Thursday, September 14, 2023

Thursday Threads - Ryder Cup Musing Edition

Don't know your experience, but I thought the PGA Tour off-season dragged.... Not as badly as the Aaron Rodgers era, of course, but glad to have it behind us...

Roman Holiday - Shack is just back from Rome, seemingly avoiding both teams' scouting trips.  Who knew golf wasn't in the lifeblood of the Eternal City?

After taking over almost 150,000 steps interrupted by gelato testings, I can report no sign whatsoever of the Italian people having an inkling of the biennial matches coming to their country. (Though there was an airport display and cheesy video dedicated to the Cup’s official wine). But Rome’s a big place and I’m sure the combatants will not be discouraged to know they will be a mere blip from September 29 to October 1. Besides, of more interest to those of us who will be watching and pulling for a lively contest between the United States and Europe, the matches have sold out and corporate sales have been a huge success. With big crowds, an ideal course routing for the Ryder Cup and a big time venue build-out, Marco Simone should create a sensational arena for the matches.

The sell-out no doubt due to the pre-bookings of all those Polish golf fans.... or something.  

Geoff seems to be channeling his inner Alan Shipnuck here:

I don’t believe I’m alone in feeling like the 2023 edition has seemed like a bit of a transitional year with familiar veterans now gone. But after seeing how the venue will work and seeing the teams getting there for early scouting, it’s starting to feel like a good, old-fashioned and over-analyzed Ryder Cup. Just the way we like it. Prego!

Yes, but the closer to the event we get, the more traditional it feels.  The statistically superior U.S. squad?  Check.  The top-heavy Euro team?  Check.  The smug, clubiness of the Americans?  Check.  The seemingly invincible American teams (think Spieth-Thomas and Cantlay-Schauffele)?  Check.   Sending Phil out in foursomes?  At least I've good news for you on that last one...

Geoff has some interesting course notes, though my biggest question is either not addressed or is behind Geoff's paywall:

  • The routing. Marco Simone’s sequencing keeps most of the key holes on an upper shelf of the property, with only the 3rd, 4th and 5th a bit removed from the action. Thanks to that trio sitting in a lower valley below the majority of upper holes, even that stretch can be seen pretty easily by spectators and other matches.
  • Drivable par 4s! The 11th and 16th should liven up the back nine and are guaranteed to play as long par 3s in the four-ball session. In foursomes the 16th could see some lay-ups depending on the state of the match. On the front nine, the 5th tee signage has been moved up from its 376 yards total to something just over 300. With water by the green and a nice bit of strategy created for the tee shot at 375 or so yards, the shift forward feels forced and I won’t be shocked if, after player feedback, it’s reversed. Besides, the 6th, at 383 uphill, pinches down in a way that might encourage a few players to muscle one close to the green.

Leaving them drivable sounds like an advantage to the Yanks, no?  

  • The design is very straightforward. Or, as the kids might say in full Tiger mode, it’s “all right in front of you.” The recent team practice rounds probably made this apparent to first-timers. I don’t see the players showing up there for the first time during Ryder Cup week and feeling as if they are at a great disadvantage. Learning Marco Simone will not pose an extreme cerebral challenge for Spieth, Cantlay and Schauffele to learn in a day or two. 

Straightforward?  That's not how "boring" is spelled. 

  • Scouting what? The newbies may even be glad they missed the practice since it was playing pretty soft and green. The course is made up primarily of cool season grasses and appeared to have been (wisely) nursed through a brutal stretch of heat in July and August. It’ll be in good shape for the matches. But last week Marco Simone was understandably soft, lush and slow.

Honestly, they coulda just sent the caddies.... 

  • Greens. A few key par 3 greens with severe undulations could play radically different by Ryder Cup time, depending on what Europe decides to do with green speeds. Will they go slow to favor their side less use to playing 13-and-up Stimping greens?

Don't be silly, they'll stimp at ten.  But nothing on fairway widths or depth of rough, then again we're still fifteen days out.

