Thursday, September 23, 2021

Ryder Cup Thursday

 Did you feel that?  That's the landing gears being engaged as we start our controlled decent...

Scenes From Kohler - We'll get to the quasi-serious stuff quickly enough, but did you catch yesterday's first tee scene?  We'll let Shack set the scene:

The evidence arrived early Wednesday at Whistling Straits. Grown men of varied European descent and ages, clad in $5000 uniforms and five years removed from hearing unimaginable taunting, put on foam cheeseheads and then went all Waste Management Open and threw them to the crowd.

Incontrovertible proof that the Europeans are worried about fan behavior.

They should be.

The first tee stunt proved mildly adorable when the initial foursome emerged from the tunnel. The giveaway became a transparent ploy when group two arrived, and by the final foursome turned up, the intent was clear.

Padraig Harrington deemed it a “lighthearted” show of respect, having received the Packers blessing to use green and yellow in Wednesday’s uniforms. But the message was clear: please don’t yell on our backswings or call our wives trashy tramps—and look, we’re wearing your team colors too!

(This just in Wisconsin fans: you cannot buy the Loro Piana $2775 windbreaker in green and yellow. I know, I know, it’s such a deal.)

I assume this pandering would have been cancelled had the Packers not won Monday night, but Shack's reference to the Wasted seems a best case scenario.  Shack at least brings a little healthy skepticism to bear, conspicuously absent from this Golf Digest header:


Ever since fans were allowed back at sporting events, there have been a number of not-so-great fan-player interactions that have grabbed plenty of headlines. With enough alcohol involved, we (unfortunately) expect more of the same this week at Whistling Straits, site of the Ryder Cup.

So far, though, that has not been the case, as the fine folks of Wisconsin have welcomed the European Team with open arms. Just ask Ian Poulter, arguably the most-hated European player of the last 15 years, who says the American fans have been "wishing him well."

Brilliant?  OK, grading on the curve isn't exactly a new thing, but do we think U.S. fans are now "on their side"?  

What they seem to be telling us now is that Midwestern Nice has its limitations, unless the Wisconsin version is more effective than the Minnesota Variant:

Regarding the libation-ingesting often associated with coarsening fan behavior, my informal, in disguise queries of on-site vendors to protect their lives, confirmed that beer sales will begin as soon as stands open.

This is odd since the last domestic Ryder Cup in 2016b was marred by selling beer at Hazeltine throughout the day. And that year we learned how coupling all day lubrication with only four groups on the course during Friday and Saturday sessions led to trouble. The otherwise kindly Minnesotans and other Americans took their buzzed ire at not getting to see much golf out on European Tour players and their loved ones. Rory McIlroy was especially targeted.

“They shouted stuff at him that you shouldn’t shout at anybody anywhere,” said Thomas Pieters, McIlroy’s partner in several matches. “Maybe that’s because they sell beer at 7 am and Americans can’t drink.”

The key bit to remember is in that middle 'graph, to wit, that on the first two days there are only four groups on the golf course, leaving folks bored and thirsty.  There are expressions of concern, most notably in this excerpt from the home-team captain, but no sense that a dollar in revenue would be forsaken to ensure the crowds remain under control:

It was a predictable perfect storm. The mostly-American crowds unleashed a mix of amped up patriotism and boorishness. Five years later the recipe for disaster is in place, albeit with what appears to be more seating sections and platforms set back enough where it’ll be tougher to harrass players.


Wisconsin’s native son and Team USA Captain is hoping the “very nice and courteous” “salt-of-the-earth” fans will be different.

“These fans have been pent up for a long time and they're going to come out and get behind their team,” said Steve Stricker. “It's going to be loud, and we expect it to be loud, but again, we ask for people not to cross that line and be respectful of both sides.”

Two last thoughts on this subject.  First, Geoff is correct that the terrain is quite different from Hazeltine, I just don't know how that will affect things:

Since then a pandemic has coarsened fan behavior across all of sport. In the case of Whistling Straits, we’ve gone from Hazeltine’s walk-in-the-park inland stroll to a gargantuan faux-dunescape set in the middle of nowhere and forcing spectators to work harder to root their team on.

What could go wrong?

There are spots on the course that fans can't get to, so perhaps that proves to be a positive.  The other piece of optimism that I can throw out is the premise that, if fans misbehave this week, that they'll have to take action in advance of Bethpage 2025.  Because Poults and the other Euros have to know that those fans won't be "wishing them well".

