I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a brid egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg egg, fridagg bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off of the Hulp course. Welcome to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today's episode is presented by Optum. Optim is the leading information and technology enabled health services business dedicated to helping make health system work better for everyone. With more than two hundred and ten thousand people worldwide, optim delivers intelligent, integrated solutions that help modernize the health
system and improve our overall population health. Optim is part of United Healthcare Group and Optim is a proud partner of the Players Championship and Rory McElroy is an Optim Health Ambassador. Visit optim dot com to learn more. All right, we've got our Ryder Cup preview today, so we're doing five things about the Ryder Cup and we are joined by new Friday Golf staff member Kevin van Valkenberg. Kevin,
I'm excited to have on full time. He will be contributing a ton after a long career in sports journalism. He'll be contributing a ton to our written, video and podcast forms of content. So it's awesome to have Kevin on for this Ryder Cup preview. We will be doing our five things and excited to kind of break down the Ryder Cup. We've got it. It kicks off on Friday of next week. Beth Page Black, big sturdy golf course. I think we know what beth Page entails. It is
a course where distances is really rewarded. I think the setup will be an interesting conversation early in the week and we'll see what it entails. But I'm guessing that they're going to opt. If I was the US team, I'd opt for a little bit shorter rough just because the distance, I think advantage goes to Europe a little bit, and the shorter the rough you have, I think the better chance for shorter hitters who have to hit longer approaches out of said rough is So I would look
at that as kind of the setup key. It's pretty benign around the greens, so you know, I think that's one thing if you can get it up around the greens and you have a half decent short game. You're not going to get tested a ton around the greens. The test really comes around the length, the size and hitting shots up to elevated greens from long distances. So I'll be very curious how they set this golf course up.
And before we get to Kevin, one big thing that we had go on this week besides bringing Kevin on full time, as we had the release the pre order release of our new book. Our first ever golf book is Volume one. It is centered around golf courses. It combines our writing, our photography and graphics that Cameron hurd Us makes of holes and different things into a book and the theme of a volume one of our coffee table book is golf courses that shaped Friday Golf. So
we're turning ten in December this year. It's kind of crazy, but this is a collection of golf courses that personally shaped some of our key contributors with me and Garrett and as well as golf courses that were you know huge in the you know growth and you know evolution of Friday golf. So you've got golf courses such as short Akers, Uh, the probably the first great golf course
that I ever played in my life. And then you have golf courses like Lassnia and Sweetens Cove that had huge impacts early on in in Friday Golf Past Tempo Garrett rode up and Post Tiempo is one of the you know, first great golf courses he saw in his life. So it is is I'm really excited to release this book, and you can go online and uh, you know, I would urge you to do the pre order. It's going to deliver around Christmas time probably, I think early December
is when we have it slated to deliver. The pre order helps us out a ton because it just, you know, with books, you don't know how many to buy. So if you're if you're interested in this book, it's going to be a beautiful book. I'm really pleased with how the design turned out. Go on to proshop dot the fried egg dot com and pre order yours there. I can't wait for this to be out in the world. And thank you to everybody for all the support over the ten years. It's it's wild that we're we're at
the ten year mark. You know, I've been doing this now longer than any other thing in my life, So it's pretty cool and a lot of great courses visited and I really can't wait to do more volumes of this. We'll have volume two out next year as well. So collect these and you know, we'll we'll we'll keep making them. And thank you to everybody that's pre ordered it already this week. So thanks, and let's get to Kevin van Valkenberg and the Ryder Cup. All right, we're here the
forty fifth playing of the Ryder Cup. Uh. You know, it's been a it's been a home team game for the last few years, and I think I think this year there's some optimism as it's probably the best European team that we've seen playing away Ryder Cup in a long time. Uh. And for this five things A welcome on Frida Egg member Frida Egg Golf team member Kevin van Valkenberg. Kevin, welcome on.
Andy, what a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for the kind and generous introduction.
We're gonna be on site next week at the UH at the Ryder Cup in beth Page. We'll be uh, we'll be hammering, hammering the ground out there, uh, trying to pick up on all the scuttle but but let's get to our five things preview. Obviously, this is kind of the last big event of the year if you don't include the hero World Challenge. But this is uh,
this is kind of the last windfall. So obviously everything gets magnified when it's in New York because New Yorkers love to talk about how it's the biggest and best no matter what it is when it's there. Uh, this is uh, this is I. You know, I think it's going to be a long week of prep. But what's your first thing that you're looking forward to or your storyline to watch for this year's Ryder Cup.
Any do you think we are doing these in importance of least important to most important or just like random.
You get to go wherever you want, and usually I will weave mine into whatever you say. Okay, well, sometimes, as as astute guest point out, I usually will get more than five things in. But it's my podcast, and I get I get to play by my own rule.
This is true. This is true. Well, since it is your podcast, I wanted to start with something close to your heart. Chicago's face favorite golfer, Matt Fitzpatrick. I matter. Patrick's been a horrendous Ryder Cup player. I can vividly remember North watching Western alums favorite you know, excuse me, not Chicago's not fully claiming him because I heard, you know, like big parade in Chicago for him, like.
You know, it's all the spin off. Northwestern had this ad slogan years ago that they called Chicago's Big ten team, which obviously, you know, as as a graduate of the state school, that really chapped a lot of people's asses. You know, it's like the university, this small, little private school is Chicago's Big ten team, not the giant state university.
Sure certainly the snottiest journalism program in the country. Andy, you know this narrowly edging out Syracuse as the snottiest program in the country.