Old-World  Musings - Poor Rory has a sad on:

For Rory McIlroy, the Ryder Cup has always been about the bonds. The Northern Irishman spent the better part of 13 years, since his 2010 debut, forging them with a group of stalwarts who defined the European team: Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, and Graeme McDowell.

But that trio joined LIV Golf in 2022, along with fellow Europe team veterans Lee Westwood, Paul Casey and would-be captain in Rome, Henrik Stenson. As such, they were no longer a consideration for one of Luke Donald’s captain’s picks. At Marco Simone Golf Club outside Rome, where the Ryder Cup will be played Sept. 29-Oct. 1, the European side will be without any of the six for the first time in 26 years.

The four-time major winner played 16 of his 28 career matches with Poulter (6), McDowell (6) and Garcia (4). Now, he’ll work with a team that includes qualifiers Jon Rahm, Robert MacIntyre, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton and Matt Fitzpatrick, as well as wildcards Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood and rookies Ludvig Aberg, Nicolai Højgaard, and Sepp Straka.

Sergio's absence seems more of a feature than a bug, unless you want your greens damaged or are an expectoration fan.... More substantively, it's hard at this juncture to think any of those guys (Casey perhaps the lone exception) could make much of a contribution given their age and moribund games.

Then again, Rory himself didn't make a positive contribution at Whistling Straits, and it's hard to see the Euros staying close if that repeats.

We might see these two guys paired:

McIlroy at least has one very strong bond to start this new chapter with Europe: Irishman Lowry. The pair teamed up for a Friday fourball match at Whistling Straits in 2021. Lowry and McIlroy grew up playing golf together in Ireland and, despite their careers going in different trajectories for a while, are now inseparable living in the Jupiter, Fla. area. Their daughters attend the same school. McIlroy seems like he’d take a proverbial bullet for Lowry.

“Yeah, he's turned into one of my closest friends and I'd go so far to say Erica would take a bullet for Wendy, Shane’s wife, too,” McIlroy said. “We are all that close; it’s just like a little pod since they moved down to Jupiter. … Shane and I grew up together. We've grown closer together over the last sort of five years.”

And they're perhaps the two biggest question marks on that Euro team, more so even than the two youngsters.  This is the case for Shane:

Lowry loves the big moments, almost exclusively. His four DP World Tour wins and two PGA Tour titles are primarily prestigious events. There’s the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush, and a World Golf Championship-Bridgestone at Firestone. He won the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009, and the European circuit’s flagship event, the BMW PGA at Wentworth, last year.

Not sure of that "exclusively" bit, though I'm more focused on the absence of any recency to it all.   Shane has gotten prickly on that subject:

“I know there was a little bit about that last week,” Lowry said, before pausing for thought, on
Tuesday ahead of the BMW Championship at Wentworth. “I need to be careful here. It didn't sit very well with me, to be honest. Yes, my results have not been amazing this year. But I feel if you purely go down to statistics and go down to the 12 best players in Europe, I’m one of them. I feel like I deserve my place on the team.

“I didn't feel like I had to go out and prove anything to anyone last week,” he continued. “The Irish Open is important to me and a tournament I wanted to play well in. If I shut a few people up, so be it, but I wasn't trying to do that last week. I wasn't trying to finish third last week. I was trying to win last week. So last week was disappointing for me. This week is the same. I'm trying to win the tournament here this week. I know I deserve to be on that team, and I know I'll be good in Rome in a couple of weeks. I’m very excited for it.”

Well, he's certainly captured the zeitgeist.  Just like these crazy kids today, because he identifies as one of the top twelve Euro players, he feels entitled to the pick.  It's not all that different from the Justin Tomas pick... he was always going to be on this team, especially given the paucity of grizzled Euro veterans.  And, also like JT, he has the right friends..... but the pick comes with some serious pressure.  If he is to be paired with his BFF, it's hard to see them staying close without them putting a few points on the board.

This comes as little surprise:

He's the guy I most want to see....

While that might be the ultimate compliment Aberg has been paid, there was a lot more to be said about the Texas Tech graduate. He certainly didn’t disappoint McIlroy.

