Channeling Damon Runyon: The U.S. was simply too good

Had Damon Runyon been around to cover the 2021 Ryder Cup, he would have fallen back on one of his favorite axioms: The race is not always to the swift nor the contest to the strong…but that’s the way to bet.

Successor pundits to Runyon as well as those in charge of preparing the European team for 2023 will spend countless hours over the next few months in search of a vaccine capable of preventing a recurrence of the 19-9 slaughter that transpired this weekend at Whistling Straits.

More from Pro Golf Now

They’ll debate the impact of a virtual lack of European fans. They’ll ponder whether there are better methods of selecting team members. They’ll consider whether the course somehow gave the U.S. an unfair advantage. Some may even indict team captain Padraig Harrington for decisions such as benching Rory McIlroy Saturday afternoon.

They could all save themselves a lot of needless time, effort and angst by simply revisiting the Runyon axiom.

The Europeans didn’t lose because of lack of fan support, poor team selection, poor captain’s decisions, weather or for any other correctable reason. In this Ryder Cup, the obviously stronger team prevailed.

Don’t overthink it.

Anybody with golf sense doped this one out merely by comparing the team rosters. Eight members of the Official World Golf Ranking’s top 10 teed it up for the U.S. Of the 12-man American team, only Scottie Scheffler ranked outside the top 20.. and he was No. 21.

The Europeans had world No. 1 Jon Rahm…then Viktor Hovland down at 14. Eight of the dozen European team members ranked below Scheffler, the lowest-ranked American.

From last season’s FedEx Cup points list, the U.S. team counted Patrick Cantlay – the champion – plus eight other members of the final top 20. Only four Europeans – Rahm (2nd), Hovland (5th), Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia (tied for 14th) made that same top 20.

U.S. Captain Steve Stricker threw a half dozen former Major champions, four of them multiple Major winners and all since 2015, at the Europeans. Harrington countered with just four Major winners, only one of whom – Rory McIlroy – had more than one such title. And McIlroy hasn’t won any Majors since 2014.

In short, the 2020 Ryder Cup never doped out to be a fair fight. And it wasn’t. Every member of the U.S. team had a share in winning at least one point this week. Five members of the European team — Bernd Wiesberger, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Paul Casey, Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood — were skunked.

A deeper look into the statistical data only re-enforced the likely one-sided nature of the competition. In a piece in this space a week ago, I ran the numbers illustrating the American team’s superiority.

That data analysis found that the U.S. team collectively was clearly better than their European counterparts at all four of the major Strokes Gained components of play.

That included being about one-third of a standard deviation superior to the Europeans off the tee, about four-tenths of a standard deviation superior in their approach game, about one-quarter of a standard deviation superior around the greens, and nearly a half standard deviation better with putter in hand.

Granted, the European team had pockets of individual superiority. Rahm has the best overall game, he and Garcia are excellent off the tee, Ian Poulter is deadly anywhere near the green, and Paul Casey’s approach game can stand up with anyone’s.

But top to bottom and as a group, the superior depth of the American dozen was overwhelming. That was true before play began, it was true during the competition and it remains true now that the whole thing is over.

The final 19-9 result was not literally the most lopsided outcome in Ryder Cup history, but it didn’t miss by much. The Americans’ 19 points was the most by any winning side since the 28-point format was adopted. In 1975, the U.S. scored 21 out of a possible 32 points, amounting to 65.63 percent of the entire share.

Next. 2021 Ryder Cup: Five Stories from Friday Morning Foursomes. dark

At 19 points out of 28 in 2021, the U.S. share of the point pie was 67.86 percent. No team has claimed a larger share of available Cup points since 1967, when the 23.5-8.5 U.S. victory amounted to a 73.44 percent share.

If European team planners want to know how to improve their chances for 2023, Runyon would have had a tart, candid and accurate suggestion: Get better players.

Home/Ryder Cup

It’s simple: The U.S. was too good in 2021 Ryder Cup

By Bill Felber | Sep 26, 2021

More from Pro Golf Now