The Morning After

Does anyone have any lingering doubts about which was the better team?  Not you, Phil, let's let the other kids have a chance to answer...

I'm going to put the Mickelson-Watson cage match off to the side to discuss in a follow-up post, and deal first with the event and its outcome.  Here's how Allistair Tate framed it:

Get ready for the usual platitudes from another losing U.S. team: They just played better

than us; they holed the putts when it mattered; they jelled better, yada, yada, yada. Sorry, but those excuses don’t wash when you’re on the streak the U.S. is on. 

The U.S. ostensibly lost this match because of two foursomes sessions. Twice they went down by 3.5 points to a half.

Symbolic? Perhaps. 

The U.S. players will disagree, but once again Europeans were a more cohesive unit. Maybe that explains why they dominated the foursomes, the format that calls for utmost unity.

Just as it's often said that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, so one man's platitudes are this man's....ummm...facts.  Tait's inarguable premise is that the Euro's play better as a team, but his logic is a bit elementary, as he's citing a result as the causality.  And there's a mandatory point deduction for eliding the omission against interest, that in recent years the U.S. has fared better in foursomes than fourballs.

If there's a trend amidst the carnage, it's the ability of the Euros to close out matches and sessions.  All three days followed this pattern, with the U.S. playing well early but ending the day curled up in the corner in a fetal position, call it the Jordan Speith phenomenon.  We've seen this for about two decades now, going back to when Freddie and Davis were dunking balls on the 18th at The Belfry.  

I've always felt that the approximately fifty years of being humiliated in the event pre-Seve resulted in a built-in advantage for the Euros, as they feel like the underdog even when they're not.  There's no doubt in my mind that they had the far superior team this year, but as most of their players come from smaller countries they have perfected the art of playing David the the Ynaks' Goliath.  Now the good news is that this will eventually run it's course, though we might only see that in the term of Captain Sam Woods.

So, shall we look at some winners and losers from the week?

Winners:

The Event:  It's simply the most exciting event in golf, with the Masters a distant second.  And this wasn't even a particularly good example of the genre, as when they're close that last hour or two is a level of drama that veers dangerously close to endangering those with weak tickers.

I still vividly remember staring at the screen in 1999 and repeatedly saying to Theresa that I couldn't see where that last half-point was going to come from, as well as the flip side in 2012. But there's no other event that creates this intensity, and of course it's what we want Olympic Golf to be, but it can't...Seriously, which event in 2016 will be the more significant, the rematch or the stroke play event in Rio?

This is perhaps the one event in golf that has crossover appeal to non-golfers, and you'd hope that golf's powers-that-be would take note. I'm not trying to be Pollyanna here, the intensity of this event is the result of happenstance more than planning, and is hard to recreate. But it's also a testament to power of match-play and a team format, and is it too much to ask that we recognize how drearily predictable golf has become on a week-to-week basis? Am I the only one that felt a tinge of nausea when the first Frys.com promo aired?  Ugh!!!

 

Team Europe - Sometimes that hardest thing to achieve is the expected, so a tip of the cap is

appropriate.  I was struck by the fact that at the close of business Saturday the Euros had gotten precious little form their horses, excepting Justin Rose, yet had an insurmountable 10-6 lead.

They seem to always find the gritty gamers necessary for the event, the Phillip Prices, Paul McGinleys from years gone by to this year's Jamie Donaldson and Victor Dubuisson.  No doubt tied to that underdog thing, but they always have more of them than we do.

Paul McGinley - I actually think that McGinley made as many questionable moves as Cap'n. Tom

did, but he projected an air of calm determination at all times and their backstabbing (see Clarke, Darren and Montgomerie, Colin) stayed deep beneath the surface.  It's almost like they all wanted to win or something...

Jamie Donaldson - I was expecting it to be Stephen Gallacher, but he was misused by McGinley and never had the chance, so it was the Welshman who provided this events "Where has this guy been hiding?" phenomenon.  He looked steely over every makeable putt, and that iron he stiffed to close it out was the perfect marriage of player and opportunity.

Rory and Justin - The only Euros to tee it up in all five sessions, Rose carried the day until Rory woke up.  Rose provided the best sustained level of play in the first three sessions, and his Friday morning fourball pyrotechnics with Stenson was so stunning that Bubba and Kooch didn't even get the license plate of the bus that hit them.

Compare and contrast to the performance of U.S. stalwarts Phil and Alas, Poor Furyk....'nuff said?

