AND SO THE talking can finally stop and the heckling and hectoring can begin.
The five-day build-up to the first tee shot of the Ryder Cup is a kind of Olympiad of Guff, where the captains explain their various motivational techniques, the players speak earnestly of how great everything and everybody is; as all the while the world’s media assemble to try and figure out how to say the same thing a thousand different ways.
Journalists in the media centre were yesterday like inmates counting down to parole as they waited for the 4pm announcement of the today’s foursome sessions, so starved have they been of the glorious light of hard news.
We recall a former colleague who advised us that the only way to make these days interesting would be for the respective captains to go full GAA and announce dummy teams. We’d at least have a bit of fun trying to figure out the chances to your match programme.
If you have been blessed with ignorance so far, the week has focused on the half-hearted stirring of a skirmish about the American’s getting paid to play this week, while the European players have gone to remarkable lengths to be trained in the art of being a punch bag.
The atmosphere will be raucous and rowdy, and Europe captain Luke Donald did his best to prepare his players for this verbal onslaught by handing them VR headsets pre-loaded with tailored abuse ringing with an American twang. Jon Rahm cited his experience from the practice days in admitting they headsets weren’t creative enough. One American fan was heard asking Rahm where he had left his Ozempic. Still, great to see that American belief in pills and medicine has thus far survived their president’s ludicrous war on paracetamol.
Trump is going to be here later today, though apparently has been convinced to limit some of the logistical drama by arriving for the afternoon fourballs. The American players have been tripping over themselves to pay homage to their leader, with Bryson DeChambeau saying “I think he’ll be a great force for us to get a lot of people on our side.”
Judging by the amount of MAGA tat we have seen around the course this week, Bryson is right regarding the on-course support.
That support is the signature element of the Ryder Cup. There are a few signs around the course calling for respectful fan behaviour but they are not enforced. This competition has bloomed in status because it provides a one-week holiday from golf’s haughty notions of etiquette and fair play. That support has also skewed the competition enormously to the favour of the home side, and Rory McIlroy set Europe’s tone two years ago in Rome, where he said winning away was one of golf’s most difficult feats before vowing amid Europe’s celebrations that they would go to Bethpage and win.
Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy arrive for a practice session on Thursday. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Europe want to win but the Ryder Cup needs them to do so. Or, at least, come close to doing so. There has been no away win since Europe’s in Medinah 13 years ago, which is now being recast as a miracle in ends as well as means. The closest winning margin in that time has been five points. If home advantage continues to be the equivalent of having serve in a tennis match, then the Ryder Cup is facing into an existential problem.
But this European team are well set to buck deadening precedent. The Americans have shaved down the rough at Bethpage Black to suit their bomb-and-gouge stylings, but this is PGA Tour golf with which the Europeans are familiar.
“It’s like a different golf course, honestly”, says Shane Lowry. “You stood here at the PGA [Championship, in 2019] and you were scared to miss a fairway. They have obviously set it up for that thinking they are going to make more birdies than us, but we will try to make more birdies than them and see where it leaves us.”
Europe have deliberately sought continuity, which is why the only change has been the swapping of Rasmus Hojgaard for his twin brother Nicolai.
Where the Masters only begins with the back nine on Sunday, recent Ryder Cup generally ends by lunchtime on Friday. Crucial to victory is making a strong start in the first foursomes session, as the winner of it has gone on to win every edition of the Cup since Medinah.
Much will hinge on the very first match. The US are starting with a slam on the accelerator, with DeChambeau leading the States’ out alongside Justin Thomas. Donald is fighting fire with fire, picking Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton as Europe’s first pairing.
He has mixed up some of the pairings from Rome, however. The Aberg/Hovland duo have been splintered, with Aberg joined by Matt Fitzpatrick in the second foursomes match, where they will face Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley. This looks risky, given Aberg’s lack of experience, while Fitzpatrick has a miserable Ryder Cup record, winning just one point in eight matches. Hovland, meanwhile, teams up with Robert MacIntyre in the anchor match against veteran American pairing Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay. Of their nine foursome games across Ryder and President Cups, they have won six.