Dylan Dethier and Luke Kerr-Dineen team up to post scraps from their notebooks of dubious merit, though not so dubious that we won't grab a few bits.  Did anyone notice the man in black:

There’s one coach in all black

This week’s Ryder Cup forces upon coaches some unusual clothing identities: GOLF Top 100
Teacher Jeff Smith, the born-and-bred American coach to Viktor Hovland, is decked out in all European gear. Fellow Top 100 Teacher, Northern Irishman Justin Parsons, is head-to-toe in red, white and blue as part of Harris English’s support team.

There’s only one exception to the rule: Legendary coach Pete Cowen, who’s dressed in his signature black. Why? Because he’s helping players on multiple teams: Brooks Koepka on the U.S., along with Rory McIlory and Ian Poulter on the European side.

There's more of this than most realize, including Ricky Elliott, Koepka's looper, who's an Ulsterman as well.  Not quite as crazy as the Solheim Cup, where in the final singles match one caddie was literally sleeping with the enemy....

But this should amuse:

Course comparison

What’s Whistling Straits like? When the wind is up, it begins to resemble another Pete Dye course known for hosting big-time events.

“It kind of has a Kiawah-ish feel off the tee,” Xander Schauffele said. “A lot of blind spots where you’re kind of aiming at a gorse bush or aiming kind of left center of a bunker.”

There are similarities, though to me the more notable fact is the stark difference.  At Whistling Straits everything is a bunker, whereas at Kiawah nothing is a bunker.  Got it?  Any lingering confusion should be addressed to DJ....  Ah, good times!

About Those Pairings - The very same Dylan Dethier informs us that clarity approaches:

Team USA’s Ryder Cup pairings are becoming clearer at Whistling Straits

 

But these kids have their own spin on postmodernism, as the relevant bits in the article are conveyerd by embedding the author's tweets:

I'll admit that the DJ-Morikawa pairing seems to have come out of the blue....  And given that neither of them, despite their lofty accomplishments, has played very well in recent months, it's hard to expect too much.

Dylan pretty much agrees:

3. Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa

While these two have never paired up together — Morikawa hasn’t played on a U.S. Team, after all — they teamed up Tuesday and Wednesday and had back-to-back press conferences on Wednesday morning, too.

On paper, it seems like an interesting call to put Team USA’s two highest-ranked players together. But both Morikawa and Johnson enter this week in confusing form. Johnson has four top-10s mixed with two missed cuts in his last six starts and remains the second-ranked golfer in the world. Morikawa won the Open and finished T4 at the Olympics but tweaked his back and tweaked his swing and barely beat anybody in his last three starts.

At the 2018 Ryder Cup, Johnson played with Rickie Fowler and Brooks Koepka, going 1-3 in those matches. At the 2019 Presidents Cup, he played with Gary Woodland and Matt Kuchar, going 1-2 in those. He’ll have a new partner this time around.

Well, at the very least, DJ has all those positive vibes from Whistling Straits.... What?  Oh, well I'll at least suggest that he'll go all week without grounding his club in a bunker.  At least we have that going for us.

Shane Ryan devotes a column to a question pondered by many:

 The countdown starts in dramatic fashion:

11. Brooks Koepka

Ahem. Let’s move on.

Yeah, let's, although who Koepka will be paired with is it's own interesting question.  I'd have DJ as No. 11, but let's move on...

This one will take you by surpsie, though:

2. Justin Thomas

Here was something weird on Tuesday: Despite being listed in a foursome with Spieth, Thomas,
and Scheffler—which led to the obvious conclusion that Spieth-JT and DeChambeau-Scheffler is how this will play out—Bryson and Thomas actually split off and played alone. It seemed odd when we saw it on the course, but the JT-DeChambeau pairing actually makes a ton of sense. Thomas is great on approach shots, making it a feasible alternate-shot pairing, but even in four-ball he's shown that he can win with multiple partners. If he gets along with DeChambeau well enough, why not?

Interesting... more because I think Spieth shouldn't play foursomes, which would require another partner for JT.

And the winner is...

