One more day of waiting, not helped in the slightest by being unable to play due to our heavy rains.... with a heavy thunderstorm last night, not sure it will be any different today.
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations - This seems premature at best:
Le Golf National to earn honor of best Ryder Cup venue of our time
Second place is two weeks in Philadelphia....
No doubt you'll be as surprised as I as to the author, but we should let him make his case:
Le Golf National will be the best Ryder Cup venue of our lifetimes.
To be clear, the Old Course at St. Andrews and a hundred other tournament venues arebetter works of golf architecture. Le Golf National, raved about by the Euros after they lowered the Ryder Cup venue bar for decades, is a fantastic arena for an event that traditionally overmatches the mediocre host venues.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the Ryder Cup rarely goes to the places that could play a subversive supporting role. Even with silly rough and excessive narrowness off the tee, Le Golf National will turn in that nuanced performance the Academy voters adore. It’ll pop in for key jokes and cruel hoaxes just often enough. Couple this venue with two stout teams, and the combination should take this Ryder Cup from classic status to how-will-we-ever-top-that.
It helps that it's Paris, but the fun of Geoff's piece is in the dishonor roll:
Granted, the venue bar in Europe is not high, with most of Europe’s modern-era Ryder Cup venues having been chosen for financial reasons and never for their architectural or spectating merit.
The Belfry was a 17-hole snoozefest with one weird drivable par 4, while The K Club, Celtic Manor and Gleneagles were blurs of soggy inland tedium that no one needs to revisit.
Geoff does make the excellent point that all of those artificial mounds make much sense given that for two days there are only four groups on the course at a time.
There was a related but in Alan Shipnuck's mailbag that fits here:
What is your favorite Ryder cup venue and why? Where would you like to see the Ryder Cup played in future years? #AskAlan -Mark (@cottonmc)
Honestly, the venue isn’t that big a deal. In stroke play the playing field is paramount, because each competitor is playing the course. In match play you’re just trying to beat the other, so as long as the venue has lots of built-in risk-reward it will do just fine. Of course I’d love to see a Ryder Cup on a classic, strategic links (St. Andrews!) or a non-stop stress-fest that pushes them to the breaking point (Kiawah redux!). But, blessedly, the Cup is the one big-time event at which we don’t have to invest too much emotion in the course, because it’s a secondary concern.
Both guys make an important point, that the linkage between architectural merit and a satisfying competition is, at best, imperfect. Can anyone say Bellerive?
But my greater concern is the U.S. Team's ability to adapt to the specific demands of this track.
Thanks For The Head Fake - Captain Furyk had this yesterday on that Tiger-Phil pairing:
The speculation began before Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were even selected ascaptain’s picks for the 2018 U.S. Ryder Cup team. Would we see the two legendary veterans team up for a match at Le Golf National? Probably not, according to U.S. captain Jim Furyk.
Facing reporters on Wednesday in his pre-Ryder Cup press conference, Furyk said a Tiger-Phil pairing this week was “probably not too likely,” but still left a door open to the possibility.
“I guess nothing’s out of the realm. They did play some golf yesterday. I think they both mentioned it would be a lot better pairing than it was in the past… You know, I won’t ever say it wouldn’t happen, but it’s probably not too likely.”
Talk about setting the bar low....
Amusingly, Golf Channel spent some time revisiting that infamous 2004 pairing, and it's even worse than I remembered. First, Hal Sutton's dogmatic insistence on the brilliance of his move is just scary, as most of us instinctively realize that making two guys that hated each other play together entailed certain risks.... And lest you be oblivious to that, watching them stay no less than twenty feet apart on the first tee might have affected someone less clueless....
But there were two additional Phil actions that week that I had lost down the memory hole. To wit:
- Phil practiced by himself off-site that Thursday, and;
- Phil switched from Titleist to Callaway equipment that very week.
As I have come to understand the world, thanks to Phil's patient explanation in September 2014, Americans cannot play well unless they are organized into pods. But Phil's off doing his own thing, so at least one pod will be short-handed.
