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.
Bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida eggrid egg bride.
Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf.
Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and the Ryder Cup starts tomorrow. So first up in this episode, we have some predictions. I called up some familiar voices and asked them to go out on a limb and say what they think will happen this week in Rome. First you'll hear from Andy Johnson, then from
Brendan Porath, and finally from Joseph Lamanya. I'll talk to each of them for about ten minutes, so quick hits here, and after that I'll have a conversation with Shane Ryan about the history of the Ryder Cup, so a very different subject. Shane is the author of The Cup They Couldn't Lose, which is about the twenty twenty one Cup at Whistling Straits, but also about the general sweep of Ryder Cup history. So I thought this would be an interesting time to speak with Shane about how the twenty
twenty three event fits into that history. All right, let's get to it after this break some quick predictions with Andy Brendan and Joseph and then Shane Ryan. Our next partner is ag one, the daily foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole body health. I drink it literally every day. I gave ag one a try because I've never been very good it's sticking to a routine with vitamins or pills.
But now I just drink ag one in the morning before my first cup of coffee, and it immediately clears my head and makes me feel like I've done something good for my body right off the bat. I started drinking ag one a few months ago, and I've definitely noticed some improvements in my digestion and my energy levels. You know, this is especially helpful when I'm on the road,
which I was until just yesterday. Basically, I don't always eat super healthy food when I'm traveling, think like you know, burgers or country club grill room food and things like that. I don't always do the little things basically that I'm able to do when I'm at home. But now I can take my ag one travel packs with me, and I know I have my nutritional bases covered every day. I'm setting myself up for success with seventy five high
quality ingredients that support energy, focus, strength, and clearity. So if a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, then try ag one and get a free one year supply of Vitamin D and five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drink ag one dot com slash the fried Egg. That's drink ag one dot com slash the fried Egg.
Check it out.
All right, First up, Andy Johnson, Andy, you just got off a red Eye. How's it going?
Huh? You know the red Eye was okay.
The the two and a half hour uber from to go like forty miles was that was the tough part.
So yeah, I've been better. I've been better.
That's that's always punch in the gut. That's the unexpected part. Is the is the uber ride after, especially in like the big cities. I remember one at the US Open in LA that was just like unbelievable. So yeah, that's that's always the part that gets you. All right. So I've got a set of short questions for you meant to be answered briefly. So first up, who is going to win? And what do you think the final score is going to be.
I feel I've felt good about Europe, and now that I just saw that, like the betting lines are now favoring Europe, it makes me like feel worse about Europe. But I'm still gonna go with Europe, and I'm gonna go sixteen twelve Europe.
So sixteen twelve? Would you characterize that as like a close match? I think that's maybe the most interesting question. Is it going to be close or is it going to be like another blowout?
I think this is going to be a close one.
I think that if you I think the top end talent obviously is biased to the Europeans, but this is about depth. You got to play four matches a day during the team competition, so you know, it's great that Europe has like this unbelievable top three in Hoveland, Ram and Rory, But you know, you start to look down the sheet and in the US's depth is unbelievable, and so I think it's gonna be close. I you know, if I was gonna say one of my most interested
in the golf course, about is. You know, Trevor Emmlman brought up a good point is like there is no European of when we talked earlier in the week, there is no real European style anymore because all the top Europeans play on the PGA Tour. I think that the home course advantage, even is recently Isle Golf Nationale, is less mitigated because the European team they're playing characteristics more resemble twenty twenty one at Whistling Straits the American team
than that twenty twenty one European team. Like out with the old you got new guys in and they're big hitters, they are you know, they are kind of more American style players.
Yeah, maybe Ian Poulter wouldn't have been on this team, but the fact that Ian Poulter has essentially been replaced by like Ludvig Gabers and makes the team more you know what you would traditionally consider American.
Lee Westwoods, say, just replaced by Nikolai Hogart, Like that's a different type of player. And Westwood was a you know, an unbelievable ball striker, but you know, he wasn't the longest hitter out there. He was he was plenty long, but you know, hoguard Is is long, you know, and a little bit they're they're much more. I think, like, I think that that that idea of the European American style play within the modern era is just becoming the
modern era style of play. And everybody, you know, it's that Xander quote is you know, just hit it far and go find out.
Yeah exactly. Yeah, Yeah, I think that. I think that's a really interesting trend to track. I think that's really true that these styles are converging around the one that everybody's teaching now.
Yeah, and so I think that this like setup talk, all the talk about set up American European, that's just going to get more and more diminished over the over the coming years.
Yeah, there still might be a home field advantage in the sense of the crowd, but you.
Know, I think the crowd and the familiarity, like the guys, like the Europeans have.
Played this course more.
Yes, they've played it under tournaments and regardless of what you say, like especially these guys have won there there are like good good feelings, you know, and I don't I don't have any analytics behind it. This is never good when you start with that, this is all just you know.
I'm gonna have Joseph on here too, so he'll he'll bring the analytics presumably.
But like if you play well a tournament, if you play well at a golf course and you've won there, it's really hard to play bad there later in your life because you go there and there's just this you know, golf is all about fighting back nervous and nervous energy. And if you're familiar, you've won, you've finished high at a place, you go back to those courses and that nervous energy doesn't exist as much because you're just comfortable there.
And it's you know, especially in a Ryder Cup with the with the kind of added team pressure that you know, the pressure is not letting down eleven other guys. I feel like if you talk to any professional golfer, what what you know that played a lot of sports? If you ask them what drew you to this sport, they almost always say like, I didn't have to rely on anybody else. Like these are people that like chose a sport that they don't have teammates, and they like that
aspect about it. When you have these team competitions it just like illuminates there's just more pressure. You feel worse like I It's why caddying is sometimes in a tournament, sometimes more nerve wracking than playing in a tournament. You don't want to mess something up for somebody else. You don't want to let somebody else down right.
You're willing to take responsibility for your own effect on yourself, but when it's somebody else that it brings something else into play. All right, let's finish with some quick hitters here, most valuable player on either team.
All right, I'm gonna ride. I'm gonna ride the hot hand. I'm gonna take Victor Hobland. I know he was very just I mean two years ago. With the way he's developed as a player, these aren't the same players, I think, Like that's one of the interesting things about the Europeans is Fitzpatrick and Hoveland are like completely different players than they were at Whistling Straits, like statistically different. So I'm
gonna take Victor Hoblind there. I just think that this is a guy that is going to be an outstanding alternate shot player because of the consistency, the accuracy, and he's just playing such good golf.
That I'm going to take him for most value.
Yeah, it might be the hottest player in the world right now, all right, least valuable player again on either team least.
I think it's Bob McIntyre. I don't want to uh, oh my god, you know it was.
It was a cute photo with him and his onesie, his Ryder Cup European Tour onesie. But I think that he might not play very much. It looks like it looked like on the range he was quite frustrated with the driver and I could see maybe this is a two match session for for Bob McIntyre.
Yeah, and potentially an O two and oh record that that that wouldn't be Nobody would be shocked by that. But you know, I think again, he won the Italian Open at this course, and so you know who's more comfortable here than than big shot up.
I think that's the thing is if if you know a guy doesn't have it, you got to play him as little as possible.
I know that captain are very.
Resistant to not seeing them till signals, but maybe you just hide him into one of the best ball formats and hope that he makes five birdies when you know and you play him there and in one singles match.
All right, let's get a DOP score for Marco Simone.
I haven't been there. I can't get listen.
I mean, I'm asking for a prediction here because we're gonna see this course all week. We're gonna watch it, and I think we're gonna get a sense for for you know, whether it's any good.
I think the I think the thing about this golf course, and I think this is, you know, we're we're living in it in a world that's becoming more and more black and white, and but in reality, almost situation, every situation, there are multiple things that can be true. I think Marco Simone, from what I've seen I haven't been there, is not a very good golf course.
But I do think it's.
Got some things that are going to make it an exciting Ryder Cup course.
It's the driveable four part five.
The setup to me is going to be very interesting to see what they do, what the rough's like, and the way it you know, it can it can reward just accuracy, right, So like do I do I want to fly across the country or fly across the world the rome to play Marcos Simoni no. Do I want to fly across the world of Rome, Yes, but golf wouldn't be high on my list if I flew across the country to Rome or across the.
World of Rome.
So with that, I just I think that it could be an exciting golf course to watch, but not necessarily a good one.
If that if that's possible, if that's allowed.
I think that's allowed. And I think it's also probably going to be a very effective Ryder Cup venue in the sense of, you know, creating a crowd atmosphere. I wrote about this for Design Notebook and Club TFE this week. You know, I remember Los Angeles Country Club, great US Open course, but was it a good US Open venue? Considering it was kind of dead in a lot of parts of that course. That's something that Marco Simone is.