Through lunch on Saturday Rory was mostly MIA, though that end-of-business birdie with Sergio on Friday was amongst the most important single hole played over the three days.  But it was his defenestration of Rickie Fowler in singles that will be his legacy, as the ref should have stopped the fight on about the seventh hole.  

Patrick Reed - We've come down a long list of winners before getting to an American, consistent with the lopsided nature of the result.  I usually lean towards the calmer approach, especially in away games, but there's little doubt that the U.S. needs a bit of starch, and Mr. Top Five was about the only example to be found.

Here's no better source than Monty on Reed:

“Patrick Reed, I think, is brilliant,” Montgomerie said during his NBC stint at the Ryder Cup on Sunday. “America needed 12 of these guys. If there were 12 Patrick Reeds on this team you wouldn’t be down 10-6, I can assure you. I think he’s fantastic, I really do.”

No doubt that's true, but let's remember that he backed it up with some really good play.  

Graeme McDowell - Solidified his rep as a big-game player with a great comeback in the opening match.  Likely he's at the top of the list for Captain's picks in 2016 if his play doesn't qualify automatically, and his pairing with Dubuisson in foursomes was formidable.  But his game is tailor-made for foursomes, and kudos to McGinley for going his homework.

Victor Dubuisson - I have zero clue as to how this guy's career is going to evolve, but I know that it's going to be a fun ride.  The camera just loves him, and he seems to have a big-time game. 

Employee No. 2 - A shout-out to the bride is called for, and not just because today is our anniversary.  First, she was a great sport about my turning our living room into my Ryder Cup mancave, as well as the significant time-shifting needed for your humble blogger to see all of the event.

Second, a great call on the marquee singles match-up.  When I noted at the close of business Saturday that we at least had the Fowler-Rory match to amuse us, she immediately responded that it would be a Rory walkover.  

Lastly, make of this what you will.  In watching the enigmatic Dubuisson she concluded that he's a man that doesn't like being touched.  I have no clue where to go with that one, so you're on your own...

The only other Americans that could conceivably be considered winners are Jimmy Walker and Matt Kuchar.  Now the fun part...

Losers:

Rickie Fowler - I expected far more from Rickie, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.  I don't think he

was served well by being thrown out there in all five sessions, but for the U.S. to have had a chance on Sunday he needed to at least put up a fight against Rory.

The Bubbameister - Oy vey, where does one start?  Let's remember that Webb was only on the team because he was reputed to be the Bubba-whisperer....and how did that work out?  He did play better on Friday with Kooch, but he sure mailed it in on Sunday.

I remember watching him rile up the crowd at Medinah as Luke Donald stood placidly in the background, and knowing instinctively how the match would turn out.  I had the same reaction when I saw the Kaymer pairing, and the German hadn't even played particularly well 'till then.  It's not helpful that one of our premiere players is a delicate flower, but pace Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the Bubba you have.

Tom Watson - More on this later, but I was never convinced that the notoriously strong-willed Watson would be a great fit with this generation of entitled players, and he doesn't seem to have made much attempt to bridge that generational gap.  That said, he had the weaker hand form day-one, and I don't think a five=point drubbing is the result of a failure to communicate.

Jordan Spieth - Through about eight holes on Sunday he was one of the few heroes, but ended his week as the poster child for the American's inability to close.  I don't want to overstate this, as he's far

too young to be pigeon-holed as one of those guys that becomes a gazillionaire through an endless series of top-fives.  That said, he's shown a troubling inability to get to the clubhouse and I'll feel better about him being a future Ryder Cup stalwart when he gets over that hurdle.

Keegan Bradley - With apologies to my dear friend Glenn, who loves the guy, but is there a more overrated player on the planet?  To me he's the example of a guy with the fire who doesn't back it up.  I didn't like his pairing against Rory in 2012, especially when Rory arrived late, but can someone please explain what happened yesterday.  When Jamie Donaldson rolls you, that should be a wake-up call...  

Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood -  Not sure they're correctly characterized, as while I think this is the end of their Ryder Cup careers they went out with a win.  Westwood played reasonably well with Jamie Donaldson, especially in alternate shot, though didn't make much of a showing Sunday.

Poulter played embarrassingly badly, missing more short putts (and missing them badly) in three days than in his whole career.  He took Stephen Gallacher down with him on Friday, and only a softball pairing against Webb Simpson in the C-Flight allowed him to escape with an unblemished Ryder Cup singles record.  And he'll always have Paris Medinah...

More later on Phil and Watson...