How were his teammates supposed to feel about that new and untried equipment? Gee, it's hard to see why Ted Bishop thought they could use a stronger hand at the till... But this is the guy to whom we've handed the keys..... Of course, Sutton earns bonus points in taking a guy that didn't know his own equipment and making him play Tiger's higher-spinning ball.
Today In Fake Golf News - I know math is hard, but still.... First is this from Golf magazine:
All 11 of Tiger Woods’s Ryder Cup partnerships, ranked from best to worst
Countered by this from Golf Digest:
RYDER CUP 2018: A RANKING OF TIGER WOODS' 12 PREVIOUS RYDER CUP PARTNERS
Well, which is it, guys?
Interestingly, the guy in last place per the latter is the missing link in the former:
12: Paul AzingerRecord: 0-1-0
Summary: Although he'd garner acclaim as a winning Ryder Cup captain in 2008, in 2002 Paul Azinger probably shouldn't have been on the team. The final of two captain's picks by Curtis Strange, Azinger was just 22nd on the points list, 51st in the Official World Ranking, and nearly three years removed from his final PGA Tour win. Azinger and Woods lost, 1 down, to Darren Clarke and Thomas Bjorn in the opening match of the event, and Strange didn't partner them again. Sadly, we also never got to see who "The Podfather" Azinger would have put Woods with at Valhalla in 2008. Maybe this never-ending game of musical chairs could have been settled once and for all.
Golf Digest also reminds of the curious fact that Tigers early pairings seemed to be of the well-past-their-prime ilk, including Lehman, Calc and Duval, in addition to Zinger.
But this is crazy:
8: Phil MickelsonRecord: 0-2-0
Summary: You're probably saying, How is Mickelson not ranked the lowest? That pairing with Tiger was a complete disaster! But it really wasn't that bad. Wait, hear us out! Sure, Hal Sutton's move to pair his best two players backfired with two Friday losses at Oakland Hills in 2004, but both were close to strong European pairs (A 2-and-1 loss to Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington in four-ball and a 1-down loss to Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood in foursomes). And keep in mind that Mickelson had just switched to playing Callaway equipment. Had they played together at a different Ryder Cup, things could have been different! Who knows, maybe they would have become buddies a lot sooner, and we'd be watching the 10th anniversary of THE MATCH this Thanksgiving. That being said, pairing them again in Paris 14 years later would be a bold strategy.
On what planet is 0-1-0 worse than 0-2-0? But the more important point is that Genius Hal took his two best players and set them up to fail, so "It was close" doesn't compute...
Both agree on the best pairing, a guy who just happens to be featured this week. But the killer fact is that the best pairing only produced a 2-2 record, which is all we need to know.
Bob Harig covers this topic as well, including how it all began:
It started out well enough. At Woods' first Ryder Cup, at Valderrama in Spain in 1997, he was paired with buddy Mark O'Meara. It seemed the perfect team. Woods and O'Mearaknew each other well. They defeated Colin Montgomerieand Bernhard Langer 3 and 2 in fourball.
And it was the last time Woods had a winning record at the Ryder Cup.
He didn't win another match in Spain, and lost singles to Costantino Rocca in a 14½ to 13½ U.S. defeat. It was the last time he lost at singles, going 4-0-2 in his past six Ryder Cup final-day matches.
Harig goes in the expected direction, and who among us isn't curious as to the who and the how well this time around. But it's the small details that interest me, such as this from Calc:
This became a problem in the alternate-shot format (foursomes) because Woods' partner would then be required to play shots with an unfamiliar golf ball, one that was tailored to his skills.
"Tiger wasn't about to use his partner's ball,'' said Calcavecchia, who played one match with Woods and lost at the 2002 Ryder Cup. "I actually didn't think it would be a problem. The Nike ball he was using back then was made by Bridgestone and I was fine with that.
"But I remember a couple of instances where I hit iron shots in alternate shot and I flushed a shot and thought it was plenty of club and it would come up short. That ball he used all those years went nowhere. It spun a lot and went nowhere. It was hard for guys to get used to that in one match. I never understood why he didn't just use a Titleist, and it would be easier for his partner. Let's face it, Tiger could play anything. But sure, that had some influence on his partners.''