They're not going to have.
They should bring the first t atmosphere of LACC to the Ryder Cup exactly.
Just have members and VIPs around around the Marco Simone.
Now, a couple people out there, more than accession, maybe three or four people come out to club.
That would be that would be something. All right, Andy, thank you for stopping by. Have a great week.
Thanks Garrett.
All right, Brendan Porath, you are in New York City with Andy Johnson right now. How are the accommodations?
They're fine, They're great. That I have a beef with the coffee table not being within reach of the couch. This is a general, pervasive problem. I shouldn't have to move furniture. It's coffee table. I need to be able to reach my coffee from the couch. But other than that, the accommodations are great.
Okay, okay, I mean that that would that does that? Does dock it?
Though?
That takes it from an A to a B. If it's an A, it's a basive problem given the coffee table situation. All right, let's dig into some Ryder Cup predictions. So first off, who do you think is going to win? And what will the final score be?
I think the United States is going to win. I think they're going to win by it whatever adjective comfortable margin. I think maybe fifteen and a half to twelve and a half. Does that even add up? Yeah, fifteen, I think that's right. I think that the opportunity has never been clearer. I think that was the case in France.
I think there were some incredibly unique circumstances in France, given the course setup, I don't think that carries over to this particular course setup, given the Tiger and Phil element that I don't think is is obviously no longer a part of this team. The organization's better, the process is better, The team is better than it has been
in these thirty years. It's younger, as Jordan Speeth has been quite unequivocal about stating, they played no part in any of this thirty years of baggage, you know speed occasionally. He was there in twenty fourteen as a wide eyed sort of rookie. So it's just a different team, a different process. Is the task incredibly difficult, Yes, but I think you know, everything is lined up. The opportunity, the motivation, the stakes have never been higher, and the talent is there to match it.
Very well. Said that, I'm almost persuaded. I've been kind of going with the trend right now, which seems to be favoring Europe right But then, I mean when you look at these teams, like clearly that sort of middle section of the US team is very, very strong, and there's been such a minimum of drama on the US Ryder Cup team over the past, you know, eight to ten years. Even it seems like this process is really like sort of clicking in.
What's incredible about the Ryder Cup is the amount of energy we spend and we're doing that right now, and it's not wasted energy, but trying to suss out so many like intangible things like who is more motivated, is the pressure higher or greater on this team or this person, and these are critical parts of the competition. It's just it's hard to measure and hard to quantify it, hard to discuss it in very precise terms. For a three day event, right, it's twenty eight points. It's the perfect
and that's why. Honestly, this is part of the charm of it too. I'm not suggesting this is a negative thing. This is why it's becomes this perfect event. We spend so much time in golf, at least professional golf, I should say, talking about the how things need to be changed or fixed or elevated, whether it's the points or the PGA Tour schedule, or there's so many few sundays where we're not looking for something betweaked or modified for
the better. And the Ryder Cup, by and large has it perfect this format, even after a run of blowouts. Quite honest, we haven't had a close one since twenty twelve, but we still love it and are charmed by it so much. For kind of the exercise we're going through so much through right now. Is this trying to quantify, trying to understand this such a unique setting where it's match play and the best in the world are kind of putting a different environment.
Nobody tries to golf zur the Ryder Cup. That never happens. Whenever you try to golf z our professional golf, the assumption is always we're keeping the Ryder Cup exactly as it is because that is working. We're keeping the Masters exactly as it is. We're keeping the Open exactly as
it is. There are these things that work, and the Ryder Cup is one of those things and you just have to appreciate it all right, most valuable player on either team, this doesn't have to be US and Europe, just across all the players who are involved.
Across all the players who are involved. This is an interesting line.
I'm struck.
Obviously, the European side is incredibly straw at the top. Right, We've heard this several times. The top three players on.
The US side.
I'm struggling to find someone I'm incredibly skeptical of. It's it's more about choosing from a lot of great options who could be the MVP.
I think I.
Think I'm gonna go slightly off the board with Max Homa. I don't know how far off the board that is. He's not the very top rated player on either team. We saw him succeed in the President's Cup. We've seen him sort of succeed when he's in contention, when these stakes are high, when the opportunity is right in front of him, and match play.
That is obviously there.
It's a fifty to fifty proposition, right, minus a few percentage points for ties, and so you start the week with the at that fifty to fifty deal, you start the match with that fifty to fifty deal, not one of one to fifty six. And we've seen him when those those opportunities are in front of him really go and grab it. And I think he's gonna get several,
you know, play a lot of playing opportunities. I think he'll probably play maybe four matches, right, So I'm going to go with Maxhoma based on what we've seen from him the last few years.
It's interesting this is his first Ryder Cup. Obviously, he was in the President's Cup as well and did great there. But it already seems like Max Homa is kind of like a leader of the US team. He's one of those guys where it feels like this is his third
or fourth Ryder Cup. But he's really well integrated into the kind of social dynamics of the team, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him become like a great team match play player in this kind of second act of his career, all right, least valuable player.
To be fair.
I think you know, I was on the other side of the room. I heard Andy kind of already laid the wood to Bobby mack. I believe it looked like he was laying the wood.
It sounded like he.
Was being nice about it. But Bob, Bob McIntyre was his.
Pick, all right, So he's in the cross hairs. I guess the one American I'm a little skeptical of is Wyndham Clark.
Right, he is a rookie.
He is being put in the blunder right now of having to say his words were taken out of context. The euro Press is like a dog with a bone right now, because he, you know, deigned to suggest he would would like to play the best players in the world and has confidence in his own abilities. I thought his quotes were taken a little too far. But since then he's talked about how they could be leaking oil because they're tired. I just haven't seen Wyndham Clark ever
in this setting. I know he won a US Open, his form has been consistent and strong throughout the year, but he is put being put on his back.
Foot right now.
Right.
He's not one of these boisterous types he's I don't think he's full of this bravado, but he is being put on his back foot. It's a new, entirely new experience for him. Any kind of team play, right, Nothing home away, Presidents, anything like that. So I'm a little I guess I wouldn't be surprised if he succeeds, but I'm skeptical that he may get few opportunities and not be ready for the blender he's in.
Yeah, that's a good one. Marco Simone, do you have a hole to watch at Marcos somone like something something for people to focus on that might be slightly interesting about this golf course.
I mean, I think we're all flying somewhat blind, and the courses regrettably become sort of this ancillary part of the Ryder Cup, right, It's just it fills in the gabs, which you know I'll always quibble with. Like both masters can be served. We're not naive to why they choose the places they choose. It's money, but like it's hard, but you could do it. You could serve both masters and pick a great venue and figure out the money
and figure out like you could. It's just harder, and so you know, we understand why they pick the venues they pick. For me, what I've seen from Afar is sixteen looks intriguing. It looks like a reachable We were watching Victor shan Zach had a nice video of Victor Holind' striping at three. What I've seen several others lovewig really stick it close. It's an eagle opportunity it which hold it?
Who?
Andy's saying something in the background, now, who who?
Novak Djokovic apparently drove a hole in the Novak Joker celebrity celebrity.
Joseph Lamania must be absolutely glowing right now.
Apparently Joker drove you know, a big Novak fan, he drove a hole today.
So yeah, I think sixteen looks like that kind of opportunity. It could be at the death, at the last bit of a match, So we'll go with sixteen. It's a really quirky course, right, I mean there's like a bunch of these par fours that are five hundred plus yards and then a bunch that are reachable, and there's not a lot of in between. So yeah, I'll go with sixteen.
That you're you're right there are and that the difficulty of the holes varies so widely on this course. It's like if if it's not an eagle hole, then it's like you're grinding for a par if you're if you're a pro, and so it's, uh, yeah, it's a it's a curious, curious little but I think sixteen is probably the one that's going to get a lot of attention. It might be the last hole of a lot of matches, and so you're going to get this high stakes thing.
And then also there's an arena around it, right, it's in that kind of central valley that they tried to use a lot of in the routings so that the gallery could be up above and sixteen is very much part of that that portion of the property, so it should be kind of cool. All right. One last question, kind of a wild card here, but which player and I guess this is just relevant to the American team, but which player do you think is going to raise the ire of the British press the most?
It's sometimes the ones we least expect. Right, It's weird that Wyndham Clark is now all of a sudden, this this sort of pinata they're going forward.
I guess the answer is already Wyndam Clark. Like it's almost like this is not even a prediction.
Now.
Yeah, it could be I mean there's the target could go on anybody next.