Syracuse alum producer PJ. You can't talk on this podcast is is cheering in the background as Syracuse was not labeled this is not viest.
Number two. All right, So Matpis Patrick. I can vividly remember the twenty sixteen Ryder Cup, my first Ryder Cup. I was walking around kind of late Thursday afternoon and Matthews Patrick had found a hole all by himself where he was just like pounding drivers, like over and over because he was trying to get away from the watchful eye of the hateful media. He was struggling big time. He was nervously, you know, trying to figure out driver.
His brother had written that letter basically calling out the ugly Americans, and all the pressure was on him, and he did not play well. He did not play well in Whistling. I think you can argue that he played just kind of okay, except for one match in Italy. I's one in seven in three Ryder Cups played. I think, you know, it was probably the last guy on the team basically to be one of Luke Donald's guys. I think you'd probably rather have Alex Norrin if you're Luke Donald.
And so I want to see, like, what does FITZI do. He's not exactly like the player that he was a couple of years ago. Is the results have kind of been not there. And I love it when somebody gets, you know, to be the sort of, you know, the guy that the American crowd really rags on, really feels like they can rattle. And I'm afraid that FITZI might be that dude.
I have not dove into all time Ryder Cup records, but he is one and seven on his career. Yeah, I mean it was like a landmark event in Rome that he won a point because he had not won, he had not contributed to anything even a half point to that date. I don't think he's going to play a lot, okay, but I will say I think he played quite well to earn a spot on the team. If you look through really the back really since the PGA, he's been one of the most consistent players in the world. Now,
pre PGA, he was very bad. He was in a bad place, And I do think like I think like we talk about traits a lot with Ryder Cup players. We talk about the Ryder Cup a ton, but at the end of the day, it's one week and it's three days of golf, and golf's like one of the most variable sports in the world. Some weeks you have it, some weeks you don't have it. And as I've thought about this more, I think, like you obviously have like skills that you can take advantage, especially especially in like
alternate shot with pairing players to amplify them. But at the end of the day, like what you kind of want is a team of guys that have like a high floor in the sense of this guy's really can assistant and I generally know what I get weekend week out. Yeah, And I think like Fitzy the back half of this year has been a very high floor guy. Now, did he win anything, did he have any landmark finishes? No, But if you go look at his results from from the PGA, it is just jam chalk full of top
ten finishes. And I think, like, I didn't expect to be making a case for mass Fitzpatrick, but I think that's what you want out of your your team, is you want guys that you generally know what you're going to get from him. And I'm curious. I'm curious to
see how much he plays. But if he has a bad if he has a bad ryder Cup, say he goes oh and three or oh and two, then that record it just becomes, you know, a music anecdote of Fitzy two is I was walking around at Whistlake Straits and it was the afternoon that JT chugged the beer beer.
Okay, was half chugged a beer. I mean, let's be honest, he didn't really chug it.
FITZI was like very pissed off about that sick. He was not playing.
Yeah, but he was very.
Upset, so just you know, an anecdote, like he does get fired up, but he was. He was kind of talking just out loud to whoever wanted to hear it, about about the absurdity of them chugging beer on the tee.
Nice. What a featherweight pillow fight that would be between the two of them. You know, I'm not sure we're topping out at three hundred pounds between the two of them. Yeah. Data Golf had Fitz. He fell to one hundred and fourth in their rankings in the world this year now all the way back up to eight. So you know, it's really trending in the right direct.
You know. I guess I'll go there with with my next one. I think the last I like to think about this as the last time the US hosted the Ryder Cup. You were there, right, I was.
Not there the last time I was. I was getting married that day. In fact. Yeah, so my wedding anniversary coming up again during this Ryder Cup. I was foolish enough to always have my wedding anniversary be on Ryder Cup weekend.
Valid excuse. I went with the Labor Day so it's a good you know, nothing really happens on Labor Day. The I think I always like to think about him in that kind of four year window, and I think one of the things is, like we left twenty twenty one, like is Europe dead? Is there any way this competition could go on? The US team was so stacked, and if you think about, like what the difference between this US team and twenty twenty one US team was. You had like DJ and Brooks at their peak of powers.
More Cow was like a standout player. Scotti Scheffler was the last guy on the team. But then all of a sudden in the Ryder Cup, you were like, oh my god, look at this guy. And really like you looked at the roster and you're like, Harris English is going to be gone, but like nobody else is going to be gone for a long time now, Harris English might be might be like the third best player on the US team.
I'm excited to hear that you thought Speith would be there as a generational guy that you're you know, you're confident that he'd just be a stalwart on Ryder Cup teams for years ago.
But you looked at the European team and you're like, who is going to be on this team? And old, Yeah, there were a lot of old guys. But then in particular Lowry, Fleetwood and Hatton were not necessarily lighting the world on fire. Hatton was kind of at the early stages of becoming a you know, world class player. Tommy fleet Will would was not the same self that he was at in France at a Golf National, he had taken a step back. Ye, Shane Lowry was a good
but very inconsistent player. Big shot Bob had not come on the scene. And at Rome you're kind of like, well, this guy he was, I think he was ranked like fiftieth in the world, fifty fifth in the world, one hundred and fortieth, and the Data Golf rankings at Rome and you're like, this guy's not a Ryder Cup player. And if you look at it now, you know, Tommy Fleetwood in the Data Golf rankings is third in the world,
six in the official World Golf rankings. He's been outside of probably Scotty, the most consistent player in the world this year. You look at Bob McIntyre and it's been astounding to see his progression. He's ninth in the world rankings twentieth and Data Golf, Like, you think about the market improvement of them over the years. They've added Ludwig Obert to this group, who's a world class player, you know,
Victor Hoveland and obviously More and Rory are constant. Shane Lowry, I think, has just become a more consistent world class player over this time. And Terrell Hatton has been you know, obviously he's obscured by live but he's been one of the best players in the world in twenty twenty twenty five.