It was an issue, and most of us thought he was hurting himself with his equipment choices. But how about this from captain Curtis:
"He was tremendous on the team,'' 2002 captain Curtis Strange said. "He was the first in line to do anything. He was the first one to sign the memorabilia we had to sign, all 200 things we had to sign. He was terrific. And he was a great teammate. And after [playing for] me, he became a little more of a spokesman. Back then he led more by example and he was still young. But he has done it the last couple of times, and especially as an assistant captain. He was tremendous.''
Your first memory is that he was great at signing stuff? Curtis, you might be a tad confused as to priorities here....
Pairings, Schmairings - Shane Ryan has a thoughtful piece on a certain captain's toughest challenge:
Ryder Cup 2018: Jim Furyk's greatest challenge will be letting his stars down easy
He means by that, the act of sitting them down.... Shane's piece is far better than last night's Golf Channel discussion, in which they seemed to not recognize that different formats are used.
It's always seemed to me that, regardless of which format is played when, that pairings should be worked backwards from the foursomes pairings.... That's the unusual and unusually demanding format, and anyone that's not suited for fourball probably isn't on your team in the first place.
Shane premises his piece on the poor recent performances of Phil, Bubba, Reed and Jordan, though I do believe he overthinks things:
This puts the stress squarely on Furyk's shoulders. Assuming he's trying to avoid playinghis four coldest players in afternoon foursomes, it leaves two choices: He can either play Bubba, Phil, Spieth, and Reed in the morning, or sit them out for an entire day.
He can't sit them for an entire day. It's just not plausible, even if it's arguably the smarter move on paper. As such, you can expect to see all four golfers on Friday morning. Judging by the Tuesday practice groups, Furyk may be planning to break up the band and have Spieth and Reed play with different partners—it may be that Spieth doesn't want to play with him anymore, considering the "interesting" comments Reed has made this year, from the denied drop at Bay Hill ("I guess my name needs to be Jordan Spieth") to the trash talk at the WGC-Match Play ("my back still hurts" from carrying Spieth at the Ryder Cup), all of which preceded Reed beating a frustrated Spieth at that WGC. Or maybe they're completely fine. In any case, it's easy to imagine Furyk seeing the benefit in giving himself other options if the two aren't playing well on Friday morning.
Those four guys will all be in the lineup Friday morning, because it's fourballs. It's the most forgiving strategy, and all four can be birdie machines. Tony Finau is the other guy that needs to be out there.... I wasn't over the moon about that pick, but you don't pick him to sit in the format that best suits his game.
To me, this is the test of Fyryk's captaincy, does he have the authority and the cujones to manage the team as needed. Phil and Tiger should play three sessions, though I'm open to perhaps a fourth for Tiger. That's both a function of their age, but also the recognition that Phil isn't well-suited to alternate shot.
Tiger is a more complicated case, as it depends on whether you believe that the guy who hit all those fairways at East Lake will show up in Paris. If so, a pairing with Bryson in foursomes could work, with Tiger taking the even holes with the three one-shotters.
When it comes to the other three, Furyk's job gets tough. How do you manage those extremely large personalities? How do you disappoint them, in service of winning, and not risk a PR nightmare inside and outside the team room?
The answer comes down to personal management, of course, and there's no way for anyone besides Jim Furyk to know exactly what notes to sing. Yet it's an incredibly vital part of his job.
The Watson lesson I believe is misunderstood. He created his problem when he caved on Friday afternoon and played them in foursomes. The way you handle is to make sure each player understands their role, and don't surprise them. As to whether Captain Jim is up to that task, we'll know when we see the Friday afternoon pairings.
Others Musings - On the one hand, they forgot Zinger... But Golf Magazine had the good sense to allow Mike Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck to riff on the event, and they honed in like a laser on the important stuff:
ALAN SHIPNUCK: Michael, how should we begin?
MICHAEL BAMBERGER: How about a tough question first: How many assistant captains on the European team can you name?
SHIPNUCK: Well, let’s see. Harrington. Westwood. McDowell. Luke Donald…
BAMBERGER: That’s a murderer’s row right there when you think about it.
SHIPNUCK: If they were gonna play the assistants against the assistants, I like Europe’s chances for sure.