Yeah, it could be maybe Max Homa. I mean I think he can run a little intense and hot and not in an unsporting way, but a way that might be perceived as as unsupported or worth you know, being you know, attacked or questioned by the British press. I think it could be Homa. I hate to go back to Homa. JT feels like the easy answer. I don't think he's going to be doing shotgunning beers and the you know all that deal that he did at Whistling Straits.
But JT's the easy answer.
But I think I'm going to go with another one that that Homa getting kind of caught up emotionally invested in these matches, doesn't, I don't know, raises their eyebrows.
So all right, some things to watch out for. Thank you Brendan for coming on the pod. Have a good rest of the week.
All right, thanks so much, Garrett.
All Right, Joseph Lamania our last check in for this first segment of the pod. Joseph, how are things going.
I'm pumped, Scarrett.
This is gonna be such a fun week for so many reasons, like the over analyzing.
Course, the historical implications. I'm pumped.
Yep. Yeah. So you know, the thing about the Ryder Cup is that it's at least as fun to overanalyze it as it is to watch it. That's sort of like the magic of it. We spend we spend all this time doing it, and it's like this is this is really the good stuff right here? All right? So first question right off the bat, who is going to win? And what will the final score.
Be I almost can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm taking the Americans in a narrow win.
I'll go fifteen thirteen USA.
I was getting Europe vibes and I thought they were kind of undervalued. For the past six months, I've kind of gone back a little bit the other direction. I think the tide has turned a little bit too much in favor of Europe, and I know that they've had trouble winning over there, but I think this could be the year.
Yeah, and I've said this before in the other segments with Andy and Brendan, but I think an equally interesting question is whether this is going to be another blowout or whether we're going to get a close Ryder Cup, you know, and so part of the prediction here that you're making is that this would be a close one, fifteen to thirteen, Like it's almost as close as it gets. So that would be very exciting no matter which direction it goes.
Yeah, I don't think there's going to be a blowout. I mean there could be, Frank, I think it's more likely that Team USA would blow out Team Europe than Team Europe would blow out tam USA. But I also liked. I liked Team USA in Paris. I think I've learned quite a bit since then to where I wouldn't make that same prediction if they.
Were to run that one back.
But in this particular case, I think the depth of Team USA will be a pretty big factor, especially late.
Okay, all right, most valuable player on either team, So this is out of the twenty four players, most valuable.
I'm going Scotti Scheffler A big caveat that we may get to in a second, but I think this golf course is perfect for Scotti Scheffler and would be very surprised if he doesn't perform extremely well. So I'll say he's the most valuable player.
Do you have any takes on his putting. I don't know if you've been following the latest news out of the Scotty Scheffler putting narrative, but he's been working with Phil Kenyon, I guess, and all that stuff. Do you have any thoughts about that.
I don't have a strong thought on what those lessons mean and when.
The technique means. I couldn't say, you know, I've looked at some before and afters and it's like, okay, yeah, the setup looks different, but who knows.
Right, Yeah, I don't think he can put much worse than he has been putting, and I think even with poor putting factor, he's going to be fine here. I think this whole notion that putting is going to be important is completely overblown. And I mean Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari aren't great putters, and look what they did in Paris. I think it's going to be a hardcore get to the Green contest Tita Green, and the putting is just kind of overblown in general. So I think
this sets up very well for Scotty Scheffler. And if a player makes all their money with putter, I could see this being a week where they struggle.
Okay, that's an interesting insight about the course. All right, least valuable player again out of the twenty four in Rome.
Well, this is a natural segue, and this is exactly where I wanted to go with this. I think it's Sam Burns, and I think that for a couple of reasons. One, I don't think he sets up very well for this golf course. Not a great long iron player. He's the player who tends to get his make his money with wedgend putter, and that's not really something you're gonna have
the opportunity to do a bunch. And the main reason I think he could be the least valuable player is there's a good chance he's paired with Scotty Scheffler, who fits this golf course extremely well. And if Sam Burns ends up holding back one of the best players in the field, I think that could be a pretty big issue for Team USA.
All Right, so switching to talking a little bit about the course here, do you have a hole that you think is going to be particularly interesting at this venue? Most interesting hole?
I'll go with whole five, because that whole can play differently based on conditions, based on tea box, pin location, firmness. It's a short part four over water, and you know, just depending on the day and the conditions, you may get some teams laying up, you may get some teams going for it. I think it'll be really interesting to watch which players decide to do. You know, which strategies they take on different days, but also which teams take
the more aggressive versus the more conservative strategies. And it'll be really interesting to see if you know, on a particular setup. Team Europe has their team doing the exact same thing with all of their groups versus Team USA that is probably not as and in tune to the best core management. So that'll be a really interesting one to watch.
Yeah, Whole five, it's one of the few holes at Marco Simone that's kind of flat. You know, again, I haven't been on the property. This is just judging from videos and photos that I've seen of the course, but relatively flat compared to other holes. And you have that big pond essentially, and it looks to me like the pond is a major factor for layups, just as it is for going for the green if it's drivable on
a particular day, which I'm sure it will be. There like three different holes at Marcos Simone that can and may be driveable at this event. But Whole five, that layup just looks tricky. I guess there's plenty of room to do it, but it almost seems like a lot of players are going to say, you know what, I might dump this layup in the water. Why not just be aggressive here? Do you have that sense too?
Yeah?
And I think it will really depend on the conditions. I mean, if you're if it's super firm. Let's say you're pins back and best case your drive not best case but a pretty likely outcome. You're hitting drive, you're taking on a lot of risk of not carrying the water, and best case it bounces over the back and you're short sided. Like that's that's also not a great situation where you're hitting driver either, So it just depends on the conditions, how soft things are, what the wind's doing,
where the pin is. I mean, I've seen guys like Matt Fitzpatrick, who is pretty has pretty smart course management, take both tacts based on the pin location and conditions, So I think you're gonna see both.
Okay, final question, who do you think is the most likely to complain about the fan behavior in Rome?
I'm kind of punting on this one, Garrett, and my answer is that I think we're finally out of stage where the golfers who are participating in this don't complain about that kind of stuff. I think we've got guys on both sides who are down for the atmosphere, who are excited about it, and who won't complain. So I don't think anyone's going to Maybe the obvious answer here is probably somebody on the American side. But I think if anyone complains about something fan interaction wise, it could
be John Rom. He's he's kind of been feisty about some of this stuff recently. I don't think there's gonna be so many European fans that I don't think he's gonna get like heckled. But small disturbances seem to bother John Ram about as much as anybody on either team, So it wouldn't surprise me if he has some kind of outburst. But I don't expect anybody to. It should be a fun, good environment where everyone's kind of about the spirit.
Small disturbances seem to bother John Ram's caddy too. I've I've noticed that, mister Hayes, but it seems like cameras are sort of Rom's main pet peeve. But yeah, he does. He and his caddie both interact with the fans and and and not always in the most you know, friendly friendly term, So so that would be that would be interesting. I always, I always think it's funny when like a player's spouse gets in gets into the mix with talking
about the crowd. I think Sergio Garcia's wife did at one point, maybe it was at Hazel Team, and so that that's always a fun of all the families come to the Ryder Cup and they're on the scene too, they're sort of like part of the action, and so that's that's always a little side storyline that I love tracking.
Yeah, well, the Garcias won't be naming their next kid Marcos Simone.
That would be that'd be a pretty good name for a Sergio Garcia child. Honestly, Marco Simone Garcia. I mean that that is if you want your kid to be a great golfer, Like I think that's a great golfer name. That's like the new Stavi Biasteros.
Azalea fire Thorn and Marcos Simone.
All right, Joseph, I hope you have a great week and we'll talk again soon. Probably talk again to to wrap up the Ryder Cup if if you have some time afterwards, So right after this music that you're hearing right now, you will hear from Shane Ryan about the history of the Writer Cup. Shane Ryan, welcome to the podcast.
How you doing, Welcome to you. I'm good, thank you.
I'm being welcomed down to your show.
That's the most awkward way I can start Welcome right back, Arre.
I can tell that you are a podcasting professional by by how you handled that you just know this guy, this guy is the real deal. Well, you are definitely a professional writer. Do you notice how I did that segue? By the very good, very Because you have an excellent book called The Cup They Couldn't Lose, which is really relevant right now with the Ryder Cup coming up, and I want to talk about basically everything you researched for that book, and it's some of the history you dug into.
The book is about the twenty twenty one Writer Cup, but it's also about the history of the Writer Cup. So I want to start you with like a high school history class prompt. Okay, all right, So the situation is this Europe is still kind of the pre eminent team in the Writer Cup, right The Europeans have still won seven of the ten Ryder Cups in this century or something like that. The US still hasn't won a Writer Cup on European soil in thirty years or so.
