems mostly without affectation.  Though I give the porn 'stache a seven out of ten, and that's grading on a curve.

This is your basic twofer, wherein I can pretend to cover the season-opening event while actually previewing the event about which you might actually care:

An illness. A missed cut. Is there concern with Jon Rahm heading into Ryder Cup?

We should only be so lucky...

Or, maybe more accurately, better. On Tuesday, despite a body of work that perhaps spoke

otherwise, he learned that he had not been voted PGA Tour player of the year by his peers. On Wednesday, a day before the start of the Fortinet, he was forced to withdraw from the pro-am with a stomach illness that he said made him feel “way worse” than his bout with Covid over the summer. On Thursday, he shot a 72, on Friday, he shot a 71, and he was done, his first missed cut since May.

The only golfer of the 24 heading to next week’s Ryder Cup to play this week, Rahm will now rest and recalibrate too. Which, he says, might not be the worst thing.

If you say so...

“Well, I’ve got two more days off. I think it’s primarily rest,” Rahm said. “I just, you know, I feel like with having those stomach issues early, I wasn’t nearly as rested as I could have been, my body got a little bit tight, but I’m feeling good today. It was a tough course out there.

“If anything, I get to rest a couple extra days and be able to figure out what’s going on with my swing, which technically is not really anything bad. It’s just I think a lot of those swings were made to look worse because of how tough it is out there. It’s firm, it’s fast, the fairways are hard to hit. I just maybe didn’t hit the shot sometimes. I just feel I could have been rewarded a little bit more, that’s about it.”

He seems quite pleased with his extra two days of leisure, but wouldn't four have been better?

Best guess is it'll prove to mean exactly nothing, but given his outsized importance to the Euros, they'll be watching him closely the next few days.

Ryder Cup Fever - So much to cover and so little time...  Shall we start with our nightmare?

Team Europe’s greatest villain is back at the Ryder Cup … because of course he is

I can't even fathom a guess as to whom they're referring....

What is it about this guy?

Other players in plaid—Arnold Palmer in his day, Darren Clarke in his, Rodney Dangerfield for 100 minutes—it works. It’s cool. Ian Poulter in plaid is annoying.

Ian Poulter in anything is annoying. It’s a backdoor compliment.

Here’s the starting point: He’s been a constant in our golf-watching lives for about 20 years now, at all our sparkly events, most especially the Ryder Cup. If he weren’t good, would we care so much about him? We would not.

He’s spectacularly English. The working Englishman who made it. He’s as Jaguar C-Type as Pat Reed is Ford F-150. We don’t do Jaguars, here in these United States. Ian Poulter don’t care.

Poulter earned his PGA Tour playing privileges by making the 2004 European Ryder Cup team. (He’s been playing both the European Tour and the PGA Tour ever since.) Poulter sunk the winning point for his club at the ’04 Ryder Cup. In Detroit—how galling. Hal Sutton, our captain, was so impressed he almost doffed his 10-gallon lid. Poults is more of a visor guy. It’s a British thing. Poults. Tiger put it in circulation. From the Yiddish, for the guy you’d least like to see over a meaningful 10-footer to beat you.

I don't actually know if Mike Bamberger, who wrote the pice, is Jewish, though I suspect as much since he wrote this 2015 article on Jewish Golfers ( which predates yesterday's winner, Max Homa, who is of the Tribe).  But I'm pretty sure he was bluffing on that Yiddish bit:

Seems to me Poults is more of a carrier, in that he leaves us grousing...

A slight into this ultimately unsatisfying John Feinstein offering:

Ryder Cup 2021: Why a team-first mentality is so critical and so hard to adjust to

Ultimately, the best John can do is anecdotal evidence of players coming around:

More often than not, comments like Koepka’s come from players who haven’t yet experienced

the intensity and the exhilaration of a Ryder Cup week. When Rory McIlroy first qualified for Montgomerie’s 2010 European team in Wales, he was asked about how he felt knowing he’d be on the team.

