Team Europe will lavishly seize the opportunity and win the 2021 Ryder Cup

The 2021 Ryder Cup is finally upon us after waiting for an extra year to happen.

Team USA may have better players than Team Europe, but the Ryder Cup is a team game, and it just means more to Europe.

I take no pleasure in this prognostication. There are lots of reasons to pick Team USA. The crowd will be wildly in their favor. The Americans – man-for-man – are better players..

I’ve seen this movie before, though, and where past American sides have had weaknesses, this one seems to be ripe for a blowup.

Brooks Koepka is a jerk

Listen, I like Koepka. I have no doubts about his incredible talent. I’ve giggled along with his feud with Bryson DeChambeau.

But let’s be honest with each other — Koepka is perhaps the most unapologetically selfish player on Tour.

He cares about only winning majors — which in and of itself is fine — but he really doesn’t seem to care about the fans, his fellow competitors, or even the greater game of golf.

"“It’s tough,” Koepka said in an interview with Golf Digest. “There are times where I’m like, I won my match. I did my job. What do you want from me? I know how to take responsibility for the shots I hit every week. Now, somebody else hit a bad shot and left me in a bad spot, and I know this hole is a loss. That’s new, and you have to change the way you think about things. You go from an individual sport all the time to a team sport one week a year. It’s so far from my normal routine.”"

Notice how many “I,” “my,”  and “me” words there are in that statement? Does that sound like a guy you want as your alternate-shot partner? Is he going to pat you on the back to pick you up when you miss a putt to lose a hole?

From that comment, it doesn’t seem like he would.

Koepka withdrew from the FedEx Cup final at East Lake, citing a wrist injury just a few weeks ago. He followed it up with the above comments. Now he says he’s ready to go.

"“I’m feeling good,” he said to Golfweek. “Been doing my rehab, doing everything I need to do to be ready for the Cup. I’ll be there ready to play.”"

Do you know what Captain Stricker should have done with the automatically qualified Koepka?

Bench him.

Either Koepka didn’t really hurt himself and withdrew from the FedEx Cup finale because he was playing horribly, or he is hurt and shouldn’t chance to have to quit in the middle of the Ryder Cup.

Koepka is likely too selfish to let a spotlight as big as the Ryder Cup shine without him on the stage. My guess is that he’s already alienated some teammates with his comments. That’s not a great tone to set out of the gate.

The bottom line is this — Koepka clearly doesn’t care about winning the Ryder Cup. He disdains the playing format, the team concept and already has an existing beef with fellow teammate DeChambeau.

He should have surrendered his spot to someone that would gnaw off their own leg to play for Team USA. There are hundreds of those guys, and it’s a shame to waste this honor on someone who obviously doesn’t care about the event.

Who wants to play with Bryson DeChambeau in the Ryder Cup?

DeChambeau seems to have a good heart, and I really believe that. But rather than be the nerdy scientist, he desperately wants to be one of the cool kids. Whenever he tries to step into that persona, it goes badly.

One need look no further than his feud with Koepka. Both of them act like spoiled children, but only DeChambeau takes the heat for it.

The reason is that we expect Koepka to be like that. We expect DeChambeau to turn the other cheek. He didn’t, and it cost him a lot of fans.

If DeChambeau were just the happy, odd, awkward mathematician, people would respect and perhaps even embrace him. He’s not good at being popular. He’s not funny, a bit of a pouter, and the biggest oddball on Tour.

Just be you, Bryson, just be you.

The above illustrates part of the reason he will be a tricky pairing for anyone on Team USA.

I do believe DeChambeau cares about the Ryder Cup and wants to shine for the right reasons. That’s a lot more than his rival Koepka can say – or indeed, has said.

However, DeChambeau not only acts differently from the average Tour player, but he also plays differently. In team games like fourball and alternate shot,  DeChambeau is a wild card, and not the good kind.

Predictability and steady play are not hallmarks of DeChambeau’s game. He can be the best golfer in the world one day, and blast drives into Lake Michigan the next.