So basically the prompt is this, if you were to tell the story of how Team Europe got itself into this position, where would you start in history. What would be the earliest you would.
Go, that's a great question. Yeah, And you know, I think I would just qualify what you said. It is sort of like Britain at the end of like the colonial Empire, where you're like, there's still technically have all these countries, but it's not going well, right It's like they're kind of coasting on their history a little bit right now.
I kind of feel that way about Europe.
I think in like two weeks we maybe like America is now the predominant team this maybe just before this, maybe just before Yorktown in the American Revolution. It's like, you do still America is still your colony, but we don't think it's gonna last much longer.
No, So yeah, go how did Europe achieve dominance? Great question?
You know.
The background, of course is that this Ryder Cup started in nineteen twenty seven, which was already post World War One, when America was had had pretty much firmly established itself as the pre eminent golfing power, which would only get worse right after World War Two, and you know, they would just keep getting better and better. So as you might expect, they were just playing the UK at the
time they weren't playing all of Europe. The Americans dominated this event completely for fifty years, about almost perfectly fifty years, right. That takes us to nineteen seventy seven, which was the last year that the Ryder Cup was only the UK and Ireland. Starting in nineteen seventy nine it went to Team Europe. The US crushed them two more times in seventy nine and eighty one, and then we get to the answer to your question, which is nineteen eighty three.
When Tony Jacqueline took over as captain of the European team. It was unexpected for him. He was somebody who had played all these Ryder Cups. He had the famous concession moment with Jack Nicholas in sixty nine. That was the only one that was a tie, but technically America retained it because they had won before. That was the only time he got closed. I think he played seven Ryder Cups and was demolished in the others by the Americans. He was very upset at the Ryder Cup team for
not including him the year before. There's a lot of drama there. He hated them. He kind of thought they hated him, and so nineteen eighty three comes and it's just this months before the Ryder Cup starts, right, so now you have your captain basically two years in advance. Months before they didn't have a captain. They barely had sponsors. Their main sponsor on the European side had dipped out, being like, I don't know. It was a big bank of some kind, and they're like, I don't know why
we're doing this. You know, you get your butts kicked out every single time. We're not sponsoring you anymore. They couldn't find a sponsor for the longest time until they visited some whiskey company called Bells in Scotland, so they barely got a sponsor in time the Ryder Cup was
almost dead. And then they went to Tony Jacqueline after this long debate that Jacqueline didn't know what was happening, Like Bernard Langer was, you know, debating the old guys, and they were like, the captaincy should be a lifetime achievement award, and Langer was like, no, we need somebody who's like more there, right, we need somebody who's kind of like of our generation at least a little bit,
who can understand us. We need to take this seriously, and they eventually listened to him because they wanted, you know, the European Tour, the fledgling, the European Tour in the British PGA. They wanted this thing to keep going. So they approached Tony Jacqueline, who immediately was like, fine, if you meet all my demands, I want to travel on
the Concorde. I want nicer clothing. Tony Jacqueline at one point in his Ryder Cup career the shoes that they gave him had fallen apart during the Ryder Cup, and this is like foremost in his mind, Like this shoe incident sticks in his head.
He's like, I want.
Nicer shoes, I want nicer clothes. I want a lot locker room. You're like an actual team room, not just some musty old locker room where we can give a speech. But I want, like, I want all this stuff. And they said yes to everything, and they had to hustle to get some of it. So it's like with the Conquered. They had to finance it by promising, you know, fifty megafans that if you pay money for this, you can
fly over with us. Right, they had to kind of be creative, but they said yes to everything, and then Tony Jaqueline's last demand was, I want Sevi Biasteros on the team. And you know, Sevi bi Asteros had been demanding appearance rights on the European Tour, which he had every right to demand, right. The European Tour had a policy of we're not doing appearance fees unless Americans come over that we want to see and then we'll do appearance fees, and Semi bia Steros is like, screw that, right,
So Sevii Biasteros was persona on Grotty. He was left off the eighty one team. Tony Jaquelin said, I need Seve like he's one of the best players in the world. We absolutely need him. And this guy named oh my god, I'm gonna forget his name, but he was a cousin to Queen Elizabeth.
Are you talking about Lord Darby?
Lord Darby?
Yes, yeah, Derby who cussing the Queen Elizabeth and would not deign to ask Tony Jacqueline to take the captaincy himself. You know, he sent his underlings, but once Jacqueline said yes, he met with him and Jacqueline was like, well, what about Sevey, and Darby was like, well, he's your problem now. That's by the way, that's not what I think. He talked like, that's an exact impression. That's exactly correct.
That's actually a really good impression of like, yeah English accent. Yeah, there's like a very particular royal English accent. That's actually very good. Chain.
I feel like if I kept doing it, we get more like I didn't cow.
So yeah.
So Tony Jacqueline met with Sevi Biasteros at the Prince of Wales Hotel that summer.
I got him on.
Board with the team, and then they went to Florida and for the first time they had this team spirit. They kind of felt like they weren't second class citizens to the Americans like they'd always felt. And they went and they shocked them, and they came so close to beating them in Florida. On the last there's a funny moment where everything was very competitive and you know, Tony Jacqueline, they went out to exchange their singles lineups, and the idea was that you would always put your stars at
the end. This was just sort of practice, this is custom. And Jack Nicholas did that and Sevie heard sorry Tony. Jacqueline gave him his lineup and all the stars were in the front because he knew he had to do something dramatic to win this thing, and Jack Nicholas actually said.
Like, you can't do that. He was so shocked.
It was like a sitcom, We're like or a cartoon where his like jaw fell on the floor and his tongue rolled out. So anyway, yeah, so they came to that last day. It was a classic match. The US did hang on. Lanny Watkins hit a big shot at the
end to win. I think it was a fourteen and a half to thirteen and a half score, and afterward in the locker room, the Europeans were distraught and Stevie by Asteros was basically like stood up, paced up and down, tears coming from his eyes, and is like, this is a great triumph.
We're gonna beat them next time.
Nobody feel down, Nobody feel bad, and he kind of lifted them all up, and you know, to make a long story short, they won the next time at the Belfry. In eighty seven, they went to Mierfield Village and won in America for the first time ever. They have sixty years of the Ryder Cup, they'd never done that. They beat the Americans and just strategically, you know, spiritually, almost in a million different ways. They became this tight knit unit.
And of course they had better players, right, they had all of Europe now and people like you know, Faldo and Langer and all these great players were coming up, and so they had a better team, and they just started beating the Americans with consistency in a lot of close matches, to be fair. And then in the two
thousands they became not close matches anymore. They started beating them like eighteen and a half to nineteen and a half, and this kind of period of dominance where America seemed to win like one out of every four, right, never in Europe, and then one out of every two.
They lose at home.
This continued for a long time until we went to Glenny Eagles and Tom Watson got humiliated by Paul McGinley.
It was like the.
Archetypical, like Europe just having all their shit together in America just being funded clueless. Uh. And after that the Task Force started, which everybody made fun of in America. But the Task Force has been very, very good and so the task force has been good. You know, they wont it Hazel Team, they dominated it Whistling Straights, they got shocked in Paris and beat up. But there are a lot of weird little things that went into that.
So it all comes to now where it's like, I think America is the better team, but they have to win in Europe to prove it. Before they win in Europe, you don't. You can't say to the better team. I think they might this year, but it's looking like it's going to be a really great Ryder Cup. Yeah, so there's like, there's your you asked me a very simple question. I gave you the overview of the entire Ryder Cup.
But that's that's the survey. That's well that yeah, and if this that's the answer to the high school history class prompt, that's a that's a very broad answer to it that we can then go back into and pick out some you know, individual threads. There's a lot of wonderful detail in your book that you that you found out through interviews with Tony Jacqueline and Paul McGinley and others. Now going back to you know, the nineteen eighties, there's
this great set of European players. So one thing that Team Europe had going for it is that it had Sevi Piasteros, who's unbelievable. It had Nick Faldo, who is unbelievable. So there was this great cohort of players that could stand up to the quality of the American players overall. And then in addition to that, they seemed to have better leadership from Tony Jacquline, you know, some more creative leadership, doing some things with the lineups and things like that.
So there were certain dynamics emerging with Team Europe that would give them more of an ability to compete with the Americans. But a lot of it had to be these were great players, all time great golfers on the European team. But then at some point it seems like Team Europe found a distinct advantage organizationally, leadership wise that led them and that that caused this this era where they they were coming to the matches with players who were widely regarded as not as good as the American
players and absolutely destroying the Americans. So could you tell me a little bit about how Team Europe found those kind of hidden advantages in leadership and organization to you know, achieve what they achieved in the twenty first century.