“He probably exceeded my expectations,” McIlroy said. “Everyone talks about what a great driver of the golf ball Ludvig is—and he is. The ball-striking is incredible. But I was really impressed with his wedge play and how he can control his trajectory with shorter clubs. I was on the bandwagon before. I’m certainly at the front of it now.”

And McIlroy has company. Sitting right beside him on that bandwagon is Rahm.

“When you're creating the kind of reaction Ludvig has, it's a good thing,” said the Masters champion. “Because clearly people see the potential you have. He's already played good enough to capture the attention of the best players in the world and the media. Coming from behind and making four birdies in a row and taking the lead to win the European Masters is not easy. So clearly he's showing it. He's got great potential. The only thing that matters is what's going on in his head. A lot of times as players we put a lot more pressure on ourselves than the media can put on us. I wouldn't quite know how to answer the question [how much of a risk his selection is], but he definitely has the talent to back it up.”

I come at it from a different perspective.  Aberg is simply good enough to be worth the risk, though it will be interesting to see how and how often Luke uses him.  But we assume by Bethpage he'll be solidly in the rota of Euro studs with Rahm and Viktor, no?  But, especially if Rome doesn't go well for them, they're staring down the barrel of the hardest road game ever at Bethpage.

New World Musings - It would almost have to be, no?

But how funny is this bit?

In 2021, when almost the entire U.S. team—players, caddies and captains—took a trip to Whistling Straits a few weeks before the Ryder Cup (only Brooks Koepka, nursing a wrist injury, missed out), the captains were asked to describe the purpose of that trip.

“They had us over a barrel in Paris because we didn’t have enough practice rounds,” Davis Love III, a vice captain, said at the time. “The other team knew the golf course way better. ... It’s important for us to gather local knowledge and pass it on to the guys who don’t have the intimate knowledge as guys like DJ.”

Let me see if I have this right.  The U.S. depended upon DJ's deep forensic knowledge of Whistling Straits?   Have you stopped laughing yet?  I mean, yowzer!  Next thing you'll tell me is that he actually read the rules sheet...

Johnson continued to emphasize the point in the smaller media huddle after the press conference
ended, and now, more than a year and a half later, he made good on his wish. This past weekend, nine members of the team—all but Jordan Spieth, who missed it for the impending birth of his child, and Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, who missed for personal reasons—traveled together to Rome with the captains to play the course and have some private moments as a group before the chaos of the Cup.

There were some hilarious moments that came from the gathering, including Scottie Scheffler dancing all over Justin Thomas' college football grief, Jim Furyk bringing back the Brookline shirt at the team dinner, and the sheer size of Stewart Cink's calves, but the bigger picture is that this was a critical strategic trip for the Americans.

Among the tangibles they discovered—that the rough is growing in thick, which is purportedly what Euro captain Luke Donald desires.
 
“The common sentiments that I heard on the golf course was they really liked it, which is awesome,” Johnson told the Associated Press. “And I knew they would because Marco Simone is very, very good. The rough was very thick. That was the other nugget that we talked about a lot.

I could have told you about the rough from my couch in New York, the question being whether Zach's IQ exceeds that of Jim Furyk, which admittedly is quite the low bar.

But your humble blogger is struck by the importance they place on team building, while simultaneously seeming unconcerned when key members of said team can't be bothered showing up.   Given Mr. Cantlay's dissatisfaction with his compensation, I'll be reminding folks of this should he not play well.

Sean Zak has six outstanding Ryder Cup issues, including a few that relate to the Americans.  First, there's only one guy in golf permitted to wear a mullet, and he isn't eligible for this cup:

Who will get a haircut?

This is more important than you think, given a good part of Europe’s roster insist on going hatless during this event. But early content from the team practice sessions in Rome show some ‘dos that I could certainly do without. And it makes me wonder if there are any adjustments in the works. Because the Ryder Cup is not too different from weddings. There are three-piece suits, gala gowns, a ceremony, the after-party, cigars, champagne — the list goes on. As a result, there are many, many photos. The kind that live on forever.