“It’s nice,” he said. “I look forward to it. But being honest, it’s an exhibition. My No. 1 goal is to win major championships.”

Montgomerie, who is a lot smarter than most people think, smiled when he was asked about McIlroy’s comments. “He’ll learn,” he said. “He won’t feel that way once he gets there.”

Monty was right. “I knew about 15 minutes after I got there that I’d been wrong,” McIlroy said, able to laugh at himself years later. “I realized this was really a big deal.”

His basic premise, the coda of the piece, is that Koepka, notwithstanding his comments last week, will ultimately come around.  Fair enough, but John elides to 600-lbs. elephant in the corner, to wit, that "coming around" means something completely different for each of the two teams:  Back to that young chicken from a SiriusXM podcast:

Poulter was laughing on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio Wednesday as he faced down the Ryder Cup question everyone has been asking. The host, Michael Breed, put it well: “It’s easy to look at the

[European] team and say you are underdogs and yet what you have is you have history. And history says we’ve won four out of the last five, seven of the last nine, and nine of the last 12.

“You know, that’s our advantage, I guess, in a way, right? That we have delivered when perhaps we shouldn’t have delivered,” Poulter mused to Breed with a chuckle. “And that is the magical question that gets asked all the time. That’s what has the American press scratching their head. That’s what has the American team scratching their heads at times, right? On paper, on paper, on paper, the U.S. team should have delivered. It’s for us to enjoy and for the American team to figure out, right?”

To hear Poulter tell it, the Europeans have been able to channel something. He might not know exactly what that something is. But he has no interest in breaking down the recipe for the flummoxed Americans, either.

One of life's enduring mysteries...  While I might have found Feinstein's piece a bit lacking, he does cite that which the Americans need to keep in mind as regards their most prominent talent:

Koepka was 3-1 for the winning U.S. team at Hazeltine National in 2016 and 1-2-1 in Europe’s win in Paris in 2018. That’s 4-3-1, certainly respectable, especially given that very few Americans who have played in this century have winning records. Tiger Woods, who never really embraced the Ryder Cup emotionally, is 13-21-3 and the eight teams he played on went 1-7. Phil Mickelson, who still hasn’t completely gotten over not being picked for Tom Watson’s team in 1993, has played in 12 Ryder Cups and is 18-22-7 individually. The teams he played on went 3-9.

 So naturally we've handed those two the keys to the U.S. Ryder Cup efforts....

This week's Tour Confidential panel is of course all over this event, including this back and forth on this specific topic:

3. In an interview on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio last week, European stalwart Ian Poulter was amused by one topic that often comes up during Ryder Cup week, which is how the Americans are usually the favorites but are often out-played. “On paper, on paper, on paper, the U.S. team should have delivered,” he said. “It’s for us to enjoy and for the American team to figure out, right?” How does Europe seemingly come together and play better during these weeks, and why has it been so hard for the U.S. to do the same?

Piastowski: Brooks would like this answer: The underdog, me-against-the-world, chip-on-your shoulder mentality can do miracles. If the U.S. just looked at the recent ledger in this event, they might get a little of that, too.

Colgan: Nick, you’re spot on. It also helps that the Europeans putt the living daylights out of the ball.

Berhow: Could you imagine a European Ryder Cupper ever saying what Brooks Koepka did about the Ryder Cup? Never. That’s the difference.

Bamberger: I do think the Europeans actually do come together because they seem to have the ability to park their egos at the jetway when leaving for the Ryder Cup and play for Continent. That’s harder for the American golfer to do, for whatever reason. But in the end, and we’ve seen many times, the Europeans just flat-out play the Americans, particularly with mid-length and short putting. Close matches always come down to that. That’s skill, stroke, confidence, nerves, sense-of-balance in your life, and a bunch of things you cannot measure.

Sens: All of those points above are on the mark. They bring a team spirit and an underdog attitude into the event, which often allows them to play looser. But I also think the “better on paper” theme is oversold by a golf press that gets easily intoxicated by world rankings and length of the tee, neither of which are the real difference-makers in this event. Look at the European players and their Ryder Cup records. Should they really be the big underdogs that Vegas has them as this week? I don’t think so.

