It is upon us.
A long-awaited (three years !!!) cup is finally here, and with it, comes a rundown of all the storylines and speculative predictions you need to know before sitting down to watch it.
Previewing an event as complex as the Ryder Cup isn’t easy, but I’ll do my best to break it down for the avid and casual viewer. In an attempt to do this, I’ll start with the most straightforward aspects of the event, and the more involved parts I’ll work up to for the nerdiest amongst you.
The course
Whistling Straits, Kohler, WI. Many of you will remember watching Jason Day bring Whistling to its knees at the 2015 PGA. Some of you might not want reminding that four of the USA’s current team (Spieth, Koepka, Johnson, Finau) finished in the top-10 that week.
Aside from that, warm, sunny, and low scoring might be how you recall that event, but I expect we will see a slightly different course this time around. The US have got lucky with the last two home Ryder Cups in terms of weather. Medinah (Chicago) and Hazeltine (Minneapolis) complete a north midwestern triangle with Whistling which is clearly an ideal area for hosting the event, but not exactly a holiday destination in late September for the weather. For context for those outside the US, two of these courses are further north than Toronto, and they don’t call Canada the great white north for nothing. The long-range forecast looks good, but don’t be shocked if the course is a lot softer and greener than last time we saw it on our screens. I’ll get back to why it might impact the match in a little bit.
For those fans that watched Stricker’s captain’s picks press conference, you will have noticed how often he referred to ‘course fit’. We can loosely define this as what aspects of the game a certain golf course rewards, e.g driving distance or putting in particular. This will become an increasingly common theme in coming Ryder Cups, and you could argue the 2018 Paris edition was a watershed moment for this. Whistling is an extreme example of a course rewarding a specific type of golf, so I’m expecting course fit to play a large part in dictating this Ryder Cup, from pairings right the way to the final result. I believe that’s one of the reasons the PGA of America chose this as a host venue, and I also believe it hugely influenced Stricker’s picks as it influenced Bjorn’s picks for the 2018 Ryder Cup. You can check out more for yourself here.
Whistling rewards driving distance, around the green and approach play in that order when compared with an average (tour level setup) course. In fact, it rewarded driving distance more than any other course played in 2015, and driving accuracy was almost irrelevant. If that’s not resonated with you as a decisive factor for this Ryder Cup, I strongly suggest you go and read that sentence again. This course will be set up long. Really long. I’m willing to go as far as say that if it’s not set up long, the USA leadership group either has no intention of winning or no indication of how to. Sure they could still win if they don’t stretch the tees back, but it’s too big an opportunity for them to pass up. Americans will also probably claim that it will be fair payback for how penal Le Golf National was set up to favour the Europeans, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Regardless, the message should be clear, this course favours players who hit the long ball. The further they stretch it out, the more severe this bias will become.
Back to the weather. The stats for the course fit are based on tournaments played there. As I mentioned at earlier, this time of year it could well be softer, greener and colder, meaning the course will play that much longer. They can stretch it out to 7,790 yards, and if the Lake Michigan mist rolls in, it’ll be playing every inch of that if not more. If I was the Europeans, I’d be praying the course stays as firm as possible so players who hit the fairway are rewarded with an extra 20-30 yards, and those that miss get caught up in the sand.
The average driving distance for the American team this year is 305.2 compared with the European team’s 300.9. This might not sound like a huge amount, but it makes a difference. The USA only have one player below tour average driving distance; that happens to be Morikawa, the best iron player in the world, whereas Europe have four. Add in that
A) USA’s longer players will have more licence to send it on a course that has no consequences for missing the fairway,
B) That Europe’s stats are largely carried by Rory (319 !), Rahm (309), and Sergio (309), and it starts to become more apparent that taking into account all twelve players over the course of all three days, this advantage will start to add up. This will serve as plenty incentive enough for team USA to set the course up as long as they see fit.
Looking back to the scene of the USA’s last successful Ryder Cup can give us some final insight into how we’re expecting the course to look a week from now. Hazeltine 2016 was a complete birdie fest. The rough was mown down and the pins were set in the middle of as many greens as they can get away with. Anticipate a very similar look this year. The easiest way for the US to press home their advantage is to have the course play as close to a PGA tour venue as they can; hit it long to put as many wedges in your hand as possible, put the pins in accessible areas to maximise the advantage of hitting a wedge. It’s that simple for them. Not only will this suit most of their games, but the more birdies you make, the more crowd noise you generate, which is a massive advantage in itself. Anyone who watched the Solheim saw how good a job the European’s did at keeping the crowd quiet, but that might not be so easy for this men’s side on this golf course.