Yeah, and your first point is absolutely right that without the players, none of the stuff matters, right, Like you know, pre pre European UK team like Reginald mc mcshireville, Like he's like, right, like somebody's cousin who can't break eighty five.
That's an exaggeration, but you know, essentially you're playing with Darby's cousin.
Yeah, Lord, Darby's entire family was the whole Ryder Cup team before then. No, but you like, you can strategize your pants off, right, but you're just not gonna You're not gonna win under these circumstances.
So you got to have a few players.
But as you kind of hinted, the Americans have almost always, not universally, but almost always had the better team, sometimes by far, and sometimes they still lost when they had the better team by far.
So yeah, what the question is what did Europe do right?
And this is always kind of like it's the fundamental aspect of the Ryder Cup that interests me because it's so easy to look at the Ryder Cup and go it's three days with people playing an individual sport. It's just you know, people playing golf, it's about who plays better on the day, and I think Americans thought that for a long time and it's why they kept losing. And so as to what they did, a lot of it can be explained by they just did the smart
things earlier than the US. So we're talking about captain's picks, right, being able to put your guys out there. They were on that much sooner than the Americans were. Course set up like Tony Jacqueline by the belfry, which slowing the greens down, you know, making it basically taking the ruff from around the greens, because he thought the Americans are such good chippers that he wanted to make it impossible to chip little things like that that the Americans, you know.
I read Paul Aisinger's book, and Paul Aisier, when he was captain in two thousand and eight, said that when he wanted to manipulate the course, they told him he was the.
First person who had ever asked that.
Now that's twenty three years after Tony Jacquelin did it in Europe. So it just shows you that immense gap, right, that this was like something that it took a long time for the US to catch on Dudo. Probably a little bit of arrogance, a little bit of complacency, right, They hadn't want They've been winning this thing forever. They knew they had the best players in the world. It you can imagine it took a lot more for them to say, we need to strategize and we need to
figure out what's going wrong, because they want to just believe. Well, it's kind of it's got to be a fluke, right that these guys are beating They're not as good as us, It's got to be a fluke. Whereas if you're Europe and you know the Americans are better than you, you're you know, necessity being the mother of invention, You're far more likely to find the little edge here and there where you can, so you know, it goes into stuff.
Those are the big ones, right. You know, the European fans were more passionate in partisan long before the Americans caught on. There's a great story in eighty seven, the first year that the Europeans won in America, where they're just coming off eighty five having won at the Belfry, and the fans were rabid and crazy, and the Americans like hated, like how Sutton was so mad and they
couldn't believe what had happened there. You know, this is basically dealing with, like, you know, a golf course equivalent of a soccer crowd, and golfers aren't used to that. So they go back to eighty seven very much wanting their fans to do the same thing. And at Mirifield Village, the fans have no idea that they're supposed to be doing this. They don't really understand what the Ryder Cup is, and they're just like politely, oh ooh, sepie Biasteros this year. Yeah,
it's what a pleasure to see him. They're not partisan at all. And Jack Nicholas at one point goes out and buys like a million little American flags American you know, and he hands them out to all the fans. They're all, you know, politely waving their flags but still cheering for everybody. They're not partisan, and the Americans are so frustrated because it's like these guys like they're killing us over in Europe, Like they're screaming at us, they're spitting on our wives, you know.
Like that was that was what it like.
Literally, these people are too nice over here and you know, Hal Sutton's trying to pump them up to no avail and they lose. And it's not till ninety one that Dave Stockton makes it his business to sort of be like this is how a ryder Cup should be, and the War by the Shore gets so insane, Like the
Americans finally catch on. And the reason they catch on is probably because it starts to be on TV more right before then, and so there's things that they're seeing and knowing, and you know, the Iraq War was at
that time, so there's this patriotic fervor. It's it just becomes more of what it is today, where a living efing nightmare if you're on the road, no matter what team you are, right, it's like every I guarantee you it happens every time in American and I guarantee you there'll be something that happens in Italy where the US will be like, this is just pathetic that they're treating us this way. It'll happen in Beth guarantee you it'll happen in Beth Page.
Oh God, Beth.
Page will be someone will be murdered.
I want to see Sergio Garcia come back for Team Europe at that page. Yeah no, not not all of Team Europe is gonna survive, Beth Page. There's gonna be there's gonna be at least one death, and that's that's just what you have to accept. No, uh yeah, So it's you know that just like the little advantages they picked at and picked out of course course setup, having captains, picks,
little team chemistry stuff. You know, it's just all kind of and they were more suited to it, I think naturally because of their underdog status and beating America meant an awful lot to them, where beating Europe was sort of unimportant.
To the Americans. And the one quick thing I would add there is that you are now seeing a generation of players on the American team who grew up watching their team get their asses kicked right by the Europeans. And the amount that they care like people like Justin Thomas, all of them, the unity they have at these Ryder Cups.
They're not all best friends, right, but.
The unity they have and the passion they have is a direct result of having watched that. Before them, that generation didn't exist because they grew up watching the US win or the Ryder Cup wasn't that important. So that's like a huge change.
Now, Yeah, yeah, that's that's really interesting all of a sudden. The Americans have a little bit of that underdog mentality, which might be overrated as a motivational thing, but maybe underrated as a team unifier, you know, the sense that you know, we are against the odds here, and that tends to bring teams together. All right, So switching to the American side, fully, the US team did seem to figure some things out in two thousand and eight when
Paul Aisinger was captain. Obviously, Asinger system is very well known at this point, frequently discussed, but I don't know if people really are familiar with the details of it. They just say pod system and don't explain it. So could you explain it? What was the pod system and how did it work? And what were some of the other things that Asinger did that were smart in two thousand and eight.
Yeah, the pod system came about because Paul Easinger was watching a guitar documentary or something. He's kind of a big music guy and he was just laying there on the couch and the next thing that came on, the history Channel or whatever it was was a documentary about the.
Navy Seals and the Navy when they trained.
They have I think teams of six or it may even be smaller, but they have these little teams and the philosophy is, you know, you need to count on these people for your life, and so you get really close to them and you have your own little unit there. And that really appealed to him, and he kind of, you know, he was always thinking about the Ryder Cup.
This was like a very passionate thing for him.
He loved it, and where he took that was, Okay, what if we do this in the Ryder Cup, have these smaller groups together, And that really appealed to him because you know, he had come of age at a time when every time the Ryder Cup came around, the American philosophy was twelve people as one unit. You know, we're kumbaya, we're a team together. And he always found that kind of silly because the sport itself is so selfish and so isolationist that you can't just flip a
switch right in the rider. You can't just say yeah, we're a team now, where you know, like it's not like you're the Chicago Bulls all of a sudden or whatever. And so he always found that hard. And his kind of thing was, Okay, if we do this Navy Seals thing, instead of asking twelve people to be at unity, I can divide people into groups of four and I can ask them to be a unit together.
And that gets a little easier.
Because people are friends or people have similar cultural backgrounds, right, Like the Redneck group he had, which was like three rednecks, and then Jim.
Furick because he just he just needed like a fourth guy.
So like was in the Rednecks group's the most patient guy.
Yeah, yeah, you can go get along with the Rednecks. It's fine, but yeah, and so you know, he did personality tests. I mean, he was really smart in how he kind of arranged these four groups of people. Like Phil Mickelson was of the Anthony camp. Right, they're both kind of California, you know, gunslingers. You have like Boo Weekly and Jabie Holmes together with the red Neck group, and I forget the other with Kenny Perry, right, and
so then there was another group of other people. So they just kind of he had these little groups together, and the idea was you're gonna get to know each other, your practice together. The people who were on the team, he consulted them about captain's picks. He said, you know, who do you like? And he actually did a pretty revolutionary thing that he didn't publicize until after, which he let the Pods of three pick their fourth player.
So he didn't even pick the fourth player.
He basically, you know, within reason, right, he said, here's your list, take who you want out of here, and he took Steve Stricker, but the other three pods got to pick their own guy. And so like these little things that just kind of brought the team in, gave them ownership of it, and he felt that was by far the most important thing. And then team spirit kind of stuff, like they had a Pepperley in Louisville the night before, you know, just kind of getting everybody on board.
Interesting that year that Tiger didn't show up, which I probably think had a sneaky unifying effect a little bit, you know, your top dog's not there. Europe comes in having dominated the Ryder Cup. One of the few times we're on paper Europe has the by far the better team, uh. And it also so happens that they have one of the worst captains that's ever that's ever donned this letter.
In Nick Faldough.