Josh Berhow is quite obviously wrong, as Rory's comments above are the mirror image of Brooksie's.  I've always attributed this phenomenon to the milking of underdog status, whereby the excellence of the Americans in their day job is almost a negative... Interestingly to me, Rory is the most American-like of the Euros by virtue of his individual success, and he's been a bit of a Ryder Cup dud.  It's their rank-and-file, guys like Poulter that don't actually win on their own very often, who show up at these things and play like they haven't a worry in the world.

As long as we've broken the ice on that TC panel:

1. After a one-year delay and three years since the last meeting, the 43rd Ryder Cup is officially, and finally, here, as the U.S. takes on Europe at Whistling Straits Friday to Sunday in Kohler, Wis. Europe has won seven of the past nine events, including the last one, a seven-point thumping in Paris. As usual, there are storylines aplenty, but what’s the one you can’t wait to see unfold this week?

Nick Piastowski: The Ryder Cup-iness of the Ryder Cup. We’ll all, no doubt, be looking forward

to Bryson unsheathing driver on 1, Brooks saying something spicy and Ian Poulter thumping his chest. But the fans, the chants, the ebbs and the flows are what make this event so meaningful — and we’ve had to wait a while for it, too. The fact that not many Euro supporters will make the trip is a bit of a downer. But, Wisconsin born and raised, I know how much this event means to golf in the state. It’ll be a fun one.

James Colgan: Given his match play record (0-5 across the Presidents and Ryder Cups) and headline magnetism (long-drive championships, anyone?), Bryson DeChambeau hasn’t quite given us reason for optimism. But that’s precisely why I’m excited to watch him. Bryson will face the music if he doesn’t answer the bell for the Americans, but no one stands more to gain from a brilliant week.

Josh Berhow: I want to see if Jon Rahm, likely irked by not winning PGA Tour Player of the Year, takes out his fury on the U.S. side and has a big week. I’m super interested to see whom Bryson is paired with. I can’t wait to see how Brooks performs, especially since he was recently so outspoken about his views of the event (more on that below). I’m curious if the controversy that always swirls around the U.S. team will be a thorn in its side. There’s lots more, too. Can Westwood and Poulter still bring it? What kind of an assistant captain will Phil be? There are so many great stories to unpack. It’s gonna be a blast.

Josh Sens: All good candidates above. Beyond those threads, it’s always interesting to watch how first-time Ryder Cuppers respond to the moment. The Europeans will be counting heavily on Shane Lowry and Viktor Hovland, both first-timers. As one of the straightest hitters in the game, Hovland stands to be a match-play pest, as he proved in the U.S. Amateur. And Lowry just somehow seems custom-built for an event like this. On the U.S. side, Scheffler has been so good on big stages. Will that same success carry over? And then there’s the captain’s picks element, and all the praise and second-guessing that invariably comes with it.

Michael Bamberger: Which team will win.

I'm most interested to see if Poulter's eyeballs remain in their sockets....  But, yeah, who wins as well.

And on Brooksiegate:

2. Brooks Koepka spoke candidly about his indifference for Ryder Cups in a recent interview with Golf Digest, saying things like: “There are times where I’m like, I won my match. I did my job. What do you want from me? I know how to take responsibility for the shots I hit every week. Now, somebody else hit a bad shot and left me in a bad spot, and I know this hole is a loss.” And: “It’s different. It’s hectic. It’s a bit odd, if I’m honest. I don’t want to say it’s a bad week. We’re just so individualized, and everybody has their routine and a different way of doing things.” Former Ryder Cup captain and current NBC analyst Paul Azinger chimed in, saying, “I’m not sure he loves the Ryder Cup that much. If he doesn’t love it, he should relinquish his spot and get people there who do love it.” Do you have an issue with Koepka’s comments, and what’s your take on Azinger’s rebuttal?

It's an absolute nothing burger, at least up until he starts playing poorly....

