2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National - Paris, France

[Hazsa]

4 minutes ago, Zeph said:

You didn't see a lot of drivers out there. A combination of shorter holes, narrower fairways and penalizing rough. Being 30-40 yards closer in the rough wasn't necessarily a good thing at this course. You often saw them just having to hack something out of there and hope for the best. Being in the fairway was a big deal, and the longest hitters did maybe not get their potential out.

I for one would love to see these guys play at more courses like this. Really enjoyed watching them work hard to position the ball. 

[lastings]

On that note, I don’t think it is coincidence at all that JT came out and played the French open this year and was USAs best player this weekend.   Moreover,..  dj, spieth, Ricky.. you guys all knew you were on this team.  Why didn’t you do that? 

[RLM]

Beautiful course, weather, players-----but disappointing cup. Team look unenthusiastic and not ready to play. You could tell that some were exhausted from the tour events, some had games that were weak coming into the event.  Watched a lot of it, but didn't give the usual emotional investment as I had in previous cups, first watched War on the Shore Kiawah.

[lastings]

2 minutes ago, Hazsa said:

I for one would love to see these guys play at more courses like this. Really enjoyed watching them work hard to position the ball. 

Couldn’t agree more.

[RLM]

3 hours ago, skydog said:

This was a perfect storm against the US squad- bad play, bad captain-ing, and a course that we were really poorly suited for. 

Let’s just hope Phil and Bubba don’t somehow manage to eek on the 2020 team. 

yes, both were disappointing

[Chris223]

Glad I had to work today, I’ll just delete my recording when I get home.  Nice choke job USA.  Same old song and dance... can’t hit fairways, can’t hit greens, miss short putts like its our job, wash, rinse repeat

[GolfLug]

I agree with those who think tight fairways and heavy rough was a huge factor. The serpentine holes took the teeth outta longer tee ballers. I think Rory and Rose from their side weren't as effective either for that reason. 

I think this made a lot of short hitters who place balls much more effective. Euro team was full of them. For eg Molinari.

 

[weekend hacker1]

40 minutes ago, lastings said:

On that note, I don’t think it is coincidence at all that JT came out and played the French open this year and was USAs best player this weekend.   Moreover,..  dj, spieth, Ricky.. you guys all knew you were on this team.  Why didn’t you do that? 

Because they preferred to play for the bigger pay cheques.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, skydog said:

And nice job of misrepresenting my opinion chief. I have said the Phil pick was a terrible one from the onset. Nothing after the fact about it.

First, I wasn’t responding to you with that section and second, I searched for post by you mentioning Phil and only found these, neither of which says it’s a bad pick.

On 9/8/2018 at 1:20 PM, skydog said:

From everything I had heard from media folks who at least think they’re in the know- Phil was basically a lock regardless as this is likely to be his swan song as a player in the event. I think the 63 made the optics of the pick easier, but short of him firing up 80s all summer, he was going to be picked regardless. 

and

On 9/8/2018 at 5:24 PM, skydog said:

I don’t disagree. I know Phil is good for the ‘team room’ aspect and I like watching him play in the event, but it will be an easily criticized pick if Phil doesn’t perform. I also hope that Phil has the self-awareness to suggest to Furyk that he only play in 3 matches as I think his age will catch up with him if he tries to play 2 rounds in one day.

Everything is easily criticized… by people who never say much beforehand.

Furyk deserves virtually no blame and Bjorn almost no praise. The players played poorly or well.

Phil played all of two matches.

P.S. Maybe you said “Mickelson” or something. I dunno. Doesn’t change the fact that players play, captains give speeches.

And Phil is also still top 25 OWGR. “Indefensible” is bull.

[Hardspoon]

42 minutes ago, lastings said:

On that note, I don’t think it is coincidence at all that JT came out and played the French open this year and was USAs best player this weekend.   Moreover,..  dj, spieth, Ricky.. you guys all knew you were on this team.  Why didn’t you do that? 

Well...

1 minute ago, weekend hacker1 said:

Because they preferred to play for the bigger pay cheques.

Exactly.  They prioritized their individual success over what is basically just an exhibition...which I'd say is probably a pretty good choice.