So you start to look at it and it's like there's a huge improvement from guys that you did not know what they were going to be and don't like necessarily jump off the page because of other worldly traits as studs, the addition of a few young players, and all of a sudden, this team when you look at it on paper and we've never really I don't I can't remember any time in my life that we said this is pretty much a dead equal to the US team, yep,
And I think that's that's an amazing thing. Like we've never had one of these contested where you look at it on paper and you're like, these teams are equal, and that's where we're at that for this year.
I would argue two thousand and six, like Europeans, you know, maybe maybe two thousand and four that time, that the Europeans probably should have been favored, even if they weren't, those are probably better teams when you got like Chris Riley and you know, Steve Pate and Brett Watric and things of that nature on the US team, I think, but you're right like it. It's truly I think that
that would bring us andy to if I'm allowed. My next one that I had this item on the list is I think Rory continues to be the needle in this stuff and slapping the table in Italy a few years ago and saying we're gonna win in beth Page. Rory has been the Ryder Cup story of my golfing media lifetime. He was the story in sixteen, even though
they didn't win. He you know, shushing the crowd back and he's saying I can't hear you and then bowing after that eagle, and you know, he was the story two years later, you know, and he didn't play amazing in Paris, but he was sort of still the emotional lightning rod for that team, and you know he was bad and whistling. He would be the first sell. He didn't make a birdie an entire match in you know,
four ball, which is crazy. You know, he was crying afterwards, like of how much it meant to him to sort of go off first and be restore some pride. And
I think he beat Xander that day. I just think I'm so excited for him to like the opportunity to essentially flip the script in this like if you called your shot two years ago that you were going to win a Ryder Cup on foreign soil, and then you went out and did it because you played great, that would be an unbelievable like, you know, sort of Mark Messier being like, I guarantee we're gonna win the series.
And I know Pj's nodding at this as a Rangers guy, but that would mean, like I think, a lot to golf history. If that clip got played over and over and over again, we're gonna win a beth Page and then they did win in beth Page, like that would kind of cement Rory's Ryder Cup legacy for sure.
Yeah, he's been I would say a pretty good if you especially if you take whistling straights out of it, which I think he was just in a bad spot in his career. I mean that was he was basically like the fifteenth rank player in the world that week, which is like, that's about as low as he's been in sixteen seventeen years playing pro golf. If you take that out of it, he's been just such a good Ryder Cup player. Obviously he won the way one within Madina.
I think like the greater aspect of this is like when you zoom out and if they go on to win this Ryder Cup away, and you zoom out and you look at his year and you know, it's hard. Scotty Scheffler's been the best player in the world, but it's hard to say it's a better year than somebody
who goes and wins, you know, Pebble Beach. Of course, he hadn't won it at It's like you add your name to the list of people that have won a Pebble Beach in a signature event, he wins another player's, he wins the Masters and completes the Grand Slam, he wins the Irish Open, and then if he wins an away Ryder Cup. It's just it's a sensational year. And I know Scotty has won two majors, and I would probably still say that Scotty's year is better from the
sense of just pure golf. But in terms of of wins, stories.
Narra emotional wins, yeah, like emotional impact on the like the history of your career, like in the history of the game. I think I might take Rory, yes, like either of those. A Ryder Cup, I mean, just was the players even as like more impactful than Scotty's PGA win, like in some ways, you know, I mean I could make the argument that it was like certainly like a stronger field the players, right, Like I don't know.
It's uh yeah, it's so. I think Rory is just an interesting and the last time we saw him on American soil, he was bad, and that adds a you know, in his journey just through this year where he was kind of he was great at the beginning of the year, the Masters hits, he wins, he then hits this little complacency. I think, like I'm always amazed at how just normal
Rory is. Like that's kind of like the way any normal behaves, like if a salesperson got to close it a big deal, you know what they do for the next two months as they kind of just hang out. Rory goes into this lull. He doesn't play well and then it's like the Ryder Cups coming back around. He has a bad FedEx Cup playoffs, but all of a sudden, then it's just the game's coming back and he's playing as good as golf as anybody in the world now heading in outside of Scottie.
He's just fun right. He makes every Ryder Cup interesting with you know how emotional he gets into it. How you know, he gives great quotes. He's he just lives and breathes for it, which is funny after you know, he would be the first to sort of call himself an idiot for saying it. But like way back in the day, it was like it's an exhibition. It doesn't mean much to me. And then when he finally played in one, like it just overwhelmed his senses in every way.
Let's go to somebody that I don't know if either of them are on each other's Christmas cards list. Let's go to Bryson to Shambo. He's He's on.
My list, tell me more.
I'm fascinated by this, and I guess I'm going to put to two of these together, two of mine together. Will the best Americans play the most is a big question, and one of the players the figures of this that center on is Bryson to Shambo, the the American team has has rightly been criticized as a boy's club. I think that is that is a fair criticism critique. Zach Johnson's captaincy did not help that. But you know, Bryson is, without a doubt not in the boys club. He's not.