1. Scottie Scheffler

This seemed like a very good idea from Stricker when the Tuesday practice pairings emerged, and it looks better the more you look at it. It doesn't remotely work for alternate shot, but let's forget that momentarily and focus on four-ball. Scheffler is one of the most consistent players on tour, with only two missed cuts in his last 20 events and a slew of top-10 and top-20 finishes. He was sixth in birdie percentage in 2021, to DeChambeau's third, which makes for some serious ham-and-egg potential if they get hot, and ensures that they'll heap a ton of pressure on their opponents.

There's some concern with throwing Scheffler into the fire with such a polarizing figure in his first Ryder Cup, but he's temperamentally calm, he'll have the crowd behind him, and he seems, at least on the surface, up for it. Plus, as the lowest-ranked captain's pick, there's no sense of entitlement there; if his role is to play with Bryson, he's more likely to embrace it than anyone else. This simply works, and everyone seems to know it.

To me the first question is whether you're going to play Bryson in Foursomes.  I'm not over the moon at the concept, but Strick might feel the need to play him in that format one of the days just to spread the workload.

The other factor to keep in mind is that three of the Par-3's are odd-numbered holes, so would you want Bryson bombing six or eight drives?

Oddly, I am unable to find anything at the major golf sites speculating about Euro pairings.  Earlier in the week there was a bit about about Rory perhaps being paired with Viktor Hovland, though late I saw a piece about keeping Rory with the emotional old-timers, specifically Poults and Sergio.  It's an interesting call for Captain Padraig, as Rory is supposed to be the Euro's No. 2 stud.  He should be the guy taking newcomers under his wings, as opposed to needing Ian Poulter to babysit him.  Stay tuned.

But Eamon Lynch has an interesting bit of speculation:

Lynch: Staged Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau video proves U.S. Ryder Cup team lacking proper focus

Let me indulge Eamon by excerpting his argument, though it's fairly silly:

Compare that with a video tweeted by Team USA on Tuesday evening. It was a stylistic piece of
auteurism with enough staccato camerawork and upbeat music to feel like homage to the opening credits of Miami Vice. Its 27 seconds showed Brooks Koepka walking across the range at Whistling Straits to briefly chat with Bryson DeChambeau, and while its intended audience and goal was just as obvious as the Europeans, the result was much less successful.

The video had the slick look (and viscous aftertaste) of corporate pandering, the type of hollow virtue-signaling beloved by companies who like to tout values they don’t actually practice. What it delivered was all the authenticity and warmth of a hostage tape, and rather than put to bed the tired narrative about the Brooks-Bryson feud, it merely served to remind folks of its existence. All it lacked was Saddam Hussein’s buffoonish spokesman “Comical Ali” denying reality.

Nothing to see here!

No feud, we’re united under the flag.

Move along everyone!

OK.  I agree it's not especially convincing, but it would seem to me to fit into that category of necessary, though its sufficiency remains an open question.

The Euros have always been better at the social media game, perhaps because they haven't had their funny bones surgically removed.  The piece of Euro agitprop garnering the biggest reaction is the Thomas Bjorn tattoo,  but you can find that one on your own.  Padraig is all in on that disgusting promise, so let that be a challenge to the Americans to make sure that score goes the wrong direction.

But the reference in the lede to the above excerpt is this, which is quite good:

On Tuesday, Harrington released a video designed to reinforce both pride and purpose among his team by illustrating just how small their merry band is. Only 164 men have ever played Ryder
Cup for Europe, a total dwarfed by the number of people who have summited Everest (5,780) or been in space (570). Each player was given a number representing his position on that continuum. Lee Westwood, who debuted in 1997, is No. 118. Rory Mcllroy is No. 144. All the way up to Bernd Wiesberger, the last qualifier for Harrington’s squad, at No. 164.

“I’m very, very proud to have that number for life. Everybody is buzzing,” Wiesberger said. “The individual aspect of the game that we have, but this week we all come together as 12. Everybody has their number and nobody can ever take it from them.”

Harrington’s video garnered widespread attention, but its intended audience was 12: the guys in Europe’s team room. The captain found his target and achieved his mission: team-building.

Advantage: Europe, who have this scrappy underdog bit down pat.  Does it mean anything?  We're about to find out...

About That Golf Course - We haven't discussed the course much, except to note that it's a hard place to create a birdie-fest, the prevailing set-up preference since Medinah went bad.

Golf.com convenes a panel of course raters, and they pick they're favorite holes specifically for match-play:

What are one or two of the best holes at Whistling Straits, particularly as it pertains to
match play? Any that you’re especially keen to watch this week?