Piastowski: If Brooksie wins, if he plays like Major Brooks, he can say whatever he wants. If he wins his points, that’s all you can ask of a teammate. Not even everyone has to be Poulter. Energy can be drawn on success. However … he has all the potential to be a longtime alpha for that room. If the outspoken, four-time major champ says let’s kick butt today — but in words only Brooks could concoct — then I’d sure as hell would want to kick butt today. But if Brooksie treats this like a Tour stop in mid-July, and plays like it, Azinger is right. His record be damned, get someone in there who will be a stone-cold killer.

Colgan: Fortunately, it’s not like the U.S. side enters the Ryder Cup with massive concerns about its ability to form a cohesive unit, or else those comments could’ve come across the wrong way. Wait a second …

Berhow: I don’t have a problem with Koepka’s comments, because we want our athletes to be honest and outspoken, but I’m also not Steve Stricker, who probably wasn’t thrilled to read it. As for Azinger, I get why he’s bothered by it, but I do think once the lights go on, Koepka will perform as best he can. (He’s 4-3-1 in it.) There’s pride on the line once golf balls go in the air.

Bamberger: I think Brooks spoke truthfully, and for himself. Azinger did the same. Brooks is playing. Azinger is offering commentary. The system at work.

Sens: Like Berhow, I appreciate Koepka’s honesty. But I also understand why Azinger is irked by a guy who isn’t all-in on everything the Ryder Cup is about, because Azinger lives and breathes the stuff. I have no doubt that Koepka will play his heart out on his own ball. But is he the ideal guy to have as your partner or in the team room? Doesn’t sound like it. If he hadn’t auto-qualified, I wouldn’t pick him.

I just add this to the list of evidence that Brooks isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.  The comments to me just seem profoundly silly, reflecting a man completely absorbed with his own little bubble.  To some extent that's a necessary thing for their careers, but missing from his comments was any sense that he would embrace the week of team competition.  That's what drew the rebuke from Zinger, though Mike's assessment that the system is working seems odd.  Zinger can't have helped the home team by fanning these flames, and they'll be further fanned if Koepka gets off to a rocky start.

Of course his bête noire Bryson has done a similar thing, though in a completely different manner.  In announcing plans to compete in a Long Drive event the day after the Ryder Cup ends, he's pretty much announced that he's not overly invested in this little exhibition on the shores of Lake Michigan.  For a guy struggling with the way fans are treating him, this pretty much ensures a continuation of that, unless he emerges as a Ryder Cup hero by Sunday.  All I can add is that he better chip and putt well, because he's announced that he's destroyed his hands in pursuit of the long ball...  If his objectives was to induce more fan abuse, what would he have done differently?

4. Three years ago, it was Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood who stole the show, leading Europe to an easy win. Which player will be the most crucial to each team’s success this time around?

Piastowski: On the American side, I’m going with Patrick Cantlay. He gives off a match play-winning vibe to me. Go out, win 4 and 3, rinse and repeat. Patty Ice, for sure. For the Euros, let’s go with Viktor Hovland. Is he this event’s next big thing for the team across the pond? He has all the talent in the world to be.

Colgan: For the Europeans, I think it has to be Jon Rahm. How does the best player in the world follow up a killer performance in ’18 as a Ryder Cup rookie? For the U.S., it’s the guy most likely to follow in Rahm’s footsteps: Collin Morikawa. He was gassed leading into the Tour Championship, but would seem to enter Whistling refreshed after a few weeks off.

Berhow: Jordan Spieth is now a veteran, seasoned Ryder Cupper. He’s the heart and soul of that team and needs to play like it. I think he will. As for Europe, I’m expecting a big week from Jon Rahm. The big-time players have to show up.

Bamberger: That steal-the-show thing comes on Friday and Saturday, when you’re playing with another player. On Sunday, you’re grinding out a point. I’m guessing Sergio and Rahm will be put together, they’ll produce some magic in a Spanish tradition we all know well, and that could steal the show. You can have only one star act, so I’m going to leave it at that.