So you know, it comes in and Paul Easinger's plan works to perfection, and yeah, I mean it just in that that kind of thing was like the seeds of a lot of evolution were in that. And then it gets lost because it's America, they get it gets lost. In twenty ten, nobody consults Asinger, nobody asks them any questions.
Twenty twelve, Davis, you know, brings a lot of the same stuff back, has this unbelievably fluky Sunday at Medina where that leads to Ted Bishop, the next president of the PGA, going, let's get a maverick in there, right, like, let's get Tom Watson in there. This is a good idea which leads to a complete freaking disaster at Glenn Eagles.
And after that, then the task force comes and looks at what's happened and all these ideas that Asinger had, ideas that the Europeans have had everything that they've had, you know, they start to get their act together in a big way, to the point that now, I mean, it's just it's an unbelievably well oiled Machine, team Rider. You know, Team USA's Ryder Cup thing, and they're following a template and they're every bit as organized and smart as the Europeans.
But it took a long long time to get there.
So take me through what went wrong for the American team at the twenty fourteen Ryder Cup. What's the basic diagnosis. I know a lot went wrong, but what's the core of it?
Yeah, I mean it's just you know, you brought in a captain, and Tom Watson, who is far far older than the team he was captaining, didn't make a ton of effort to get to know them. You know, he always been a private guy, Watson Wash. Even when he captained in ninety three, which is the last time the US won in Europe, he was a private guy.
You know.
When he reaches out, he reaches out in ways that he's the leader. You know, he's kind of gruff. He goes by his gut and things like you know, when he when he took a captain's pick of Web Simpson, that was something that you know, was based on a text message Web had sent.
Him the night before.
There's little things that are just there's not a coherent plan in place, and he happened to run into a guy in Paul McGinley, who you know, wasn't a tenth of the player Tom Watson was, or wasn't a tenth of the player of most captains that have ever existed, right, he maybe the worst player that's ever been a captain, But that doesn't matter. It's like in baseball there's the thing of like backup catchers make the best managers, and here you had the same phenomenon where he's a really
good people person. He planned like you know, he was a CEO essentially, he planned unbelievably really smart about how to deal with people, went so far as to set the pairings on the European Tour for the year prior so that he could see without telling anyone, so that he could see how people played together.
You know.
Again, I write about this more in detail in the book, but the planning is so intricate that it goes right down to the granular level of why am I playing this guy first on Sunday? And why am I playing this guy twelve? And everything folds together neatly into this puzzle and you're playing against the guy who's basically like a you know, a drunken character in a Western shooting
his gun at the ceiling. And with all respect to Tom Watson, you know it's hilarious to say that after describing him that way, but no, he just went off his gut. He didn't know any better, and you know, he ended up like you know, he ended up turning the team against him in big ways. A great example was on session one. His deal was, Okay, we're gonna get We got our four teams for session one. Session two were getting the rest of the people out there in two teams, and the other two teams are gonna
be based on how we play in session one. Well, Jordan Speed and Patrick Reed went and were amazing, and he kept them out without a really good reason. He never really explained it, and and Jordan and Patrick Reid were kind of pissed off about it. It was it was not okay with them. And then he kept pill Mickelson out, which you know, Michelson later had the big rebellion at the end of it, like he pissed off his his spiritual leader.
It just was like everything was.
In shambles by by the time Sunday came around, and mcginley's plan was just like working like clock or boom boom boom, boom boom. They killed in the foursomes like they always do. And yeah, it was over very early on Sunday. So that's just kind of a little taste of what went wrong. But it was essentially two fundamental differences in captain philosophies, one of which you know, was so bad that it's now lost to history. It was
the last time we'll probably ever see that. And the other one of which is you know, basically you're part of a continuous company here, and the company is Ryder Cup Team Europe, and you're gonna build off what's come before. And now USA has the same thing on the other side.
And you know, in the wake of twenty fourteen, the task Force on the American side was formed. You know, maybe Phil Mickelson's comments at the press conference after the twenty fourteen Ryder Cup helped this along, but there was a response from the American side and it took the form of this task force, which was initially the subject of some mockery, including by our mutual friend Lee Westwood, who you know, has had some really bad takes that he hasn't necessarily owned up to. All the time, but
this is one of them. The task force has been pretty successful. What do you think this this body has ended up accomplishing Basically, it's.
Funny when you look back at Lee Westwood making fun of it, that should have been your first clue that they're on the right track, Like Lee west would thinks it's terrible. Good job, guys, you're doing the right thing. No, you know they you know again, it goes back to a lot of things we talk about. We have to take accountability for you know, course setup, how do we how do we deal with our you know, how do
we form partnerships, how do we form pairings? And they don't always adhere to an exact like pod system, right, but they do loosely adhere to a pod system. I mean, you know, they have stats outfit called Scouts Consulting, which
I'm really high on. I think they're really brilliant guys and they help with everything from pairings to the setup to you know, every like granular little details of like this is a guy you want team off on this whole and here's what we should do to the rough because their forces team always hits in the rough here and our guys are here you know, little things like that to logistical planning operations. Where's the team gym gonna be?
Where are we going to have our team meetings? How are we going to make sure that guys aren't sitting around forever at gala dinners like before the event. Like every little thing they can think of to make life good for their players, they do it. And it's you know, there was a point at which I was talking to Davis Love and after whistling straits, and you know, he said, we're still looking at what we did wrong, and like, you won nineteen to eleven.
You did absolutely nothing wrong. What could you possibly be talking about?
And he was like, well the food delivery started talking about food delivery, and You're like, wow, these guys are considering things down to the littlest detail. Really impressive, I think. I mean, it's and I'm sure Europe is doing the same thing. Luke Donald's going to be a really really good captain. But yeah, so there's just nothing, no stone left unturned. The very simple broadway to describe it is that they stopped treating the Ryder Cup casually. I mean,
they started treating it like a serious business. And that's kind of what you have to do to win.
Now, Steve Stricker maybe is an example of a lot of this, or at least his captaincy is. But the way that he ran things I think is a great representation of what the task force is trying to accomplish in many ways. Not the most charismatic guy, not somebody who likes talking right, which you would think would be an important quality in a captain. So why was he such an effective captain in twenty twenty one at Whistling Straits?
Hyper organized, right, hyper hyper organized and amazing attention to detail. His whole philosophy was I'm gonna outprepare povering Harrington and he did. I mean, who knows how much he had to like that was, but I mean he completely left no stone unturned. Like you said, he couldn't give a speech if his life depended on it, motivational speech. He wasn't that kind of guy. But the Americans don't need that, right.
It's this is the kind of thing where we go back to these old tropes of like how is he gonna motivate them? It's like they don't need motivation, they just need to be comfortable. They're plenty motivated, which is you know, maybe again maybe a little different than previous generations. These guys again grew up watching Europe win and so
they're very motivated to win. But what's more important than Stricker realized this, and America knows this, all their captains know this now, is that let them adhere to their routine as closely as possible, because golfers are creatures of habit and we need to make sure, like you know, if you take a nap at this time of day, or if you work out at this time of day,
you can still do it. And that's actually way more valuable than some raw, raw speech or a hype video or something like that, which, by the way, the Europeans have always responded to more than the Americans. Like that's kind of a European thing, like let's have a hype video, let's have all our cap you know those montages where it's like Sam torns and been.
Like you will go get them. It's like seventy guys.
And they the public there every year too. When whenever people see these videos, it's like, oh, Europe by a million, yeah.
Exactly, Yeah, Like it's like that's that's good for them that they like that but it's ultimately like I remember when Parry Carrington as his team go out in cheeseheads at whistling straight like the Packers cheeseheads, and everybody's like, oh, what a coup, and You're like, this doesn't matter at all, Like it doesn't like the Americans are still gonna like throw things at them on Friday, you know what I mean. Like you're still gonna get hit in the head by
a rock by these fans. You're not winning them over because you wore a cheesehead in Packers Country. So anyway, yeah, so what was the question again?
Where were we?
Why would strict or such an effective and you've described that pretty well.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So he was just he nuts and Bolt's guy. That's all you need. And he has the respect.
Of the players. That's also important. Yeah, so he already had the respect. He didn't have to be anything.
He tried to give one speech when they did their pre Ryder Cup visit a couple weeks earlier, and he made it like five words before he broke down crying.
He was like, don't give speech to Steve. It's fine. So you don't need that, you don't need that.
You just need a comfortable atmosphere and somebody who can command respect and who plans like nobody plans, you know, Like that's the big thing.