Outcome
The all-important question; who’s going to be lifting the cup come Sunday night? Let’s take a look at some factors before peering into our crystal ball and trying to answer that.
As has probably become clear, the US are favourites. For good reason too. We can debate what the strongest side ever assembled has been, but what matters is the disparity between the two sides. This year the average US player strokes gained total over the last 12 months is +1.71, the average European is +1.26. [DG]
To add some context to this, to be a top-5 player in the world, you generally have to be over 1.9 shots better per round over the course of a year than tour average. This means that gap of 0.45 between the teams is substantial. Add in the course fit model for Whistling Straits from DG, and the adjusted figures are +1.91 for the US and +1.36 for Europe. That 0.55 gap between the teams is humongous and is why on paper, this should be a thumping.
The case for the US
Aside from the obvious; home-court advantage, covid meaning the crowd will be light on European spectators, and the significant skill gap between the two sides outlined above, there’s even more reason to like the US’ chances this year.
One of those reasons is captain Steve Stricker. It’s no secret team US have had many a bad experience with captains this century, perhaps most notably with Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson’s now-infamous roasting of him at the post-match ceremony in 2014. There are, however, some points that Mickelson mentioned in that press conference that reflect positively for team US’ chances this time around. To paraphrase “There were some things Azinger did to allow us to play our best golf … he got everyone invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were, who was going to be in their pod ..”. He’s, of course, referring to Azinger’s successful captaincy in 2008.
If I was a US fan, I’d like to highlight the similarities between what Phil was describing and what Stricker has been doing the last few months. Stricker hosted a dinner the week before the Tour Championship, where he asked the six auto qualifiers for their opinion on who should fill the remaining six spots, adding “I want everybody to be all in on who these six picks are going to be”. Sound familiar?
This might also be another big reason as to why Patrick Reed didn’t make the team, given he decided to blowtorch half the team for not carrying him to a Ryder Cup win in 2018.
Another thing that Stricker is doing so well is paying attention to the other side. Europe overturned the odds in Paris in 2018 against a much stronger US side, and they did so using as much data as they could get their hands on. In fact, once you take a look at the approach Europe had going into the week, it looks less and less like an upset. Similar to what I’ve highlighted above, Europe exploited the extreme course fit of Le Golf National in 2018 and chose the straightest hitters they could find for a golf course that severely penalised missed fairways. They went a step further by choosing foursomes pairings based on who’s strengths suited specific shots on the course. This might seem intuitive to many, but allowing the best in the world to measure rather than guess turns these decisions from subjective to objective. You can read more about how Europe did this in 2018 here.
Again, paraphrasing “We’re looking for the best players to perform here at Whistling Straits … these six guys that we picked, we feel like fit Whistling straits to a T .. “ . These were the first words that came out of Stricker’s mouth after announcing his picks, and he went on to mention course fit numerous more times. I really believe this is going to become more and more common in Ryder Cups to come if the home team maintains a lot of control over venue choice and setup. This is why Kevin Kisner and Kevin Na were never serious considerations, despite what golf twitter might have you believe, they simply don’t fit Whistling well enough. Horses for courses, and the US have plenty of horses this year.
Stricker has clearly done his homework and looks to be learning from the best. If the US team turns up on Friday looking like a well-oiled machine, it won’t be a coincidence.
The case for Europe
So, you’re underdogs. What now?
Even with all I’ve mentioned above, Europe do still have a chance. It’s slim, but it exists. Unfortunately, in my view, their chances still depend on the US. The most likely scenario that sees the Europeans lift the cup on Sunday evening, is a complete disintegration of the opposition locker room. It might be a cliché, but Europe now more than ever needs the US to implode in a fireball of egos.
The Bryson and Brooks issue
This is the glaring road bump for Stricker and his team to overcome. These two have had a well-documented spat for some time now so I’m sure we don’t need to dive into that here. The question is how will Stricker approach this prickly subject, and how the two individuals highlighted will respond. Not only this but each of these has had their own small controversies in the last week. Bryson has gone on record stating he’s wrecked his hands preparing for the long drive world championship that will take place just one (1!) day after the Ryder Cup finishes.