Sens: I’m thinking Shane Lowry for the Europeans. The guy just has the air of a Ryder Cup bulldog. Paired with Rory, I expect him to be especially dangerous. On the U.S. team, I look for Xander to eat this stuff up.

It's hard to imagine this being competitive without Jon Rahm playing like a stud...  Hovland and Lowry are guys that have to pitch in, but you could say that about all twelve guys.  One guy whose name I've yet to read is Paul Casey, who would seem to need to have a heck of a week, no?

Josh Berhow, however, isn't having much of a week, though.  In addition to that call-out above, he's touting a man whose extensive cup experience includes an 0-6 record in singles.  Maybe he'll come through, but I'm far more curious to see how Stricker will use him.  For instance, that electric, first tee moment Friday morning should, methinks, not include our Jordan, who should sit in both foursomes sessions.

They do a get a litle silly asking the same question repeatedly:

5. There will be nine first-time Ryder Cup players this week. The U.S. has six in Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Harris English, Scottie Scheffler and Daniel Berger, while Europe has just half that many in Shane Lowry, Bernd Wiesberger and Viktor Hovland. Which one of these nine will be the most impactful?

Piastowski: Whoops, I kind of answered this above. But I’ll toss in another: Shane Lowry. The 34-year-old is obviously a “rookie” in name alone. The Open Championship winner told his team three years ago he wanted to be at this event, and here he is. I think that’s the kind of spirit Azinger was talking about above. Lowry is great — but you get the feeling he’ll play above his head this week and be even greater.

Colgan: Xander!! We’ve heard legends about his match play ability in money games against fellow pros, and we saw him win a gold medal representing the U.S. in July. There may be no rookie more prime to make himself a hero.

Berhow: Patrick Cantlay has been on a tear the past two months and was 3-2 at the last Presidents Cup. He’s gonna have himself a week.

Bamberger: Bernd Wiesberger. Isn’t it obvious? The most impactful player is often the one you expect the least impact from. In this nine-person subset of the 24 players, Bernd’s the leader in the house by a touchdown.

Sens: At this point, they get talked about in tandem so often we should really have just one name for Brooks and Bryson, kinda like Brangelina. Combined, they are going to have a massive impact on the U.S. team. What kind of impact is the big question.

Thank God for Mike Bamberger keeping it at least a little interesting.  Cantlay, X-Man and Lowry might technically be rookies, but we certainly don't expect them to spit the bit.  

I'm not sure about the premise of this question

6. With Patrick Reed left off the U.S. team, it begs the question: Who on the U.S. will play the ever-important role of opponent irritator and crowd ignitor? And who will that be for Europe?

Piastowski: It’s a tough question for the U.S. side — few on this team have done something like that before, and it may take them out of their comfort zone if they tried. Spieth would be an obvious answer, but man, I’d love to see Morikawa stuff iron after iron and work the crowd along the way. He can certainly do the former. For the Europeans, it’s more a question who won’t be this guy. But it’d be a blast to see Tyrrell Hatton go on a birdie binge and go nuclear on the crowd.

Colgan: It’s Ian Poulter for Europe. It’s always Ian Poulter. For the Americans, how about Brooks Koepka? He certainly has the mentality for it.

Berhow: Not everyone can play that role (sorry, Harris English), but Justin Thomas is a good fit, and I also think he wants to be that guy who can get a point, be a leader and put the team on his back. As for Europe, it’s Poulter, with Hatton waiting in the wings.

Bamberger: Sorry, maybe I missed something: Is Bryson DeChambeau not playing in this Ryder Cup? Bryson DeChambeau. He’ll irritate and ignite American fans, any European fans who will be there, European players, his own teammates. It’s his special talent, or one of them. As for the Europeans, you have to go back to the well: Ian Poulter. It’s his eyeballs. They speak a language all their own.