I don't think he ever will be in the boys club. But I would say that quantitatively, he is one of the Americans' best players, particularly at Bethpage Black, a golf course that really rewards power and has enough space where he can really just kind of blast it around. And this is like if we were playing a major championship
at beth Page tomorrow. I think you can make the case that that Bryson would be like Favorite one A or B. You know, you put Scotty there and then Bryson would be right there because of the way the course fits his game. YEP, I think Bryson will play best ball. I am really curious to see if he
will play alternate shot. And furthermore, like, if you go down the list of American players and their forms, I think that you're looking at a situation where like almost you take Scotty and then the best players on the American team in terms of their form and how they're playing are like Ben Griffin, A J. Spawn Harris, English,
Russell Henley. It's not JT. It's not more COWI And like, my question is are the best players going to play the most or are we going to fall into this trap of names and experience when what matters most is who's playing well to a certain extent.
I think, and this is maybe it's a slightly related point, but that over time us Ryder cup captains as someone who's like looked at a lot of this stuff and lived through some of it, have made the mistake of trying to like spread out the good players, be like oh, Tiger has to play with like an aging Paul Aisinger, or like Mark Calkovekia, or like oh we got to sit fill with like David Toms, or let's put you know, David Devall with you know, Chad Campbell or something absurded,
like I think, honestly, I would seriously consider saying to Scotty, how would you like to do like three sessions with Bryson. Let's just go out there and like the two of you, I think can get me three points because you can get three points out of that the two of them, Like that's I wouldn't worry as much about like, Okay, well, let's I would be like, I got two horses right here,
Let's play them a lot. Scotty's good, like this personality is fine enough to get along with Bryson, this idea that like they couldn't play alternate shot together because they're not best buddies, Like the heck with that? Why ry did? And I'd rather have Bryson playing with Scotty than Sam Burns and Scotty like I'm I'm had a huge advantage hitting you know, Scotty hitting wedges into like some of these holes at beth Page like because Bryson's just drove
it three eighty. I would absolutely like lean on Bryson as much as I could basically be like, you know what, I think you're the one of the four best players in the world like it's it's basically Rory, you, Rom and Scotty let's go out and then just put the pedal down and ride you like a horse man, because this is the kind of course where you could absolutely like dominate and I wouldn't worry about like the fussiness of the personality stuff.
I could see the Scottie Bryson best ball pairing work really well. I might look at a different pairing for Scott for Bryson as a as an alt shot pairing, like I'd be looking, you know, like the russ Henley Scotti allt shot pairings work really well because Russell Henley hits a lot of fairways, and it's like, you give Scotty Scheffler the opportunity to hit from the fairway. His
four iron is better than most guys seven irons. With Bryson, I think like you have the opportunity to give somebody wedges into elevated targets that's probably used to hitting like mid irons into these targets. And the alternate shot pairing like Bryson opens up, it unlocks a all and I just I'm really I don't know if they're going to play him alternate shot. I could see a world where they just don't play them alternate shot, and I think
it's a mistake. I think like, if you look at that US team, Harris English is one of your probably best weapons just because of the consistency what you you know, what you're getting from him. He had one of the best seasons on tour. You know, JJ Spond's not going to be a sexy name. It's not going to get the New York fans riled up like Justin Thomas. But
guess what. JJ Spond's been like an unequivocally better golfer the last six months than Justin Thomas has been, and especially at a golf course that rewards some sort of driving acumen, you know j T has been he just hits balls that you know, are he hits one or
two drives around that seemingly just derails his tournaments. And in a matchplay format, like if you hit some t shots that just automatically lose holes, that's kind of a disaster and that's what you're trying to avoid when you're playing these matches.
I would agree with that. I would say, uh, I, you know, I just think like with the alternate shot thing. Bryson wants to be liked by people who he's around. Like this idea that Bryson is kind of an annoying or pisses everyone, if that might be true, but he's going to try really hard for whomever he is paired
with to sort of make it work. And so, like Justin Thomas and Bryson don't particularly like each other, from my understanding, I still think Bryson would try so fricking hard to be like Justin Thomas's like Ryder cup buddy, Like you know, he would absolutely love giving JT. Wedges into a bunch of holes, and I just I would play him an alternate shot too, for sure.
I honestly like that Whistling Straits was kind of a landslide mm hmm. But I have to say, like Bryson, Bryson injected so much energy into the American team with his t shots.
It's gonna be even more so. He's gonna treat every hole like an amphitheater. I think he's gonna get people like He's gonna be waving his arms and pumping his fist and all the the Bryson hard o's are going to be there, like doing push ups in the behind the ropes and you know, jumping on each other's shoulders and backs and down in beers.
You know who's whose far fourball pairing was at Whistling Straits.
Was it Scottie?
It was?
Yeah?
So he only played four ball.
Yeah. I don't know what the reluctance is to play him. I mean he I guess he played alternate shot with Phil in uh in Italy. But yes, France.
Honestly, I can't wait to read your your whole Ryder Cup Captains that's going to come out Tuesday. You ranked all the last fourteen Ryder Cup captains.
I have, yes, bring you. David loved twice.
Davis loved twice the idea of pairing Bryson and Phil who Phil like unequivocally didn't have it that week and everybody new pairing them an alternate shot at a water heavy golf course, So a golf course where there's water everywhere. It was one of the worst captive's decisions of all time.