BAMBERGER: That’s how the tiebreaker works. Is that not accurate?
SHIPNUCK: That will be my next, slightly less controversial column.
As I said, the important stuff....
Alan had this on that Shane Ryan issue above:
SHIPNUCK: That’s a great point. And that’s where Tiger and Phil as de facto assistant captains really helps the U.S. side. Because given Tiger’s back and the fact that he must be emotionally exhausted after East Lake, and given Phil’s age and poor form coming in, I feel like they probably will each only play three matches. If the two greatest players of the last quarter century are okay sitting, how can Justin Thomas or anyone else complain about it? Europe has all these rookies so none of them have a claim on playing every match, though I would expect Rahm and Fleetwood will wind up doing so. It’s become a joke how many vice captains there are but a big part of their job is babysitting the players who get benched by keeping their spirits up and helping them practice and prepare for when it is their turn. So, you touched on Tiger and Phil. They loom so large in this Ryder Cup. This could easily be Phil’s final one as a player. For Tiger, this puts an exclamation point on his comeback. What are you expecting from them?
This is a bit long, but it's a good back-and-forth on Alan's famous column and the nature of the event:
BAMBERGER: Emotion is a big part of the Ryder Cup. Do you think the results are an aggregate of the talent or is there more to it than that?
SHIPNUCK: Take the Presidents Cup – it’s purely an aggregation of talent. The U.S. has significantly better players and they win by a significant margin, simple as that. For the first 50 or 60 years of the Ryder Cup, it was the same thing: The Americans were better players, they won every time, and that was that. And then this new generation came through: Seve, Faldo, Lyle, Langer, Woosnam. They had these studs who were not only Hall of Fame talents but the Ryder Cup was how they defined themselves. It was how the European golf community defined itself. And it was how the European Tour managed to stay afloat financially. It was how these players made their bones before the World Ranking had any currency, really. The Ryder Cup just became the be-all, end-all to that generation of European players, and fans, and writers. And because it meant so much to them there was this unexplainable alchemy, a magical process by which a David Gilford, or a Peter Baker, or a Iganacio Garrido somehow played the best golf of their life that week. And that helped always carry the day for Europe. Some of those U.S. teams that lost Ryder Cups in the 2000s and even up to 2014, top to bottom as measured by World Ranking points, number of tournament victories or any other metric, they were demonstrably stronger teams. But they just didn’t have that magic. They didn’t have that chemistry. Azinger talked about this a lot – the Euros have always had a natural pod system by nationality, with various guys bonded together because they came up together and shared a specific language and heritage. Now add all to this the fact that the old U.S. team were at a significant disadvantage structurally. Each American captain was this lone ranger who came in and did it his own way. There was no collaboration with his predecessor. There was no continuity. It took the Task Force to adopt the European model where you groom vice captains to become captains and from one administration to the next there’s a lot of communication and collaboration. That’s what Europe was doing for 30 years. So you take the chemistry between the players and the superior leadership and that’s how they were able to outperform the U.S. time after time. Now, the U.S. is no longer at a structural disadvantage. The young, chummy American players now travel together and hang out the way the guys on the European Tour always have. So the European Ryder Cup team’s built-in advantages have all been neutralized. And as we saw in 2016, the U.S. had better players. I think they have better players this year. And because they have the continuity and the structure now, I think they’re going to dominate in the short- and long-term.
BAMBERGER: Well, that is an extremely believable answer. That answer was so thorough you may have turned me around on this subject. I’ve always struggled with this idea of the Ryder Cup chemistry, because ultimately the ball is just sitting there and you have to play the shots and I don’t know how any pep talk trumps cold, hard skill. But Ignacio Garrido! I haven’t thought of that name in 20 years. And it’s true, there were times when Seve was leading him around the course by the shoulders and he seemed to force Garrido to do things he didn’t know he was capable of. It is an extremely interesting topic.
Good stuff!
It's upon us, but I have no clue as to whether I'll have the time and inclination for some interim blogging. It's a rather unforgiving schedule, and I expect that when I awake tomorrow morning I'll go straight to the DVR.
It should be epic.
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