Personally, I'm bummed it was such a blowout.  I like European events since they're on early in the morning, so I would have enjoyed watching if it was actually close.

[skydog]

32 minutes ago, iacas said:

First, I wasn’t responding to you with that section and second, I searched for post by you mentioning Phil and only found these, neither of which says it’s a bad pick.

and

Everything is easily criticized… by people who never say much beforehand.

Furyk deserves virtually no blame and Bjorn almost no praise. The players played poorly or well.

Phil played all of two matches.

P.S. Maybe you said “Mickelson” or something. I dunno. Doesn’t change the fact that players play, captains give speeches.

And Phil is also still top 25 OWGR. “Indefensible” is bull.

Context is key- and what you left out. The ‘I don’t disagree’ comment was to the previous comment saying he was a bad pick. 

And I shouldn’t have gone so far to say the pick itself was indefensible. Putting him out in foursomes was however, and will go down in RC history as one of the worst pairings of all time. Phil and BDC are 6th and 7th on tour in birdie percentage- they should have played together in fourball if anything. Playing them in foursomes made zero sense.

But yes, captains get too much praise when they win and too much blame when they lose. We all know that. 

Edited September 30, 2018 by skydog

[Hazsa]

10 minutes ago, skydog said:

 

And I shouldn’t have gone so far to say the pick itself was indefensible. 

The bloke is 192nd in driving accuracy . If the pick was made for golfing reasons it was dumb. If it was made for sentimental reasons as some people have suggested then yeh, id go along with it being indefensible. 

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, skydog said:

Context is key- and what you left out. The ‘I don’t disagree’ comment was to the previous comment saying he was a bad pick.

The post before yours, that you quoted, says “I would like to see Furyk pick Phil because I think he could win some matches, not because it’s likely his last RC and swan song.”

It sure as hell doesn’t say Phil is an indefensible pick. So what are you even talking about now?

2 minutes ago, Hazsa said:

The bloke is 192nd in driving accuracy . If the pick was made for golfing reasons it was dumb. If it was made for sentimental reasons as some people have suggested then yeh, id go along with it being indefensible. 

Tenth in points. 25th OWGR. And there are more than golfing reasons.

[Hazsa]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

Tenth in points. 25th OWGR. And there are more than golfing reasons.

Well to this casual and clearly uninformed observer it seemed as if those points, world ranking, and golfing reasons were kind of pointless from the thick rough on this course. 

[Vinsk]

4 minutes ago, Hazsa said:

Well to this casual and clearly uninformed observer it seemed as if those points, world ranking, and golfing reasons were kind of pointless from the thick rough on this course. 

Oh come on. You’re acting like the US guys were standing around in awe not knowing how to play a course with thick rough and narrow fairways. These are the best golfers in the planet. They simply played shitty and that’s just golf. Let’s not pretend these pros can’t handle the golf course. They didn’t ..but that’s not the same as can’t.

[jmanbooyaa]

We put ourselves in a bad spot day 1 afternoon. We could not recoup and pressed from that point on. The Euros out played us. I didn’t care for some of the match ups but the players didn’t play not captains fault

[Hazsa]

4 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Oh come on. You’re acting like the US guys were standing around in awe not knowing how to play a course with thick rough and narrow fairways. 

I’m really not.

[Zeph]

10 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Oh come on. You’re acting like the US guys were standing around in awe not knowing how to play a course with thick rough and narrow fairways. These are the best golfers in the planet. They simply played shitty and that’s just golf. Let’s not pretend these pros can’t handle the golf course. They didn’t ..but that’s not the same as can’t.

That's not the point. Someone regularly playing courses with wider fairways and less penalizing rough might have a harder time playing such a course than someone playing that style more often. It's not about not being able to, but it being a factor in how you play. We've seen Tiger have a lot of adventures with his driver this year on the PGA Tour, but because the rough hasn't been that tough, he's been able to shoot some respectable scores. He was often found in the rough this week. On a lot of the PGA courses he would've been able to get a reasonable amount of club on the ball, but that was often difficult at Le Golf National.

They are all world class and can play any course, but I believe it is an advantage to play courses similar to what they played on.