Correct. I I think Furich's bad captaincy is sort of underrated in its badness because most people like Furick and like, we don't want to admit like how disastrous like three of his captain's picks didn't win a single match. Tony
Finow was his best captain's pick. It's truly like that's kind of like Tom Watson territory, you know, And I mean that I you know, I won't spoil what it is, but like, you know, Zach's Ryder Cup captaincy, I think is even though it's really close to us, it's almost underrated in its badness in terms of how terrible it was. Just vibes were horrendous, motivation, horrendous, boys club stuff, horrendous. The Americans have really like they had some amazing captains
doing how Sutton, Tom Watson, Zach Johnson, Jim Furick. It's even like you know, Curtis Strange and Corey Paven made some like really dumb ass decisions. It's it's incredible.
The I also like, I think that the Americans, and I don't I don't want this to come across necessarily the wrong way, But there's just like more narcissistic assholes that tend to tend to be on the American Ryder Cup team, which lends themselves to bore drama. Yes, like the idea, Like I'm actually like amazed when you interview or talk to these players about like athletics growing up, how many how many golfers say like I picked golf because I didn't have to rely on teammates. Like that's like a.
Anther one the draft pick. In terms of reasons why they decided to do it.
Often it's so you hear that so often, I.
Didn't play well with others, so I decided to go golf.
So then you have this event where they don't ever play with others, and then you bring them together and they have to play as a team, and the captain gets blamed no matter what, which which is amazing.
If you look back at the last twenty five years or so and you try to think of like European Ryder Cup controversies, like they got destroyed in Whistling and in Hazeltine, and they didn't like knife their captains at all.
Like the only captain that they ever truly shout on was Faldo, and that was because in part because Faldo was like went on the broadcast and said, oh, Sergio got dumped by Greg Norman's daughter that week, so he was worthless and there was just no point in having him out there and Sergio was rightfully like pissed, like Faldo is the only guy that they ever hated.
Should they have brought Sergio in as an ass captain.
You know, I would have sort of listened to like Justin and Rory on that and basically said, if you think that he will be helpful to us, like you've played on a lot of Ryder Cup teams with him, then we'll I'll go ahead and do it. But otherwise, like I'm not interested in And I think the good thing too, is that it's not like Luke isn't you know, he played on a lot of teams of Sergio, so he knows like whether he would add anything or if it just be you know, a nuisance or a whiner.
I mean, you could make a case I think that Sergio, you know, would be that that someday Sergio when wounds sort of heal a little bit, that Sergio definitely should be a Ryder Cup captain, And so you'd want him to kind of be involved in a lot of this stuff. But it's almost like by not bringing him around, they're saying like, yeah, we don't think this is ever really gonna these riffs are ever really gonna heal like.
You know, he uh. I could see him as an assistant captain, just getting getting into kerfuffles on the sidelines. Yeah, it would be kind of amazing.
Him and Kevin Kissner are like sticking a finger in each other's face.
Will go bro probably just arguing about Texas Georgia football.
Probably not much of an argument there these days. Man, all right, My next one would be what version of Victor Holind are we going to see Victor Hobblin? Well, the last time we had a Ryder Cup was probably the best player in the world for that like brief you know, two or three month period came off just
a dominant performance in the FedEx Cup. Was all of a sudden, had a really really good, really credible short game very first hole of his Ryder Cup comes out and has that amazing chip in that basically just like gets the crowd going bonkers, sets the tone for that entire Ryder Cup. You know, he's part of that just historical ass kicking of Scottie and Brooks with Ludwig. Will that Victor Hovelin be you know, or I don't think that.
We don't think we'll see that Victor Hoblin because it's just that was kind of like the peak of his powers. Everything about his swing was kind of in that moment and he had to kind of break it down and rebuild it because he's Victor Hobland. But I think that, you know, he's trending, he's trending upwards. He's not one of the sort of I would say, certainly not one of the five best players in the world, probably not
one of the ten best players in the world. But he's played a lot better in the last four months than he did the previous you know, six to eight months, and so I'm you know, he's someone who cares about this stuff, who who has lived in the cauldron. Anythink he went three and one in Italy, and but he was bad and Whistling. So like what happens if we get the version that we saw, you know at Whistling
where he just wasn't really worth much. He was completely didn't have it that week, And I think that's a be a big key the Europeans are going to pull off an upset, they need Hobland to be good.
Yeah, And I think at Whistley Straits he was such a young pop at that point, right, you could see, okay, this this kid's going to be here for a long time. But he's also this getting just thrown into the ring of fire, and he was like one of it felt like one of the few Europeans that week that could really like keep up with some of these guys, the Americans. He had that modern style of play versus you know, watching Westy out there.
I know that must have been tough for you.
It was I brought I went out and watched like the last few holes of his his singles match, after the after the tournament of the competition was over, brought him in. I think he have that match. I think he ended his Ryder Cup career with the half. He was getting questions about being a captain.
Do you think you should be a captain?
Well, the one thing you know about Westy is that he won't be reading any like books on war strategy since he's he's always proud of the fact that he's never read never read a book.
One of my all time favorite anecdotes.
So he's not gonna your captain, that's you know. I honestly think he could. He has the potential to be like analytics. No, don't get out of here.
Another Faldo captaincy would be sweet.
I could see it though, you know, as as Wound's heel, you know that. I mean, it's like a fascinating aspect of the European team, is what happened to this captaincy because like the surefire captains were Sergio Poulter Westwood. Obviously Stenson was selected and then left like where what Who's next for them? Rory has been vocally opposed to being a playing captain, but if he continues to be a high level player for the Europeans into his late forties,
which is totally feasible, maybe he eventually becomes one. But I think with Hoveland, you know, the vibes were so good last year. He was coming in off of a
a you know, the FedEx Cup win. He paired up with fellow young Scandinavian player Ludwig who also was playing great golf, you know, saying the world on fire early in his career to get selected for the team, and you kind of look at it and it's like, well like they were nails, and I think like that's something that I think, like they're going to be paired together again. In their matches together, they they went too and one they lost to Burns and more Kawa and four ball.