Rory McIlroy teams up again with Tommy Fleetwood, and they’ll face Collin Morikawa and Harris English. For Europe, that match is must-win.
McIlroy is his team’s spiritual leader, and Europe’s win two years ago was founded on his best-ever showing, winning four points out of five and providing the spark in his sole defeat by squaring up to caddie Joe LaCava. He will also be the lightning rod of much of the American attention, but history is teaching him how to deal with it.
“I felt like at Hazeltine [in 2016], I probably engaged too much at times, and then Whistling Straits, I didn’t engage enough and felt pretty flat because of it. It’s just trying to find that balance.
“I can’t tell anyone on the team what that balance is. They really have to find it themselves. But that’s the challenge of playing away.”
With the form of Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland much iffier than it was two years ago, a huge amount rests on McIlroy’s shoulders. The better news is that in Fleetwood, MacIntyre and even Justin Rose, McIlroy has team-mates arriving at Bethpage in a much better place than they were two years ago.
Shane Lowry was irked two years ago by comments from Richard Bland doubting that he deserved to be on the team. Since then, Lowry has transformed himself into one of the best players in the world, a truly elite ball-striker who would have minted more silverware but for a streaky putter. His form line over recent months, however, has dipped, but the Ryder Cup offers him a chance to play the team game his father and uncle took for granted, so you can back him to play above himself.
“Other players might be more individual”, he says “But honestly, I love this. I live for this.”
The United States’ talisman is Scottie Scheffler but their showman will be DeChambeau. They simply can’t afford for Scheffler to reprise his showing in Rome, where he became the first current world number one not to win a Ryder Cup point. The American team has more questions marks hovering over it. How will everyone gel with Bryson? How will their quartet of rookies cope with the sheer scale of this? Can Patrick Cantlay ignore a year’s worth of bad form? And how sharp is Xander Schauffele, who has taken time off lately following the birth of his son?
Xander is the only American player facing ring-rust questions this time around, as the rest of the team bar LIV’s DeChambeau played the Procore Championship on the PGA Tour a fortnight ago. Infamously, nine of America’s 12 players hadn’t played in five weeks when they rocked up to Rome two years ago. Europe have lost that advantage this time around.
The figure of Bradley is fascinating. He is a rarity among American pros in that he truly, deeply cares about the Ryder Cup all-year round, and was heartbroken to have been omitted from their disastrous Roman venture. He vowed to return to the team in Bethpage and thus went and played well enough to deserve a spot. . . only to be appointed captain instead. Hence his mad quandary.
Sure, Keegan, you can play the Ryder Cup. Only you have to publicly pick yourself. And you then have to face the post-mortem afterwards if it all goes wrong.
The Europeans were happy for Bradley to be a playing captain, signing all the necessary documentation to allow it to happen. To understand this European eagerness in Irish terms: the most famous non-playing captain in our history, Eamon de Valera, knew that it was better to allow his counterpart to involve himself in the fray while he himself stood above it all. Bradley almost stumbled into signing his own kind of warrant, but recoiled at the 11th hour.
He has thus decided to do as Donald has done and stood adjacent to it all. That is, until the first tee shot on Friday, when the theatre will erupt and happily engulf us all.
USA need 14.5 points to win the Ryder Cup; Europe need 14 points to retain
Friday schedule (all times Irish)
Friday foursomes
12:10 – Jon Rahm/Tyrrell Hatton vs Bryson DeChambeau/Justin Thomas
12:26 – Ludvig Aberg /Matt Fitzpatrick vs Scottie Scheffler/Russell Henley
12:42 – Rory McIlroy/Tommy Fleetwood vs Collin Morikawa/Harris English
12:58 – Robert MacIntyre/Viktor Hovland vs Xander Schauffele/Patrick Cantlay
Friday fourballs (pairings to be announced on Friday)
17:25 – Match one
17:41 – Match two
17:57 – Match three
18:13 – Match four