So a big issue this year and every year when it comes to the Ryder Cup captaincy, his Captain's picks. They were very hotly discussed this year. During Stricker's tenure, his big accomplishment with the captain's picks was selecting Scotti Scheffler. Yeah,
figuring that out. And so I wonder if you could talk about that Scotty Scheffler pick, what was behind it, how it represents this new US approach, and whether you think that has carried through to the way Zach Johnson approached his own picks this year.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, you know, they knew and the stats had indicated that Scotty Scheffler was a stud and he just hadn't won yet, and obviously he was on the verge of winning quite a lot, right, but he you know, he had been in the finals of the match play that year and he had beaten Polter, and he had beaten Ram, you know, like like he
would again beat Ram in the Ryder Cup. So I think you know that not only do they know that the guy statistically fit with the profile of the course, which the stats, I mean, the stats can show that completely. But he was also you know, somebody who was an elite player that nobody.
Kind of recognized quite yet it's an elite player.
And so yeah, you take that guy, right, you take that guy because you say, not only does he fit the course, but this partnership in this case with Deshamba is gonna work really well.
The stats guys give it the green light.
And it's kind of an annual tradition for me to complain about captain's picks and be completely wrong, like I did it in Paris with Thomas Bjorn's picks. I was like, why isn't he picking? Like why is he picking all these off form veterans and they all went undefeated? And then I was like, you know, Kisner, what a max played dog he is. He should have probably been picked for this team. And Scheffler was, you know, unbelievable and
much better than Kisner would have been. And this time my complaint was that, you know, moronk I think should have made the team over Lowry, although this time I think I'm thinking a little more statistically. But but again, Lowry's like so close with some members of a team, and team chemistry matters, so I'm probably wrong again, But yeah, that that captain's pick of Schffler was really good, right, and all his he had a ton of rookies, a lot of them were captain's picks.
They all played extremely well.
It's just everything worked out because basically it was by the book statistical stuff with an I also on chemistry. So this year is Zach Johnson. You know, maybe his like Justin Thomas, was the controversial pick, if you believe. I think it was like the most obvious pick in the world to make. There's no plan on which I think j T shouldn't have been picked. Some people do, but you know, they're idiots. It became political, it became
all this stuff. But no, JT was like, JT is one of the best match play golfers that's ever lived on the American side in these team matchplay events, and so I thought that pick was a no brainer. I thought the real, the real controversy was between maybe Cam Young and Sam Burns, and there I think you see, you know, Sam Burns is close with Scheffler. He's probably
culturally more aligned with a lot of the guys. He's a Southern Christian, right, Like, he's more than Cam Young from the mean streets of the Bronx type thing, but really like he's more kind of like team chemistry wise, he probably fits in just a little better and that probably made the decision for them at the end. He's also a really good putter, and Cam Young's a really good ball striker, so there's different strengths that they might
have looked at. But yeah, like Keith and Bradley not being on the team, you know, there's just a lot of little things where these guys are gonna go with who they think should go there. And that's why captain's picks exist for them and they're you know, the people need to get used to the idea of if you don't make the top six automatic qualifiers, that's all. That's all, that's all it wrote for you. You don't have to be picked like just because you won number seven, you
don't deserve it. You deserve it if you may number six, right Like, that's the thing. After that, they're going to pick the best people they think for the course, and that takes I think a fundamental mind shift that we're not quite ready for yet like people saying this guy deserve to be on the team. No, you deserve it if you make the team period. After that, they're going to take who they like. And that's what we saw this year on both teams.
Yeah, And I think that part of why people struggle with these picks and this process is that it's a combination of two really different things. I think one is this statistical approach that is somewhat mysterious. People don't really know the details of it, but supposedly it is based on hard science.
Right.
On the other hand, there's the Aisinger influence of the pod system of making players feel comfortable as though they're around people who are friends and making sure that the team chemistry is right. And that's not hard science, and it can be accused of being a kind of buddy system. But I think that when you look at these picks JT, Sam Burns, these are guys who are you know that the statistics would support. In the case of Sam Burns, with JT, you've got a career of being a great golfer.
But I think, maybe most importantly, I bet that these two picks in particular are players that the players who were already on the team, said this guy needs to be on the team. He's the best player. I want to play with him.
Yeah, one hundred percent.
I mean Shane Lowry is actually the best example of the buddy system this year, right, Like, probably statistically he probably didn't belong on that team, right, But yeah, no, I mean, the thing is the Buddy system. The buddy system is used as a pejorative, but team chemistry really matters in the Ryder Cup, and so if you have somebody like nobody likes, it doesn't make sense to put them on the team because whatever value they bring is going to be probably a net negative to whatever, you know,
awkwardness or whatever they bring to the team room. And that does create weird situations where you're like, well, yeah, I guess it is kind of there is an element of the buddy system there, but I don't know competitively if that's a bad thing. Now, the more captain's picks you add, the more the buddy system can come into place.
Right.
If we said tomorrow there's just twelve captains picks, there's no qualifying for the Ryder Cup, then you're like, well, maybe Brian Harmon wouldn't make the team. Maybe Wyndam Clark wouldn't have made the team. You just kind of don't know.
So it's good.
I think it's good that they're automatic qualifying spots. I think they've found a nice balance now and I hope they don't tip it anymore in the other direction. But I think I think this allows a certain freedom. But what that freedom is is the freedom to create, either statistically or chemistry the team that you like. And so yeah, it's gonna make it more and more likely that JT.
You know, does somebody all.
I think the stats and the chemistry support they want them on a team, The players want them on a team. They probably want Sam Burns on the team, right Obviously the Europeans like Roy Macroy, want Shane Lowry on the team badly. And that stuff matters. I mean, that stuff comes into plane. It's it's called the human element, and that's just going to always be.
Part of it. And it's been, by the way, it was part of it long before they had cap you know, it's always been a part of it, all right.
So we've got a pretty good sense for the current state of the American team. How would you evaluate where Team Europe is right now? At this particular point in its history.
Well in their history there. I think subtly they're on the EBB. But you have to kind of take a leap of faith to believe that because they still haven't lost at home. Right, Once they lose at home, then my theory will be proved correct. Right if they lost in Italy, then you'd say, okay, what we saw, what
we thought where the general trends are now happening. Even if it's a close Ryder Cup, you could maybe and you let's say they won fifteen to thirteen or fourteen and a half to thirteen and a half, you could say, well, that's different too, because we've had four home blowouts coming before this and now we see our first Ryder Cup since you know Medina. But I think at the same time, you know, they look a lot better right now than they looked a year ago. I mean, everybody's on form.
Like you saw it happened at the BMWPGA. You saw how well the guys, some of the guys played in the playoffs. They're all on form. They have like a top line of great players. They're weaker down the ranks, you know than the Americans, but even their weaker players seem like they're doing pretty well, and you know, a pick like Aberg is really just so smart and potentially could pay off in such a big way for Luke Donald, and that that's outside the box.
I mean that may not have.
Happened even four years ago, and so it just shows you how things have changed and how analytics and stuff like that makes a big difference.
So I still think I may end up.
I still haven't decided, but I may end up when I write my prediction piece picking the Americans to win. But right now, it's like gun to your head. You're like, man, the home field advantage is so big. I kind of think Europe might still do it. It's just really toss up in my head. So I give you a cry because a while a guy, like a year ago, it seemed like, oh boy, these guys are really they're gonna get blown off. I don't care where they're playing, they're
gonna be blown off the course. Now I don't. I don't think so at all.
Yeah, And I think that you know that the disadvantage for Europe still seems to be in those middle ranks of players. When you compare the middle of each team, the Americans look a lot stronger with guys like Chofle and can't Ley, you know who are you know, kind of in the middle ranks of the American team right now, but you know, frankly much better than the guys who are in similar positions on the European roster. But Europe has maybe three of the four best players in the
world right now in Rory, Rahm and Hoveland. I mean, talk about a corps of leaders that is just great. And then you've got some of these young guys who are rounding into their prime form at just the right moment, and so you have a combination that that very well could be a great, great team. Now, the interesting thing to me about the European team right now is the effect of Live right. It has removed Westwood, Garcia, Poulter, Casey from the equation and maybe, you know, taking out
Lee Westwood is sort of a net benefit. Sorry, I don't know why I'm owning Lee Westwood so hard on this.
Podcast, but.
I just remember his performance at Hazel Tam Like, why would you ever want that? But Sergio Garcia maybe the best Ryder Cup player of all time. Ian Poulter certainly in that conversation as well. Ian Poulter said something to you for this book that was very resonant, where you asked him, you know, do you think that the Ryder Cup matters to the younger generation as much as it matters to you? And Poulter said something to the effect of, you know, don't worry about it. It's it's my fucking
job to let them know. Now he's not kind of around, So, like, what do you think the effect of that will be taking some of these veterans off the board, who who may not have been good captains picks this time around, who may not have been great playing contributors to the team, but who certainly would have been vice captains or involved in some way. Do you think that has an effect on the European side more than say, taking DJ out on the American side.