Lewis: The short par-3 12th and the short par-5 16th. Most matches don’t reach 18. Dye is so good at designing scary par-3s that are not necessarily wildly long (cue the tape of Sawgrass 17). The 12th here is an oddly shaped green that is really a few greens kind of strung together, each of them pretty small. You are going to have to execute here, no doubt about it. The 16th comes at such a pivotal time in most matches and is within the capacity of every player in the field to reach it after a reasonable drive. Great fun.

Both are significant but for different reasons.  The tee shot at No. 12 in foursomes will be played by the best iron players, since it's the one Par-3 not on odd-numbered holes.  No. 16 is the one place they can score on the homestretch, but birdies might not be sufficient, at least in fourballs.

Pelliccione: The opening tee shot will be extremely critical for the Europeans. How will they handle the noise and pressure of 40,000-plus fans screaming down their necks? As for the Americans, will they live up to the expectations as the favorites or will our hearts be torn out again? There really is no better scene in golf than the opening tee shot of a Ryder Cup. Looking down the list, the next hole that stands out and could be a deciding factor in a match is the par-4 15th. Measuring a whopping 518 yards, this hole requires raw power off the tee, which gives the Americans a huge advantage. Expect captain Steve Stricker to split up his bombers to exploit the Europeans weakness.

Messix: I agree with Jeff on the 12th hole. Given the size and shape of the green along with the huge teeing ground, the hole can be quite difficult or a total pushover. Even though it may not see many matches, the finisher is a terrific hole and exceptionally difficult. It is quite possible we could see the finisher won with a score higher than par in a foursomes match.

That's fun, but here's my fave:

Look, it's a ridiculous golf course and hard to embrace for being so over-the-top.  But I had always been led to believe that there was no definitive count, though apparently I was misinformed:

Ahead of the 2010 PGA Championship, Golf Digest’s Ron Whitten fashioned a curious device out of a lamp and the handle of a garden hoe. No, he hadn’t gone insane. Alongside caddie Bob Palm, Whitten used the contraption to count the bunkers Pete Dye had built at Whistling Straits.

Host of three PGA Championships in the 21st century, the Straits Course is as visually intimidating as golf gets. The player is overwhelmed by mounds, fescue, a lake that looks like an ocean, and probably a few bottles of Spotted Cow. Scariest of all, though, are the bunkers.

In 2010, Whitten and Palm, with their homemade machine, counted 967 bunkers at the Straits Course. Most of these will be out of play at this week’s Ryder Cup, functioning mainly as hazards for clumsy spectators. But a handful could have a real impact on the action.

Has anyone counted the rakes?  But Will Knights of the Fried Egg ranks the top ten bunkers, the surprise being that this one only gets the silver:

2. Giant short right of No. 17 – The most intimidating par 3 at Whistling Straits has plenty of terrifying bunkers, but the beauty of this elevated one just short of the green is that it’s in play for every pin. Right pins will be concealed by its high lip, and left pins are tough to convince yourself to attack, and the bailout is toward the bunker. No one wants to be in there with the Ryder Cup on the line.


To me it's reminiscent of Big Nellie at Portrush, though that one (recreated on their ne 7th hole) is mostly out of play.  But apparently there's a nastier one to be found on the shores of Lake Michigan:

1. Nose on No. 6 – In the latest edition of The Fried Egg Podcast, Andy Johnson compared the 6th green to a pair of glasses. That would make the central bunker the nose. Not much bigger than a clawfoot tub, this bunker separates two distinct sections of the putting surface. While the hole is potentially drivable, anyone who ends up in the bunker could face an impossible up-and-down. We’ll probably witness an eagle 2 at some point on the 6th, but we could also see a player concede the hole from off the green. Shout-out Phil Mickelson.

Yowser!  It looks so tiny that it might well play like a links pot bunker, in which one might not be able to play towards the pin.  This looks like it might lend itself to all sorts of strategic plays, at least in fourballs.

About That Weather - Shack had posted this update as of yesterday:


About perfect, though those morning sessions will start cold.  Given that they'll play foursomes in the morning, that to me promises to be perhaps the most interesting bits, when the guys have to recalibrate yardages for low temps and that heavy wind.  Not sure that plays to the U.S. strength, but I do think the foursomes are always the more interesting format.

I'll be back with more tomorrow morning, most notable the first session pairings.  

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)