But you have to think that I to me, like, and I like that you selected Holand like Hobland and Ludwig. If those guys play well, I think Europe can win. I don't think they can win if they don't play well.
Yeah, I think that's correct. And and like you know, I'm always as a sort of lover of the Ryder Cup searching for like those guys who can just pair together forever, like well, find another like sevy And and jose Maria. And so it would be fun like if that was like the Scandinavian version of that, Like if we just saw Levig and Hoblin like play together for ten years, how fun would that be? That was supposed to be Speith and JT and Speth kind of you know, let us down in that sense. Uh So I want
more of those kind of like classic pairings. We're like, all right, well, these guys are going to read it's true that JT.
Swooped in and stole piece partner.
I gotta say, it's a little sad to me that we're now this is the third Rider Cup cycle without Patrick Reed, Like you know, he made the event fun, even when he was like being a total uh, you know, clown in France.
Just think of think about the President's Cup at Royal Melbourne without him. Yeah, he had done that. He had done the shovel incident the week before and then Kessler punched punched a fan.
Yeah, bring back, bring back Captain America. He should be an assistant captain. Andy. Let's Sergio and Reid sort of you know playing They should play in the celebrity match before that would be great.
A way you could ensure that you get a playing captain would be to pick Patrick Reid as the captain.
Sure, why not?
All right, let's take a quick break to talk about our partner, Club Champion. We're so excited to have them again as a partner in twenty twenty five. I guess you could say that I've been partnered with Club Champions since high school. They've been the people that have made my clubs, from when they were a tiny small business in Chicago, uh to now. They have studios all over the country where you can go get your club's fitted
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And why he's been an incredible Ryder Cup player is that the guy up until this year has been a generational iron player and in match play, I think just in match play in general. The thing that can rip another an opponent's heard out more than anything is just approaches that make you feel like you never have a chance. It's what Scotty can do to you. It's what Marikawa up until this year was doing with regularity. It's where God,
it doesn't matter where he is. And I think one of the things with Mari Kawa and his lack of distance that that is interesting with with match play is he's hitting first into greens and he's applying pressure with his other worldly, you know, generational talent of iron play. Calin Markawa is by his career and I think like it's important to just note he set an unbelievable standard of play since he's turned pro, where he's been one of the most consistent great players in the game of golf.
But this year he's been bad. He has not been good. He's thirty one in the Data Golf rankings, and you know, he's seen a dip in his approach play and I think like he you know, he's been one. You know that that pairing of DJ and Morikawa was so stout at Whistling Straits the last time around, and he's just been kind of this this player that you know when you talk about high floor players, like we mentioned earlier in the year, he's been like effectively like you're just
put him out and you know what you're getting. And this is the first year going into this where you don't really know what you're getting from him. And I think, like the US team, I'm just curious how much he plays and if he's got it, I think they're going
to be really hard to beat. But if he because like you're talking about a player that could be a Scotti tier player, maybe not all the way to Scotti, but he can have that type of impact you could put about in any format and you know he's going to fit in like a glove with anybody because he drives the ball in the fairway and he hits approaches close right Like that is That's what you're a dream
alternate shot pairing player is. And I just think that if it goes south, like if he's not playing well, that US team is not as it just as a big hole in that US team because they don't have many guys that hit irons the way he does.
Yeah, you could see like with the course set up at Whistling that they were basically like we're better long iron players than you, and like DJ and Brooks and you know, Colin are gonna be like flagging six irons on some of these like two hundred yard par threes. And if you think you can beat us, great, but
we're gonna be just better. And you know, I specifically remember, like that's Saturday, like how good he and DJ were like just you know, going at some of those pins from long ways away, and the Euros just didn't have that same kind of firepower. And so you're right, like that's that's what Beth Page is right. It's you're gonna have yard approaches that are one hundred and ninety yards one hundred and eighty five yards somewhere and there, and uh,
you know to elevateds. Like if Colin is that dude again, then I think you're right, Like it's Americans really going to be tough to beat. My next one, I think, and I think it's a pretty important one, Andy, is how rowdy will the crowd be? We've been talking about this sort of Beth Paige Ryder Cup for I mean almost ten years. I mean I remember Brooks saying how badly he wanted to be a part of that when he wanted beth Page because he was basically like, oh, yeah,
they're going to be out of control. It's going to be like a real true sporting event, like now was that before he found out the ticket prices were like thirteen hundred dollars a man, Like, you know, maybe, but I still think there's going to be a lot of I mean, look, home field advantage does really matter. Yeah, yeah, the course set up is part of it. But the energy that the crowd brings to match play and how hard it is to silence those people if the other
team is playing well is a real thing. And so will we get like we'll you know, even at that PGA at beth Page, some of the behavior sort of spilled over where they had it We're kicking people out
and people were acting like knuckleheads. I am very curious to see if it goes over the line because there are a lot of players on the European team who tend to have kind of rabbit ears, whether it's Justin Rose, whether it's Terrel Hatton, whether it's John Rahm, even Rory, Like they hear the things that the crowds have to say, and I think the crowds.
Will be headsets, that's right.