We'll have so on one hand, you can't underestimate the influence of losing guys like that, And maybe maybe none of them would have been players this year, but you would certainly want them around, right like Sergio and Polter and all those guys. But I will say this, europe historically always functions best when they have a chip on their shoulders. And if I were Paul McGinley or Luke Donald,
what I'd be saying is, these guys abandon you. The Americans think they're king shit, and they think that nobody believes in you. You're the underdogs, Like this is this is our time to go out and be wolves, right, Like, I mean, just to be kind of just really like no, like nobody believes you. It's the ultimate bulletin board material. You lost all your best players, right, they're not around a bunch of young guys and all this stuff and it's not really true, right Like, they're as you said,
they've got some amazing players on their team. They have a home crowd that's gonna be supporting them like crazy, and that is undeniably.
Significant in these things. It's huge.
But I would be playing that card like crazy. And if they can do it successfully, which pretty easy when you've got America, America is the ultimate juggernaut. They're the ultimate evil villain, the ultimate evil empire in sports for other people, not for us, but for for outsiders. Yeah, if you can do that, I mean, the motivation should just be incredible. I mean it's and these guys know what to do, like you don't think rom and Rory can motivate those guys like you don't think Luke Donald.
Luke Donald's like kind of an underdog captain. He was a number one player in the world, but he never won a major, right, Like He's like, all of these guys should just be like raring to go. I just think you're gonna see so much passion from them that I think that's one of the most exciting things that America is gonna take a punch at some point, the Americans, if they win, they're gonna have to do it after they.
Take a punch.
Yeah. Yeah. And Luke Donald, he's almost like a European version of a Steve Stricker captain. You know, different personality, but I think probably very organized, very very smart, and not somebody who brings a lot of like Tom Watson ish ego into the into the team room, and so he could be obviously extremely effective. I don't really know what to make of Zach Johnson at this point as a captain, but you can't judge a book by its
cover with these kinds of things. Obviously a lot of people judged Steve Stricker's ability to be a great captain ahead of time, just based on personality, and that didn't
turn out to be really a relevant consideration. Now, at the beginning of this conversation, you indicated that you think we're we're at a moment right now where there's a this is a historical juncture where the Americans are going to be stronger than Europe going forward, and that would be that would be a major change, right because that has not been the case for the past thirty years, And so you're making an argument that we're at that
hinge moment right now. Now, I would just point out that American fans and American journalists tend to be tend to overreact a little bit to an American win in the Ryder Cup and say this is going to be the case forever now. But then all of a sudden we go back to a European venue and it's just like, why did we ever think that? So, what's your case for why it's different now than it was after Hazelteine that it's different now than it was after any of
the Ryder Cups that America has won recently. Why is this the hinge moment? Do you think?
So let me look at let me look at the thing to make sure, I've got this right. But one thing I would say is that, yeah, so I'm looking at the last time the US went back to back Ryder Cups at home was nineteen seventy.
Nine and nineteen eighty three.
They've done that now, right, that wasn't something they did and they won both of the convincingly. I have a really hard time imagining Europe winning a Ryder Cup in America in like the next decade. I think it'd be really very very difficult. It would take extraordinary circumstances for them to do that. I just think, yeah, I mean, look, you're absolutely right that there is a call it like the English soccer disease, where like they always think they're
gonna win the World Cup and it's shocked when they don't. Yeah, it's always coming home and Americans are like that. I remember in Paris, you know, people going over there, like a lot of media people, you both know, being like this is absolutely going to be a destruction. Then you go you said, you go there and go, oh, yeah, they won the first session, but then it was four to oh in the afternoon to the Europeans and you're like.
Oh, what happens?
Like it's like a big shock every time that these these underdogs managed to be competitive. My argument for why I'm not falling to that same trap is that just I think I've seen evidence over since the task Force was initiated that we just keep learning from our successes and our failures. So Paris was it's the ultimate thing. It's the wrench in the works to my theory. Right, You're like, well, yeah, they're so good, why did they
just go get their asses kicked again in Europe? And it's like, well, I think the reason is, of course, the course set up, the fact that nobody got out there to play beforehand, except like Justin Thomas, right he was I think he played the French Open that year. The fact that it's just bad luck with the captain's picks, right, like bad luck to have Bryson and Tiger and Phil they were all like, Tiger was tired, Phil was not in form. Bryson had just won these things, but he
wasn't suited for the course at all. It was just this variety of X factors that every single one went against the US. And I think it's a sample sized thing. It's like if you run the Ryder Cup simulation, a thousand times. Sometimes even if you're really well prepared and have a good captain, you're gonna just run into these circumstances that you can't control. So I think, to me, that's an outlier. But if you look historically, it's not an outlier at all. They keep they haven't won in
Europe for thirty years. It's the opposite of an outlier. It's the most predictable thing that could have happened. But I think they're ready to overturn that because of how much they keep learning. Because you've got again a good system, Captain Zach Johnson sane, sensible, captain's picks this time really a cute sense of what happened in Paris. So you're gonna be ready for that kind of thing. You know what the course is going to look like. Strategically, you're
gonna be better off. I think like it's the big test, and so it's all theoretical for the next week and a half. It's till it's put to the practice and it's still a small sample size. It could the same thing could happen, but I think they're ready to do it. It's leap of faith stuff. It's a leap of faith. You don't know until it happens. But that's my that's my best guess.
All right, So Shane, this podcast is gonna come out, you know, mid week Ryder Cup week. What are some of the things that you're doing in the in the run up to the Ryder Cup that people should check out?
Oh God, digging up any story that seems vaguely, vaguely relevant or exciting. That's what I'll be doing next week.
You get to Thursday and Wednesday and Thursday of the Ryder Cup week and you're like, oh my god, play some golf already. It's it's the longest week. It's like trying to stir like any any little It starts.
On Friday too, Like with majors, at least, it starts on Thursday and gives you that, you know, extra day of like not having to spin your wheels.
Now.
I could have gone in on Sunday this year, and I was like, now I'm going in Monday. We're gonna shorten this week a little bit. I'm gonna get there Monday check in and that won't hit the ground running until Tuesday because it's like, yeah, it's just not much happening and it's all hype. The British press will look for anything like little that the Americans say, you know, there's all these little.
Things that happened.
But everybody's also so cautious now, right, like nobody's gonna say anything stupid probably, But also they restrict media access to an insane degree at the behest of the players and captains they don't want, so it's like very limited what you can do. So you're you're like, they're in my opinion' they're like twiddling your thumbs. So anyway, the golf Die just coverage of Ryder Cup stuff has been awesome.
There's like, you know, I just wrote a piece today about like what happened in ninety three the last time the Europeans won.
What was that?
Like what are the worst caps? I mean you just go on the site now, like the stuff is. I'm reading it all and digesting it. Luke Credenin's making videos, people, Joel Bill, everybody's writing these great things. So it's like a Ryder Cup nerds dream and right now is the
great time to do it. And hopefully we're gonna keep doing stories like that because you really start getting to the bottom of the well, once you're at Thursday, you're like please, Like on Thursday, you're just praying please let them set the lineup so we have actual news to cover. But yeah, maybe I think there's gonna be a lot of local stuff, like Italian stuff we'll be looking at.
We're definitely gonna be doing our Ryder Cup Radicals podcast, which has been really fun with me and Luke and Joel.
So yeah, we'll have stuff for you. Absolutely, we'll have stuff for you.
Perfect. All right, Well, thank you for coming on the pod.
Yeah, thanks Garrett.
This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by Matt Rusius. Thank you, Matt. One thing that you can do to support Frida eg Golf is to join Club TFE. This is our membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars a year and you get all sorts of benefits and
exclusive content with it. In the Club TFE blog. Right now, we're doing a weekly feature called Design Notebook, which keeps you up to date on everything that's going on in the golf architecture world and also gives you a little preview of the photos that we've been taking of courses lately and things like that. We also have a weekly course profile that we're posting, and these have been really fun to put together and I think people have been
enjoying them. So that's the Club TFE blog. But in addition to that, you get early access to Frida Egg Golf events and you get to participate in things like the Maiden Member Guest, which is coming up fairly soon here in about a month or so at the Metal Club, which is this great Alistair McKenzie course north of San Francisco. We're having our Club TF member guest there and it
should be a really, really fun event. So if you're interested in CLUBTF, if you'd like to further support Frida Egg Golf, they go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership and check it out there. All right, thank you for listening, and we'll see you after The writer gut