Brooks Koepka has clearly gone months without a haircut, and we’ll allow that mostly because he and his wife just welcomed newborn baby Crew to the world. I trust BK will trim the hedges before the massive photoshoot that is the Ryder Cup, if only for the reason that of the few podcasts Koepka has appeared on, one was with his barber. Brooks enjoys his hair.

And Brooks isn't the worst do out there:

Sam Burns gets less of a pass. It may not be a full-blown mullet that he’s rocking right now, but it’s certainly mullet-adjacent. And the truth is, we’ve already got enough mullet in pro golf. Here’s hoping Sammy gets it clipped neatly before arriving in Rome.

RBC and ADP must be so proud.

Perhaps his coif shouldn't be at the top of our concerns:

Will Brooks Koepka play well?

Speaking of Koepka, it is not outrageous to wonder how he’ll play. He made this American team on the back of performances in April and May. We’ll toss in his top 20 at the U.S. Open in June (at a course he didn’t prefer) for good measure. But ever since July started, there have been many more average rounds than great ones. The sample size of performances is small, to be clear, but August Koepka was decidedly worse than world-beating, April Koepka.

So, what does late-September Koepka look like? Probably still pretty good, I’d think. He calls LIV events “tune-ups” for the bigger tournaments, and coincidentally has a LIV event the week prior to the Ryder Cup in Chicago. If that doesn’t go well, we’ll have much more to talk about.

These guys aren't too weird, are they?  For instance, have you heard what Brooksie and Jenna named their spawn:

Brooks Koepka and his wife Jena Sims have officially welcomed their first child, Crew Sims Koepka. The couple took to their social media platforms on Thursday morning to announce the exciting news about their baby boy. “I love my Crew,” Koepka's post read.

I guess "posse" was already taken?

And this:

Why the tie-dye?

The uniforms Team USA has made public are, in a word, typical. They are very similar to uniforms of the past — there’s a hoodie, dark blue polos with big stripes and hats with dominant U.S.A. lettering. The white, knit sweater with red and blue bordering stripes has great potential. Especially if worn in a particularly baggy way by swashbuckling shot-maker Scottie Scheffler. (Say that five times fast.) But besides that, the uniforms leave plenty to be desired. And that vibe was only made worse when Zach Johnson debuted a tie-dye hat during his team’s initial visit to Marco Simone.

Ugh!

Lastly, we keep hearing that these guys are relentlessly focused on growing the game, for which we can only express our gratitude.  Simultaneously, we've been assured that a certain Netflix documentary has exposed millions of non-golfers to the PGA Tour, creating countless new golf fans.  So, naturally, one assumes that the most dramatic event in golf will create must-see content for the next season, right?  Right?  

Netflix cameras will be at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club later this month for the Ryder Cup, but the access will be significantly limited.

U.S. captain Zach Johnson told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the 12 American players unanimously decided to keep certain areas at the tournament in Italy off-limits for the “Full Swing” camera crew.

It’s unclear what areas of the tournament will be off-limits specifically, though Johnson said the U.S. team room would be one of them.

"It was one of those where we all gathered, I talked to every individual and laid out scenarios," Johnson said, via The Associated Press. "And they all felt like it was best to navigate that week of the tournament in a manner in which the sanctity and sacredness of Team USA is preserved. We're eliminating scenarios."

The key word being....

"Netflix is going to be there," PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said, via The Associated Press. "I would say all things involving the team we leave to the team and the captain. I think there's a sanctity to the team room, and the experience is important to them. It's part of being a team, right? Netflix has been great for the game. They're doing great things. The team collectively decided there are areas of privacy that need to be respected."

Ya got that?  These guys are far too precious for my taste, only willing to preen for the cameras when it suits their purpose.  I'm pretty much at a point where I'm prepared to respect the sanctity of the entire PGA Tour from a suitable distance.

The question it begs is what don't they want us to see?  If I were the Euros I'd be allowing those cameras full access, just to draw a sharp distinction....

I lied...just this one tweet: 

I find myself unable to take my eyes off Justine, and hope she plays well in Rome.

Have a great weekend and I'll see you Monday 

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