What we might have truly like being in a dark place and where people wearing VR headsets were having people scream obscenities in their ears and say horrible things about their family that they have to train for that in anticipation of a sporting event. So I am very curious because if the Euros get up, if they you know, if they have some success in you know, say, you know, the foursomes like they often do well they haven't so much in the US, will that start of mute the
crowd a little bit? And if if the US takes in an early kind of swing man like it could be running downhill fast like that, it could snowball, and that any chance of an upset could be really tough for the Euros.
Yeah, you get those those roars. I I match play more than you know stroke play. I think it's just such a momentum thing, Like you know, everybody says like, oh play this just like you would play a normal stroke play event. It's just not possible. You're worried about what other people are doing.
It's why Tiger was not a great Ruyder Cup player, because he played it just like it was a stroke play event. He didn't make mistakes, but he didn't take a lot of chances, and you know, guys got up to play him, and it's just you know, Tiger was a was the greatest stroke player player of his generation, if not every generation, and that wasn't the right mentality to take to Ruyder Cups.
I I would ask this question, It's one of my last thing here. Does this need to be a competitive Ryder Cup? Does the Ryder Cup need a competitive Ryder Cup? Because if you go back through kind of the archives, the last competitive like where on Sunday anything can happen, and it was a huge comeback Ryder Cup was Madina. The last one that was really tight, you know going into Sunday was twenty I think twenty ten at Celtic manor yeah.
Eight to eight I believe, right, uh huh or no, something like the US was down three they were eight to eight in the Curtis Strange year. Yeah. I mean, I think it can make a good argument that if it's a blowout that in favor of the US, that we might need to talk about, like, you know, the home field advantage has just like gotten to be too much because we just saw, you know, these two teams
get completely blown out in reverse two years ago. So if it, if it totally flips, like I don't know, maybe should an independent you know, committee set up the course? Should you know, should there not be as many captains picks? I don't know what the answer would be. I don't know. Maybe it's just like, hey, keep going with it until
somebody breaks the cycle and then it's like hold. It's like holding serve in tennis, right, Like if you broke Pete Sampras when he was at the height of his powers, you deserved to win those matches and if you couldn't, you know, that was part of the deal. It was why it made it so tough, because he was the greatest server of that time. And maybe that's the deal with like playing at home and Ryder Cups. You should win those Ryder Cups, so the pressure is on you to win them, you know.
I think like if you get a close one, it becomes just such a spectacle on Sunday and it becomes one of the rare sports events. I'm not saying it's going to outright the NFL, but it's one of the rare sports events where you can put it up against the NFL and and have success. You know. I think the Ryder Cup makes it just so easy for fans to get into it because it's US versus Europe, right, and everybody knows what side they're on, and it's easy
to understand. I think. I think another interesting subplot here is like what happens if the Euros win? What happens to the US team? Are we? Are we running towards another kind of reset of how we think about the Ryder Cups as an American side?
Do they form a circular firing squad?
Uh?
And I think that brings me to what I think is probably the final point. Andy is Keegan Bradley, like, there is a lot of pressure. There would be more pressure if he was playing, you know, if he was a playing captain, but there is a lot of pressure on him to essentially hold serve. Like I said before, he wanted so badly to be involved in the Ryder Cup, you know, is as important as anything in his career. We joke about the suitcase, you know, not unpacking it, but like the man truly cares.
About can you just for people that don't know that story, can you can you just you know, on that story real quick as a.
So they the US had like Ryder Cup team luggage and after Madona, Kegan brought home, you know, all of his stuff in his suitcase and he was like too miserable to unpack it because like, I just can't like think about like looking at all that team uniform stuff and everything that you know, went into all the feelings of that and just how close we were to winning and how embarrassing it is, and it kind of dragged on.
He was like eventually like all right, well I'll unpack it like when I make next Ryder Cup team and when we win a Ryder Cup. And just like you know, didn't didn't win a Ryder Cup in fourteen, didn't make the team in sixteen, didn't make it in eighteen, you know, didn't make it in twenty. It was just like it became kind of like a little bit of a joke amongst us golf nerds like, oh, how bad does that suitcase smell? You know, not knowing that it really exists.
Did And then Keegan, to his credit, was like he went into his garage and was like, yep, there's the suitcase, like's actually still never been unpacked, and so you know, and I think there might be a bottle of champagne in there. I can't remember what exactly.
He doesn't even remember how they drink the champagne that's been just sitting in like a hot garage for years.
I mean, Schotts Kegan for having the same house, I think all this year. I mean, imagine if you had the sad humiliation of you like moved your house and you had to pack up that suitcase and then find a new place for it at your new house and
your new garage. Uh So, you know, I'm sure that they'll be if they win, there'll be some sort of joke where Keegan, you know, on Good Morning America or something like rips open that suitcase and you know, we get to see those musty media you know, uniforms from
from Ralph Lauren. But I think if he wins, if the US does really well and they sort of embrace Keegan as a result, it'll kind of be like the defeat of the Boys Club in a lot of ways, like the idea of like, you know, this person was an outsider, they flipped the script and basically like you powdy babies, you've been you know, you have your little cadre of people. It hasn't worked out, you know, it's it's it's nothing that long ago. They just won in Whistling.
So the narrative isn't quite as tidy as we would like to make it. But it's almost like a movie script of like them rallying around Keegan and be like, you know what we should have We were wrong all this time. You should have been part of some of
these squads. You cared about this thing like like never before, and you know, hopefully it'd be interesting, like what if Keegan uses this and then has another great two years as a player and then makes the team in a dare you know, like can we call him a playing captain then? Like obviously I don't think he's gonna be the captain two cycles in a row, but I don't.
