OT: Ryder Cup matches start ...early... Friday

[FanSince17]

The soft greens (and fairways) are the result of a week of heavy rain in NY - not anything you can do about that. The last day at least the greens were finally pretty quick which through everyone off at the start, though they continued to be very soft.

Agree generally. It rained one evening. I'm a Yankee fan. They didn't even get rained out.
US Open setup: narrow fairways, thick rough, hard and fast greens. (funny comment about Oakmont- the greens are so fast for the members, that the ball will roll off the greens after removing the coin and the coin will actually roll off the greens. (Members complain when they slow the greens down for an Open.) Reward straight driving. It should never be an advantage to hit from the rough. I even belonged to a CC, that the #4 hole, green sloping front to back, that you could not stop the ball on the green unless hitting from the fairway. I spent $ finding a long club that I could consistently hit that fairway. Ever heard of a Spoon?
IMO Worse than the rude fans was the crappy setup. Read Keegan's comments about that today.

 

[ucmiami2]

Heck of a USA rally...just falling short....15-13 Euros. 8 and 1/2 to 3 and 1/2 for the USA in the
singles. At one point late in second nine it actually appeared that the USA might....might...win the whole
thing. They had 10 and 1/2....4 matches out there. USA leading in 2....tied in the other 2. Win all of them...and
get to 14 and 1/2 and they win. Euros's great play Friday and Saturday were just too much to overcome. USA
enthusiasm grew as the day went on. Quiet first pumps early....fiery reactions as they got closer and closer.

Clutch putting by several Americans gave them a little bit of a shot Both Thomas and Young made birdie putts on
18 to turn ties into wins....must needed at the time.

Best American for the 3 days IMO: Cameron Young 3-1 in his matches. Most disappointing performance by American...
Scottie Scheffler...0-4. Still best player in the world but I bet he'll be looking ahead to 2027 Ryder Cup bigtime...think
it is in Ireland.

NYC crowds behaved poorly....even several USA players were trying to tell them to stop being
obnoxious toward the Euros.

Scheffler was actually 1-4 with a big win Sunday - both he and McIlroy looked absolutely drained and didn't play all that well but it was a dog fight and a great match play battle neither ever getting to +2 during the day. The difference - Scheffler winning a hole with a bogey.

Don't think I remember a day with only 1 match ending before playing the 17th, or with 8 of 11 being decided on the 18th green.

Great day for the USA squad, saving pride after stinking up the first two days. Glad the European's scored 15 so no one gets too bent on the half point earned due to the Hovland withdrawl - I like that aspect of 'gentlemanly scoring' and don't want them to change it - think they said it had happened 3 times before to the benefit of both teams. Just would have been a lot of noise if the final score was 14 each.

And it seemed the crowd was better behaved on Sunday - still boisterous, but more respectful to the actual playing of the golfers.

And on the course set-up - it seemed they should have played the back nine first - USA lost the front nine by a large margin, but won the back nine through three days. That kind of momentum gained on the first nine was a huge plus for the Europeans. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, but still ...

FYI Xander also ended with a 3-1 point line. He and Young were the top USA scorers. USA in recent years has not had much luck with the top players on their team. Woods 13-21-3 record, Scheffler 3-6-3, even Mickelson who is the top scorer for the USA has a losing record of 18-22-7 in the 12 teams he has been on. The Europeans at the top all have winning records. Of recent players Dustin Johnson is the best with a 12-9-0 including a 5-0-0 in his last in 2021. Xander's record is at 6-5-0 (he likes 3-1-0 for or against having won twice and lost once at that score.) Cantley having had a bad 2025, still has a 6-5-2 overall record and Thomas who went 2-2-0 is 9-6-2.

FYI2 - Of the top 15 individual point differentials in the first two days of play there is a lone USA player - Lanny Wadkins who last played in 1993.

 

[ucmiami2]

Was talking about this yesterday with a friend. Apparently, the European team trained using VR technology to prepare for all possible scenarios. They said there was no way they could have imagined some of what was said this weekend. I was gobsmacked.

Was introduced to golf by my father as a teen in the early 90s, just before Tiger became a big deal. Loved attending the Canadian Open with him and hanging out in the gallery. I don't know when the tone of the crowd changed to become what it is now.

I think it was actual Tiger that changed the perception of golf and drove a huge surge in both fans and money into professional golf. Golf was cool, it was talked about 'monday morning around the water cooler' - he was ripped, he was exuberant on the course, and he was tearing up courses and course records. Lots of courses were 'Tiger-proofed' lengthened, narrowed, and added and deeper rough. One European course had a strip of rough added across the fairway to negate bombed drives for a Ryder Cup in Spain. And narrowing fairways around the 300yd mark was standard.

And the fan composition was changed - more people who had never played golf showed up - people that were fans of other sports and they brought that kind of fandom to the golf courses. The 'gentlemanly' polite clap for all golfers changed to cheers/jeers and heckling. More 'lager louts' as the British would call them - people more involved in the occasion and the alcohol and their friends than the actual golf being played.

It took over at team competitions, and then bled into regular tournaments as well, also often along the same nationalistic lines, but also just between a fan favorite and one or more of his competitors.

Our society on the whole is less civil so why would we expect that not to bleed into sports as well. And I think while the players have maintained standards pretty well, I think they also show signs of being less civil to one another.