Bryson is a rollercoaster ride, where players like Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa are ideal, steady, even-tempered partnersride. I predict there will be moments of glory and doom in equal parts when he tees it up.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the feeling I have that the European fans will be merciless to him. And there will be a lot of Euros there, all knee-deep in Leinenkugels, I assure you.

If you hear one, “Brooksey,” there will be a million. Expect fans to yell numbers and equations every time he looks at his yardage book. And when he hits one halfway across the Great Lakes, and he will at some point, the European fans will jeer him every step of the way to the drop zone.

Too many Rookies

I touched on Cantlay and Morikawa. They both qualified as automatic Ryder Cup players. They also happen to be ideal players for the Ryder Cup as teammates and individuals.

Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Harris English, and Daniel Berger are all rookies chosen as captain’s picks. Each is a proven talent on the course, but that isn’t the issue, and that is because this isn’t a regular golf tournament.

The Ryder Cup is unlike any other golf event in the world. The patrons are more akin to a WWE wrestling crowd. Your opponent will literally fist pump you to your face when they win a hole. Large swaths of the crowds will cheer your foul shots, and 11 other guys are counting on you to thrive in this entirely foreign competitive landscape.

There is a reason Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter were two of the three captain’s picks for Team Europe. They have 15 Ryder Cup appearances between them. The other Captain’s pick was Shane Lowry, a rookie but a major winner and generally regarded as one of the most enjoyable and laid-back players on Tour.

Team Europe has exponentially more Ryder Cup experience than Team USA. Does that mean a guaranteed victory? No. But it sure tilts the odds in their favor when the chips are down, the crowds are screaming, and your entire team is watching you putt a 7-footer to halve a match.

Half the American side has never played in a Ryder Cup. That matters and Team Europe will turn up the heat on them whenever possible. One thing I’ll say for Patrick Reed, he knew how to match their aggression and energy.

These rookies need to let their hair down and show a little emotion if they want to get the crowd on their side quickly.

The Conditions suit Team Europe

A glance at the weather for the Ryder Cup weekend in Kohler, WI. shows possible rain, steady breeze in the teens, and cooler temps in the morning.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the weather at every course in the UK all summer long. Whistling Straits will feel and look very familiar to the Europeans. It’s built-in sand dunes, exposed to the elements — with nary a tree on many holes — and sits right on the water.

If you’ve been there, you know it’s the closest thing to a Scottish seaside links course in America until you get to Bandon Dunes.

While Whistling Straits isn’t a pure links course, it demands creative shot-making, great touch around the greens, and most certainly doesn’t reward a bomb-and-gouge strategy.

In other words, the Europeans could not have a better venue suited to their strengths.

It just means more to Team Europe

This element of importance is the hardest part to admit. Any close observer over the last few Ryder Cups would draw the same conclusion. At the same time, many American players really do care, but very few care as much as any member of Team Europe.

The Americans want to win, and they really try to win. It’s important to them. I know that.

But Europe NEEDS to win. It’s a deeper desire.

Being on the winning Ryder Cup team in Europe is close to winning a Major. It puts you among the immortals. Poulter and Westwood don’t have a Major win between them, but their Ryder Cup exploits have forever placed them in the pantheon of beloved European players.

Please don’t underestimate the drive of Team Europe to stick it to the Americans.

Don’t think for a minute there isn’t a chip on the shoulder of Team Europe that has something to do with the last century of geopolitics, but on a golf course, none of that matters. A man from a tiny village in Northern Ireland has just as much say as any American superstar in the biggest media market in the world.

Though they have dominated in the last quarter-century, Team Europe still feels like David battling Goliath. That mindset, on this course, at this time in history, paired with what any honest observer would call a deeper respect for the Ryder Cup, is why I believe Team Europe will triumph.

I’ll be cheering for Team USA, but I won’t kid myself about how important this event is to Team Europe. I’ve fallen into that trap before, thinking pure individual skill will carry the Cup.

That might have been the case 50 years ago. Not now. The US wants to win, and Europe needs it — that’ll be the difference. Until Team USA can harness some of that pride and patriotism for themselves, I expect Team Europe to remain dominant in the best event in golf.