Brooks in a recent interview described the event as a “tough week”, going on to say:
“I don’t want to say it’s a bad week. We’re just so individualized … It’s the opposite of what happens during a major week”.
Yikes.
Given his overt love for the majors, I can’t see that as particularly high praise. This prompted Paul Azinger to say “If he doesn’t love it, he should relinquish his spot and get people there who do love the Ryder Cup”. I’m not sure you want to be in the position of having one of your best captains in recent years telling one of your current stars they should sit this one out.
These are small red flags that might snowball into something bigger, but only time will tell. I’d be a little worried as a US fan for sure.
The silver linings
They might be small victories, but Europe can also take stock in the fact that some of the US’ biggest names haven’t exactly been firing on all cylinders recently.
Brookes Koepka notably pulled out of the Tour Championship through three rounds after struggling to stay healthy all year.
Collin Morikawa has had a season to remember picking up two majors, but perhaps an end of season to forget after reportedly struggled with his back since coming back from Japan for the Olympics. This minor slump perhaps highlighted by the second worse gross score at the Tour Championship ahead of only Joaquin Niemann two weeks ago.
Dustin Johnson already has a sub-par Ryder Cup record for how talented a player he is, couple that with his seriously under-talked-about brawl with Brooks at the 2018 Ryder Cup and there are some cracks showing in the American camp.
These are storylines that might amount to nothing, but if Europe do win, you can be sure that these will probably be brought up in the post mortem.
The flip side of this is that for each player showing some alarming signs before the event, they have another world class star to take their place if needs be. This is a luxury that Europe doesn’t possess.
My take
If it seems like most of the analysis (if you’ll let me call it that) has been based on the US side, it’s because that’s where I think the fate of this match lies. It’s their prerogative to go out and grab this match by the scruff of their neck, and if they lose, that will probably be on them too.
They have an overwhelmingly better team by the numbers, and they fit the course like a glove. In addition, they have something they haven’t had every year; a competent leadership group. Stricker has experience leading at the President’s Cup, and is saying and doing all the right things ahead of the actual match. Finally, outside looking in, this seems to be a pretty good team environment (by US standards). Gone are the days of Tiger and Phil as the figure heads of the Americans. In fact, this will be the first Ryder Cup without one of those players since 1993. They’ve been replaced with (arguably) Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, that’s the image we’re being sold of the new age of American golf. It’s glaringly obvious the difference this duo presents to Tiger and Phil. Childhood friends that holiday together when taking time away from the tour vs two legends of the game that resented each other during their primes. I know which I’d rather have as my go to guys.
In spite of what is mentioned above, I do really believe that 10/12 of those guys have fully bought into the ethos of being a team and we could see a more unified American side than we have in a long time. The old adage of Europe being a better team might not be all that true this time, and even if it is, I’m not sure it would be enough to save them.
Of course, there is a scenario in which the Americans do everything right and still come up short. This is golf, there’s absolutely a chance the Europeans outplay their counterparts. I just don’t think it’s more likely than the US blowing up in their own faces and handing over the cup to Europe. That’s how favoured this US side is, they just have to make it over the line in one piece.
If Europe are to win, they’ll need their best (and best course suited) players to play often and well. This means Rahm, Rory, Hovland and Casey forming the nucleus of the side, playing 4 times minimum and returning 3 points from all their games. If they’re playing well in practice, you can add Sergio, Hatton or Fleetwood to this list potentially. But if two of the first four names I mentioned misfires for the three days, I can’t see this being close. Obviously I’d be more than happy to end up with egg on face should Europe pull off what I would consider a serious upset.
European fans might be wanting to see a repeat of Medinah 2012, but I’d be warning them to prepare for another Hazeltine 2016. I’d be putting my money on the US every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
Bonus: Pairings
For the keenest readers amongst you, you might now be wondering who we might be seeing paired up come Friday and Saturday. I won’t be able to cover every player, but maybe provide some insight into some likely pairings.