Sens: Poulter is a Hall of Fame irritant for sure. But let’s not forget Sergio, who has played that same role throughout the years (and who has been flashing some pretty tidy form of late). Michael’s right that Bryson will be the most polarizing on the U.S. side. But the guy best suited to fire up the crowd is Spieth. It’s all about those backbreaking putts in the Ryder Cup, and no one makes more big ones than he does.

That's quite the Rorschach test of answers, so let's take them one by one?  Do the Americans need an irritant?  I would argue the negative, they just need twelve guys to play like they do week in and week out.  Trust me, that'll annoy the Euros sufficiently...

For the Euros, in their capacity as perennial underdogs, they need to see that they can stay with the superior team (on paper, as per IJP).  But the original Poulter was Seve, who was the ultimate irritant up until the moment when the magic died.  That's the risk for the Euros, that they've by necessity gone back to that Poulter-Sergio well, but will those guys still bring it?  You know both those guys will be in Padraig's Friday morning lineup, which is why I'll be watching from the opening tee shot.

Shack has a longish bit on course set-ups that begins with some fun history on that subject:

A not-so-pleasant surprise awaited the Americans competing in the 1957 Ryder Cup. Lindrick Golf Club was the rare non-links to host and Playing Captain Dai Rees wanted the course as fast

as possible for his mostly links-proficient team. The place was dried out for weeks except in one spot: behind the greens. Thick rough was harvested to swallow up Americans unfamiliar with landing approaches short of the green.

The desperation ploy worked. Team GB&I won 7.5 to 4.5 for their only winning effort between 1935 and 1983. Ouch. That required some serious stiff upper lippage.

The Americans returned the setup favor in 1963 at East Lake. Henry Longhurst explained:

The course plays at 6,898 yards with a par of 70, which only a few were able to match on the first day. No fewer than seventy-three extra bunkers have been put in specifically for the match, and for the past year fertilizer has been put on the rough. With the flags often very close to bunkers or at the very back of the green, East Lake presents a most exacting test.

The Americans cruised to a 23-9 win for Playing Captain Arnold Palmer. (They played two singles sessions that year, because I know you’ll ask.)

The most famous set-up controversy was Seve simply ending the fairway on the Par-5 17th at Valderrama as a means of mitigating the American's length advantage.  To me, the Americans way over-estimated the affect of tucked-pins in their Medinah meltdown (those Euros got at 'em just fine, thank you), and created what Justin Rose called a "pro-Am" set-up at Hazeltine:

“We’ve agreed to try to avoid doing so much course manipulation [during the event], because we were getting some really sneaky stuff on hole locations” says Davis Love III, who played on six Ryder Cup teams, captained the 2012 and 2016 side and will be an assistant at Whistling Straits. Even if there was no sneaky stuff, Love made his preferences known.

“In 2016 at Hazeltine, I told Kerry that you’ve set this up before and to stick with it. I didn’t want rough if at all possible. We wanted to take luck out of it and have a whole bunch of birdies, because birdies get the crowd into it. Even if we tie holes with birdies, that’ll get the crowd fired up.”

But Geoff doesn't have any specifics here, only repeating a thought that's been made by many, that Whistling Straits is enemy friendly:

What about Whistling Straits as a course regardless of course setup tactics employed? As Rapaport notes, “if you turn off Location Services and squint your eyes, you’d swear it’s an Irish links.”

While I’m not sure Team USA will resort to dropping broken tees around certain boxes to mess with the Euros during the practice rounds—as they supposedly did in 2008 at Valhalla—there has to be some American concern about Whistling Straits’ friendliness to the enemy. A treeless and edgy test with a distinct Irish vibe may not deliver a home field advantage, especially with the possibility of winds that we rarely see at Ryder Cups:

Ok.  It might look like an Irish links (one of the Kohler courses uses "Irish" in its name), but they most certainly don't play like a links.  Though this weather forecast could make things very difficult:

Yowzer.  This is a golf course that needs to be played through the air, an interesting prospect in those winds (though why Geoff grabbed a weather forecast in kilometers is anyone's guess).  We'll get a proper forecast later in the week.

I'll leave you at this juncture to get on with your week and hope to see you tomorrow.