If he wins. Is do they have a choice but to make him a captain? Though? It was a good question because like I feel like the European side, it was like, well, we have to do Luke Donald, we have to give them the chance to go win abroad.
I think they're sort of stalling. Maybe I think the Europeans are stalling until Justin Rose can be the captain. That that will feel like because West the.
Content from him as the captain, Rose might be one of the all time fun captains of just overly serious, very intense, very English.
I'm I'm ready for it already. But you know, I think Tiger's.
Going to want to be a team.
I think Tiger's going to want to be the captain in two years. And so it's you know, I think Hegan would happily stand down for Tiger. But if Tiger says no, I'm not not going to do it. If he you know, does something else like blows out a knee or gets to get his hip or placed or whateverides getting married, be getting married, very possible, he could be appointed in an ambassador somewhere. All we know, like these are all on the table. Uh he could be
on the Supreme Court for anything as possible. Uh So I think that Tiger will if he doesn't want it, then Keegan could say, like what you know, I'd go another round, like I'll say I do this again. But I think this is Keegan's one shot it to sort of prove that everybody was wrong to keep him out of this event. For all those years, and man, it would be be kind of sweet. As someone who's like irrationally liked Keegan for a long time, you know, I'm excited for it if that happens for him.
I if europe pins, do you just keep rolling Luke Donald out?
You know what? I think I kind of find that to be cheating.
I honestly like, I don't like it.
I think that you should just have to flip the calendar every two years and pick a new captain because that's what gives us us fun content. Like how much fun would it be if Westy was the captain this year, you know, or if they had to go ready for that. I don't know. I just I like it that you get your one shot and then you put everything into it, and then once that's done, like yeah, we're moving on. I mean, Paul Aisinger probably should have be a captain
for a couple cycles. I mean, he was basically the person who restored pride in the Americans. They'd won like three Ryder Cups in twenty five years when he you know, finally kind of like was like, you know what, we shouldn't be losing Ryder Cups at home and they should have won him a Dina. You know, that was kind of a fluke, once in a lifetime thing that they gave up that lead on Sunday. But you know, I just I don't want to see a Tony Jacquelin situation
where it's like he gets to do it forever. I want them to have to keep bringing up new blood through the system.
All right, well, what's your pick? Who's your pick? Will do? Pick the side in the MVP?
And I was really like, I thought, I mean, I don't want to waffle too much here because I'm gonna stick with my original pick. I'm gonna pick Europe. I didn't think I thought that there was like a no brainer. Like four or five months ago, I was like, or even two years ago, it's like, I think Europe's gonna win. I remember saying that two years ago. It was like, I think this will be the first time that flips it a little less confident in that. I feel like
Keegan has done a lot right. And I still think like they have two of the best players in the world in Scotty and Bryson, and they have a lot of guys with some pretty you know, some pretty high ceilings for talent. Wise, I if Brooks hadn't fallen off a cliff, I'd feel a little bit better. Like having Brooks Keopka at Beth Page would be kind of a neat, you know, weapon to have. You know, he's shown that this is straight up his kind of golf course. But
I'm still gonna stick with Europe. I want to say that they're you know, whether it's fourteen and a half to thirteen and a half or fourteen fourteen, and they retain I think they're going to get it done.
I'm I'm going with Europe. Also, I just think their players fit a golf course that presents a horse for the course type set up better than the Americans. And it's a pretty even talent, you know, kind of spread. And I think like if you look at just by nature of the guys that that qualified from the American side, you don't have a lot of prolific drivers of the
golf ball. And then you look on the other side and you look at Ludwig and and rom and and the even you know, the weakest player on the European side, Restless Holy Guard is a great driver of the golf ball. Bob McIntyre, great drive, you know, like you just look at the the two sides and you just I think the the the course fit really leans towards the Europeans. I I will put Tommy Fleetwood as my m VP.
I think he is. Uh, I think he's just you know, he's starting to develop a you know, a sensational Ryder Cup record. Obviously, you know the the the France is is well known, but he was really good in uh in Rome and uh I think I'm i he's coming in as good for him as anybody in the world. Uh So I'm gonna go with Europe also, which I'm I'm I've been kind of on and and I think, I you know, we're gonna get hammered in the lead up of this, and I think there's there's so much
content that's going to come out. We'll have a ton on the Frida Egg. You can check out that. We have a Ryder Cup Hub, which we've put a lot of time and effort into. Go check that out. It has like little blurbs about every player it has. We'll be rolling out daily newsletters. Kevin, You'll be on site with with me and a bunch of us that and
we'll be pumping out daily content. Thanks for joining. People can read and read your stuff in the newsletter on the website and it's great to have you be a part of the team.
Thanks Bud. Looking forward to it.
All right, big thanks to PJ. Clark for editing and producing this podcast. We can't wait for the Ryder Cup huge week ahead. As I mentioned at the back half of the pod, if you don't already subscribe to the newsletter, we're I think with Kevin coming on board, we're going to put a greater emphasis on that than ever before. I think the quality. We obviously have great writers and Brendan Poorath and Garrett Morrison and Joseph Lamannia already in there.
I mean, Joseph does so much work in there, and it's great work. Like the idea of the newsletter is just let's make this is a must read. So I think you'll enjoy it. It's free. Sign up for that, and you know, pay attention to the socials and everything we got going out and visit the Ryder Cup Hub.
That's a new kind of website feature. We're really excited about rolling out new features on the website, and we think that one's really neat and there's a ton of content that's loaded in there for you to kind of peruse and get in that Ryder Cup mood. All right, thank you again. We'll be back next week breaking down what happened at the Ryder Cup