Pairings come together because of great chemistry, they compliment each other’s games, or some combination of the two. Common wisdom dictates you pair similar games for foursomes and different games for fourballs. This logic can fall apart on extreme courses like Whistling or Le Golf National when one set of the shots requires a specific skill set, and the course rewards an extreme type of game. When this happens it makes sense to do the opposite of the conventional wisdom. This is what I’m anticipating to happen this year; there are five holes north of 490 yards on the even tee shots, and three of the par 3s on the odds. As I discussed, Whistling will seriously reward distance, and those lacking might not be able to keep up playing their own ball in fourballs. One thing for sure, with a combined nine rookies showing up, we’ll definitely be seeing some new combinations.
USA
Counter to that, the most obvious pairing to show is Spieth/Thomas for the Americans. They played all four sessions together in Paris and turned out three points from those. This pairing makes sense on all levels and given their record, we can expect to see this pairing at least twice and as many as all four times again. They can play either format and play either tee shots given the similarity of their games, but if they do play foursomes, expect Thomas to take the odd tee shots so he can hit more approaches and give Spieth more putts.
Given the depth the US has, they can afford to not play any player five times if Stricker wants to keep them as fresh as possible, but we’ll have to see how that plays out.
Rumours from the team practice are that Finau and Morikawa are testing each other’s balls. If this pairing comes together, expect to see them in foursomes with Finau hitting on the longer even holes. This also gives the best iron player on tour, Morikawa, as many irons as possible. Another option for this role to pair with Morikawa is Dustin Johnson. Needless to say, either pairing would be tough to beat. If Finau isn’t filling this role, he’s likely to be given Brooks as a partner as he’s one of the few that can match his game.
Even though he’s one of the best on the team, I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see Morikawa outside of foursomes or singles. He’s by far the worst fit for Whistling on the US team sheet, and he’s been struggling by his standards of late.
Two other options for Morikawa are Xander and Thomas. Thomas might be off limits with Spieth, but Xander & Morikawa is a potential pairing to see in foursomes. If Morikawa is put out in fourballs, expect him to play with an extremely steady player who’s a better fit for the course like Schauffele or Cantlay.
Likely to fill out the pod with Xander and Morikawa is Patrick Cantlay. Much is made of the pod system employed by the Americans; when it works, it’s the best innovation of any team, and when it doesn’t, it’s often put in the firing line. I personally don’t mind it, but it’s probably a good workaround to a problem you shouldn’t have (your team not being able to get along as an entire unit). You can add Daniel Berger to this group as well, they all have stellar iron play and will likely compliment each other well. Xander and Patrick fit the course better than the others, so expect to see them get more run outs.
Another interesting player to look at is Bryson (obviously). Given his length, he could be a huge asset to a foursome pairing, but given how extreme his game is, he could actually be too hard to pair. Not to mention his ‘unique’ personality. For these reasons I actually don’t think we’ll see Bryson play any foursomes matches. Fourball gives him free reign to go and play his own game, and maybe sitting out the foursomes sessions will give him time to continue his long drive prep. It’s less important who plays with Bryson in this format as they’ll likely be playing a completely different game, but some good candidates are anyone that doesn’t dislike him yet. Harris English is an option, Scottie Scheffler too, and maybe DJ (maybe they’ll bond over not liking Brooks?).
As you can see, there’s a bunch of different ways Stricker can go with his team, such is the depth of his side. To try and tie it up; I’d look for these pairings on Friday morning and then maybe some rotation into other match ups mentioned above based on form and outcome from day 1: Spieth/JT, Xander/Cantlay, Finau or DJ/Morikawa, Finau or DJ/English.
EUROPE
With fewer rookies and much less depth, in theory pairing the European side is a much easier task for Harrington.
The first thing to do is split this side into those that fit the course, and those that don’t. It’s not quite that black and white, but by far the worst fits on the European side are Westwood, Fitzpatrick and Poulter. Wiesberger is the fourth worst but not quite as poor a match as the others. For this reason I wouldn’t be surprised if none of these play in a fourball match.
Rahm, Rory and Fleetwood are the best matches on paper, with Lowry and Garcia rounding out the top 5.
This means the fourball session will likely consist of these five players, with three of next most in form joining them. Harrington will probably be conscious of workload as well, considering so much of Europe’s hopes rest on these top players. Casey, Hovland and Hatton are the most obvious candidates to fill the three remaining slots, and these eight can be put out in largely any pairings. If any of Poulter, Westwood or Fitzpatrick do play in the fourballs, expect to see them paired up with one of McIlroy, Rahm or Fleetwood to make up for their short comings. The most obvious of these is McIlroy and Poulter given their heroics at Medinah.
