PatrickMurtha

Justin Thomas got his Ryder Cup dream. It could become his nightmare The U.S. Ryder Cup team is set, and the player who will be feeling the most pressure in Rome is crystal clear. —Thomas…is longtime friends with Johnson, who clearly placed an emphasis on familiarity in his captain’s pick selections…the risk…comes along with this decision, the stakes of which are clear as day. It is a gamble — the gamble — that will come to decide [Johnson’s] captaincy. In picking his pal, Johnson has raised the attention significantly on the construction of a U.S. roster hoping to glean the first American victory on European soil in three decades. Should the Americans find success in Rome, Johnson will be a genius and Thomas’ last six months will be vanquished. Should they find failure, Johnson will be vilified and Thomas demonized. That much was clear from even a cursory glance around the golf world in the aftermath of Tuesday’s announcement,…where fans…criticized Johnson’s decision as spurning the team’s “best” construction in favor of upholding an American “boys’ club.” …There were other players on the brink of a roster spot who hadn’t carded an 80 in months, and it was fair to wonder Tuesday why those players will spend September at home while Thomas packs for Italy. ……Johnson did not leave JT at home. But that will not quiet the conversation about whether he should have in the weeks leading up to Rome, and it certainly will not quiet the conversation if Thomas finds himself struggling again when balls are in the air at Marco Simone. …There will be no shortage of pressure coming Thomas’ way now. He enters Rome as the team’s most scrutinized player by a significant margin. There will be nowhere to hide if the week doesn’t go according to plan, and this time the burden of blame will be much heavier. This is stress like Thomas (and Johnson) have never faced before — the self-inflicted kind.— (Ah yes, my takes were “absurd”. 🙂)

Have it your way, and have a nice day! 🙄

I am hardly the only person to suggest that JT should have recused himself. So yes, I honestly think that. Sue me. And yes, I think there is a dimension of cluelessness to Zach’s decision. He is already being criticized up and down here. It is distracting. Net result, his and JT’s stock is down; Keegan’s, especially, is up. I stand by everything I said.

One more wrinkle: I would bet that both Keegan and Lucas Glover are now firmly on the shortlist of potential future Ryder Cup captains.

Agreed. I think that Bradley and Cam Young both have legitimate beefs. The mature thing for JT to have done would have been to quietly remove himself from consideration, thus sparing all of us the now-to-be endless discussions about whether his pick is appropriate or not. But of course, expecting entitled professional athletes to be mature individuals is a stretch. I’m kind of disappointed in Zach here. If he had passed on JT, almost no one would have argued. But now he has fueled a distracting controversy. I question his judgement re the bigger picture. He is open to the charge of deciding based on a personal appeal from a friend. Very much not a good look, as you say. I am continually baffled by how clueless people in the public eye can be. 🤔 Think of the PR points JT would have scored if he had just come out and said, “Look, this is not my year. I’ll have better years.” Whereas now, if he performs poorly, he and Zach will never hear the end of it. They have left themselves wide open to that.

Ah, that’s why I wrote in the original post “Best Golfer Without a Major (who still has a good chance at one)”. I think that the best candidates are Rickie and Xander, but that the most likely golfer without a major to next get one is Viktor Hovland. Lee Westwood is an Emeritus in the category at this point.

The best strategy with all next big things is to wait five years, because an awful lot of them flame out.

This discussion about Rory…The years since his last major have not been a failure, they have been a mind-boggling success, on the course and financially too. We put a little too much stress on wins per se. In a given baseball game, there is one winner and one loser. In a given track or swim sprint race, there might be one winner and seven losers. But in a given golf tournament, there is only one “winner” and 149 or so “losers”? This is a little ridiculous. The fact is that placement in the field counts enormously, and if you are consistently very near the top, you are a winner.

MegaCorp is over the moon about Brian Harman. I read an article about that. My favorite Top Ten run in majors is Nicklaus, 1970-1981: 48 majors, 10 wins, 31 (!!) Top Tens, only one missed cut. Yowza!

Oh, Rory’s great, but he might stall at four because the competition has gotten ridiculous. And he gets micro-analyzed more than any other player, both as a golfer and as a person, to the extent that he himself must get so tired of it. If Rahm or Scheffler or Koepka has a bad round or tournament, the media don’t go all to pieces. But if Rory hits a single bad SHOT, cue endless stories about “What’s the matter with Rory?” Even when he wins, they make it sound like he’s losing. And that’s why I get tired of it.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I grow weary of the “Rory Watch”. Four majors is plenty for any man; some veterans would kill to have one WIN. And gee, the man won a tournament (checks notes), ah yes, 10 days ago. But every major, the media milk the Rory Watch, and maybe he will get another, he has seven Top 10s in the last eight majors, it’s impressive. But at some level, I don’t really care, in part because it is made to sound so sad. It’s not in the least sad. I’m supposed to feel bad for a zillionaire Hall of Famer because he doesn’t have MORE? Save your tears. 🙄

That Homa is much better than Branden Grace NOW is unquestionable. But you know, back in 2017-2018, I considered Grace one of the most likely to break through to a major. He had five major Top 10s between 2015 and 2017, and was winning a lot between multiple tours. It was his moment, but it passed. That kind of passage only becomes clear in retrospect.

To maybe state the obvious, to rack up multiple Top 10s in majors (and the Players), you have to be a GREAT player on the HARDEST courses against the TOUGHEST fields. Xander and Rickie and Tony clearly have this touch; they just haven’t been lucky. Max Homa - I’m not sure. Someone who clearly doesn’t have this touch is Billy Horschel, who only has one major Top 10 (T4, 2013 US Open), and I know it frustrates the hell out of him, but there it is.

On Homa, you said it yourself: Only one Top 10 in a major, and he’s 33 this year. Of his 17 appearances in majors, he has missed the cut in nine. Yes, he has been playing well this decade, but I don’t yet see enough evidence that he’s a majors contender. I’d be happy to be wrong; he’s a fun player and presence. As for the “Schauffele group”, of course they are capable, I just have a hunch they will not make it. There are always going to be some who find the most glittering prizes elusive (Ian Poulter comes to mind). Again, I would be happy to be wrong; I have nothing against any of those guys. And they are all on my list of 22 most-likelies, even given my skepticism. Of course, this year we had two major winners who probably wouldn’t have been on anyone’s most likely list at the start of the season. 🙂 Yes, I think of Westwood, Kuchar, Poulter, Donald, Casey, Leishman in a different group, “most likely been and gone” as you say.

Something I like about Tom Kim is that he can do stuff that would be douchey or obnoxious if anyone else tried it, and from him it’s charming. Personality to burn.