For the first time in I-refuse-to-tell-you-how-many years, I was not at the U.S.-hosted playing of the Ryder Cup this past week at Bethpage Black. I had no interest in going to New York because I knew it could get rambunctious, to say the least. And I’d had it with the weather there.
The last two or three times at that venue, it was cold and rainy. One year, I went to the nearest mall and bought a raincoat. Because I had to. But who am I to talk? I’m dodging a hurricane this week.
At any rate, that meant I watched and listened to more of the televised coverage than ever, and I learned some surprising things about what the U.S. team needs to start doing from former PGA Tour and DP World Tour pros. Honestly, I’ve written about this until I was blue and thought the Task Force had figured out most of it. Alas, there has been little mention of a task force or any force whatsoever. Tom Watson must be chuckling somewhere.
However, I learned some new things from Paul McGinley, Sir Nick Faldo, Johnson Wagner, and even my co-host on The Golf Show 2.0, Gary Van Sickle.
McGinley had such good ideas that he should get hired to advise the U.S. Ryder Cup team, but I’m sure Europe wouldn’t allow it. If he did, he likely wouldn’t be allowed to return to Ireland, where the 2027 edition of this event is being held, by the way.
His most important message was that Europe has continuity from Cup to Cup. Everybody stands on the shoulders of the previous captain. That way, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time the Ryder Cup happens. They have a plan, a format, and they stick to it.
The U.S., by comparison, seems to change with the wind. Every captain must feel like he’s herding cats. Players must get mental whiplash. Perhaps they are as organized as Europe, but it doesn’t seem so. Europe, after all, is culturally rooted in tradition. The U.S. is about action.
According to McGinley, the first morning is so important that you do everything you can to win that morning session. You don’t have to win every point, but you have to gain the advantage. In fact, he later said that their goal is to win every session. And they work hard at it.
Faldo recounted the number of victories he had with partners in Ryder Cup. He was most successful with Ian Woosnam. That was a key, he noted.
McGinley said a similar thing in a different way, and it’s something I’ve never heard anyone say before. Worth noting. Worth copying.
He said the U.S. hadn’t found a good partner for Scottie Scheffler yet. He also admitted that Europe had struggled to find good partners for Rory McIlroy, but they finally did in Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry. McIlroy previously played with Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter, and Sergio Garcia, all now with LIV Golf.
This is so important to Europe that they actually focus on finding great partnerships. Their best ever was Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal, which is why Olazabal has the ear of the team. The duo went 11-2-2 in the Ryder Cup.
So, it’s apparent the U.S. has a partnership problem. Maybe that's because the U.S. has had more turnover in recent Cups compared to Europe.
Then, McGinley added another choice tidbit. He said that Europe has a lot of data on the first six holes and the front nine of each match for the first two days. It was important, he pointed out, for them to get a lead in the first six holes and certainly on the front nine every session.
Think about that for a minute. If the other side is ahead, you’re going to press a little bit and make mistakes and make more mistakes than you ordinarily would. Common sense, but do our teams seem to leave common sense at the door sometimes?
I can’t say they don’t have a plan because they don’t share that information. But every time is so different, it’s like a Pillsbury bake-off where every captain is trying to come up with a new best cake. If the cake that won was delicious, why not make it again? That’s what Europe does.
They review and fix. If something didn’t work quite the way they wanted it to, they all sit down and figure out how to make it better. They do that with everything. One presumes they leave egos at the door for this exercise. The result is each time they improve a little bit and a little bit more and a little bit more, and after a while, it’s darn hard to beat them.
They keep their captains around, and those men share intelligence with the new captains. This is just common sense. Sometimes in the past, the U.S. has done this. And for all I know, they do it every time, but every year is different and every team is different, and it just looks a little out of control. It may be that they just got waxed by better play. It happens.
They say they try to take care of the small things so that the big things fall into place. The sheets. The shampoo. That’s over-the-top detail as far as I’m concerned.
I would drive Luke Donald nuts if he goes to this extent. If I’m worried about shampoo, I bring my own and often have. I do not have travel sheets, but if I were worried about it, I would! Some athletes have certain mattresses. Why would it be different for golfers?
Then, there's course knowledge. It’s well-documented that one mistake the U.S. makes time after time is to pick courses that are as unfamiliar to U.S. teams as they are to Europe. So, we are at a disadvantage when we should have an advantage. I don’t know why this keeps happening, but somebody needs to have a think about that.
And speaking of the course, could they have rolled the greens? The green speed looked like it was from 1981 or something. Guys couldn't get the balls to the hole. There's something wrong with the setup when that keeps happening. American golfers like fast greens. These rolled at a glacial pace.
As I watched Cameron Young play Bethpage Black with what looked like fearlessness, I wondered if he had gone around with guys in practice. And maybe he did. He could give them the "don’t go here no matter what you do". Or "always hit it here on this hole". Or "this putt always breaks left or right no matter how it looks." That local knowledge thing that he’s sure to have.
Johnson Wagner shared his info every day on Golf Channel. It was like having a tour guide. Both of them were winners on the course and have to have some “inside information.” Maybe they shared it.
Then, my co-host for The Golf Show 2.0, Van Sickle, came up with a comment that he recalled from a Tiger Woods press conference. I’ve heard people say this before, but I didn't put two and two together the way Van Sickle did. I have to give him genius points for doing that.
Woods had complained about the amount of time that the Euros took on the greens during practice rounds, but as Van Sickle pointed out, it usually paid off because they killed us by making so many putts. Maybe all that study time on the greens was a good thing. Maybe Tiger Woods didn’t need to practice putting on the Ryder Cup greens, but maybe the rest of the team did.
Even this time around, the U.S. said that Euros outputted them. Hmmm.
Finally, and I know you’re glad for that, Wagner asked a couple of good questions on Golf Channel’s Live from The Ryder Cup. He wondered why no one asked Justin Leonard, famous for making that monster putt at Brookline, to be a captain. He wondered why Fred Couples, who had outstanding success heading up Presidents Cups, wasn’t ever asked to captain because he was obviously good at it.
I have some idea, but it seems like a shame that he wasn't considered. And Wagner wondered why Paul Azinger, who found success as a Ryder Cup captain in 2008 against Nick Faldo, wasn’t asked back. He said he just didn’t understand that.
“The U.S. Ryder Cup team is broken,” he said in conclusion.
Hard to argue with that, Johnson. Maybe the playbook for the fix is in Europe.