Foursomes are a little more unpredictable, but the likely scenario will see a great approach player matched up with a longer player, with the longer player going off the even holes. The strongest strokes gained approach players on team Europe over the last 6 months are Casey, Lowry, Rahm, Hovland and Wiesberger. If Harrington could send out Rahm on his own I’m sure he would, given he’s in the top four for every strokes gained category and by far the best player on either side.
Expect to see each of the above players vying to be paired with Rory or Sergio (Rahm and Casey could also fill in on the even holes with another partner given their length). McIlroy and Lowry makes sense as they reportedly enjoying teaming up at the Olympics. Another that makes sense is McIlroy and Hovland; their games fit together perfectly and Rory could play the senior role to Hovland as he did so successfully to Thomas Pieters in 2016.
Rahm and Lowry fit together well and will likely play a foursomes game together. Lowry has been the best approach player on the team over the last 3 months and Rahm has been the best putter in the same time span. Add in that Rahm has plenty of length to handle the even tee shots and this could be the best pairing Europe can produce. Hovland and Casey could fit this role with Rahm well as well, but not quite as nicely as Lowry does.
Some marquee pairings that could come out of these are: Rahm/Lowry, McIlroy/Hovland and Garcia/Casey. The first names in each pair can be shifted around if there’s better team chemistry in another pairing, but look for this combo of strength off the tee with the best approach players in the team.
If Wiesberger does play a foursomes match, I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t with either McIlroy, Garcia or Rahm. Unfortunately it’s likely that everyone will want to play with Rahm so it might be slim pickings for some. Casey or Hovland are probably fourth or fifth choice to match Bernd’s iron game.
A repeat pairing we could see from previous cups is McIlroy and Poulter in foursomes, it doesn’t make as much sense as some other combinations, but this might be a scenario where their good record together trumps how their games fit.
You’ve probably noticed that a lot of the same names are mentioned above and don’t cover the full team. This is the dilemma that Harrington will face; getting Westwood, Poulter and Fitzpatrick onto the course won’t be easy because of how poorly they fit the course, but that leaves little to no room to adjust to form within the week as well as ensuring everyone is rested enough to play singles come Sunday afternoon.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and I think it’ll be a case of Harrington very much playing it by ear as to where he can slot his weaker players in to give his flagship players a rest.
Appendix
Stats sheet below for those of you who want to view the data referenced above. [DataGolf].
Player | Strokes gained total (12 months) | Course fit adjustment | Course adjusted strokes gained |
---|---|---|---|
Patrick Cantlay | +2.11 | +0.2 | +2.31 |
Bryson Dechambeau | +1.97 | +0.51 | +2.48 |
Xander Schauffele | + 1.97 | +0.21 | +2.18 |
Dustin Johnson | +1.95 | +0.33 | +2.28 |
Justin Thomas | +1.86 | +0.25 | +2.11 |
Daniel Berger | +1.79 | +0.00 | +1.79 |
Jordan Spieth | +1.56 | +0.23 | +1.79 |
Brooks Koepka | +1.54 | +0.28 | +1.82 |
Tony Finau | +1.53 | +0.27 | +1.8 |
Scottie Scheffler | +1.43 | +0.17 | +1.6 |
Harris English | +1.39 | +0.09 | +1.48 |
Collin Morikawa | +1.36 | -0.11 | +1.25 |
Player | Strokes gained total (12 months) | Course fit adjustment | Course adjusted strokes gained |
---|---|---|---|
Jon Rahm | +2.62 | +0.25 | +2.87 |
Viktor Hovland | +1.78 | +0.06 | +1.84 |
Paul Casey | +1.64 | +0.09 | +1.73 |
Rory McIlroy | +1.59 | +0.37 | +1.96 |
Tyrrell Hatton | +1.47 | +0.09 | +1.56 |
Matt Fitzpatrick | +1.25 | -0.05 | +1.2 |
Sergio Garcia | +1.07 | +0.12 | +1.19 |
Shane Lowry | +1.04 | +0.11 | +1.15 |
Ian Poulter | +0.93 | -0.14 | +0.79 |
Tommy Fleetwood | +0.83 | +0.16 | +0.99 |
Lee Westwood | +0.46 | -0.08 | +0.38 |
Bernd Wiesberger | +0.45 | +0.02 | +0.47 |