2018 Ryder Cup

Cork Boy 53

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Could be sooner, he's mid 50s now. I'd say he'd want it before he's 60 but it'd definitely be good craic! Man's a legend.

Which is the very reason why Jiminez may very well never get the captaincy. I doubt he would be generally regarded by the selection committee as having enough gravitas for the role.

Loafing Oaf

Reed: "I don’t think it’s smart to sit me twice." Yeah, the way you were playing, you should have sat out all of Friday and Saturday.

GreeBo

Cork Boy 53 wrote: »

Which is the very reason why Jiminez may very well never get the captaincy. I doubt he would be generally regarded by the selection committee as having enough gravitas for the role.

Oh I'd say he has more than enough...

monkeybutter

I'd pay good money to see Woods as captain

He's poison in the team, always has been.

PropJoe10

Cork Boy 53 wrote: »

Which is the very reason why Jiminez may very well never get the captaincy. I doubt he would be generally regarded by the selection committee as having enough gravitas for the role.

I think he would. Highly regarded and respected player, long career on the European Tour (21 career wins) and is now doing well on the Seniors Tour. He's also won tournaments around the world. He's done more in his career than McGinley has playing-wise for example.

Deeper Blue

I can't see Jimenez ever being captain, as great as it would be to watch. I think there are too many players from that era with better Ryder cup records and bigger reputations i.e. Westwood, Donald, Harrington, McDowell. Then by the time three of those have had the captaincy you'll have Poulter, Stenson, Rose, Garcia at the age to be considered.

NDWC

NDWC wrote: »

I can't see Jimenez ever being captain, as great as it would be to watch. I think there are too many players from that era with better Ryder cup records and bigger reputations i.e. Westwood, Donald, Harrington, McDowell. Then by the time three of those have had the captaincy you'll have Poulter, Stenson, Rose, Garcia at the age to be considered.

Clarke getting it isn't that much more surprising than Jiminez. But yes, Jiminez won't get it. Harrington has to be the heavy favourite for the next time I would say - he was on "off the ball" recently basically saying that he has to go for it now or there will be too many people in queue. Also I guess it's a less attractive prospect over in the US so that increases his chances.

Realalemadrid

What the US need to do is pick a European player as captain someone like Langer who can show them exactly what they need to do. The US are picking captains from players who were on predominantly losing teams at this stage. A respected outsider might be the exact thing they need.

slave1

God a bit no to P being captain next in the US, poison role, much better waiting for Adare

Russman

slave1 wrote: »

God a bit no to P being captain next in the US, poison role, much better waiting for Adare

I think if he doesn't get it now, the ship might have sailed, unless they can convince Westwood to take it early, in 2020, but I wouldn't think he's ready for retirement just yet.

Its an odd one really, since Monty got it in 2010 they want "current" players to take it, or at least guys who are still out on tour, yet for those that do take it, its effectively the end of the career - Monty, Ollie, McGinley, Clarke, possibly/probably Bjorn too (time will tell).
PH or Westy might think they have a few years of good golf left in them still.

PropJoe10

Russman wrote: »

I think if he doesn't get it now, the ship might have sailed, unless they can convince Westwood to take it early, in 2020, but I wouldn't think he's ready for retirement just yet.

Its an odd one really, since Monty got it in 2010 they want "current" players to take it, or at least guys who are still out on tour, yet for those that do take it, its effectively the end of the career - Monty, Ollie, McGinley, Clarke, possibly/probably Bjorn too (time will tell).
PH or Westy might think they have a few years of good golf left in them still.

Harrington is 47 now, its very hard to see him making another team. Westwood maybe, but I can't see Padraig making another side as a player. Captaincy seems the next step for him.

Russman

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Harrington is 47 now, its very hard to see him making another team. Westwood maybe, but I can't see Padraig making another side as a player. Captaincy seems the next step for him.

Oh I agree, there's no chance either of them makes the team again IMO.
But one or other of them might feel they can have a good last run for a year or two. If Paddy uses his one time career earnings exemption on the PGA Tour next season, then he won't have it as a fall back and will need to play well and play a full schedule if he wants to remain on the US tour in the future. Of course he might decide now is a good time to declare the innings in the States and focus on Europe.

Deeper Blue

I'd be surprised if the captains for 2020 weren't Harrington and Stricker. Harrington is the next logical choice from a European perspective with his career winding down, while Stricker is a Wisconsin native so is nailed on for 2020.

Pa8301

NDWC wrote: »

I'd be surprised if the captains for 2020 weren't Harrington and Stricker. Harrington is the next logical choice from a European perspective with his career winding down, while Stricker is a Wisconsin native so is nailed on for 2020.

If Stricker is the US captain, Harrington should definitely take the European job if offered. I don't want to be harsh as he seems like a decent enough fella but Stricker is not a winner.

thewobbler

Realalemadrid wrote: »

What the US need to do is pick a European player as captain someone like Langer who can show them exactly what they need to do. The US are picking captains from players who were on predominantly losing teams at this stage. A respected outsider might be the exact thing they need.

Why stop there? They should maybe get Bill Belichick in. Or maybe Didier Deschamps?

—-

I’m being facetious.

And you’re vastly overstating the importance of the team captain.

When it’s a two-way competition, there always has to be a loser. When one of the teams enjoys an advantage in terms of support, familiarity, climate, course set-up, it’s relatively easy to pick in advance which side is going to lose.

What happened in Paris is a natural thing and really doesn’t need a root and branch investigation, or some bizarre theory that a taciturn German who spends his life winning pots of gold on the American Seniors Tour, was somehow the deciding factor in a Ryder Cup in which he never struck a ball.

prawnsambo

I have to say that I'm surprised that people would be blaming Furyk or perhaps overstating his influence on this loss. He made one mistake imo, and that was picking Mickelson. There were pretty much no good golfing reasons for picking him, so it was more a case of bending to his popularity and the possibility that the entire narrative would be dominated by his exclusion rather than the event itself. Funny enough, Furyk himself would probably have been a player more suited to the course than Mickelson who would be at the absolute far end of that scale.

And it was the course that made a difference. If anyone was in any doubt as to that, the USA gave the game away by the way they set up Hazeltine two years ago. They couldn't have said "We don't like it tight and demanding" any clearer if they'd rented every billboard between Paris and Minnesota.

And then there was the seemingly inevitable bit of internal strife anyway. Patrick Reed miffed that he couldn't get to play with Jordan Spieth and that bubbling over into social media posts by his wife, who later pretended she knew nothing about them. So having a team made up of golfing superstars who just couldn't leave their egos at the door and take one for the team, reared its ugly head again. In contrast, the European team, to a man, said they would be happy playing with whomever Bjorn chose.

What US captain can deal with that? Last time, Tom Watson got very publicly thrown under the bus because he was too 'autocratic' and this time, Furyk tried to keep everyone happy and found that he couldn't do that either.

sky88

Pa8301 wrote: »

If Stricker is the US captain, Harrington should definitely take the European job if offered. I don't want to be harsh as he seems like a decent enough fella but Stricker is not a winner.

Mcginley wasnt a winner when he was captain.

i do think the captain is an overrated title as its all down to the players really. Europe won because in general the team played better than the americans did from friday afternoon.

Pa8301

sky88 wrote: »

Mcginley wasnt a winner when he was captain.

i do think the captain is an overrated title as its all down to the players really. Europe won because in general the team played better than the americans did from friday afternoon.

I'm speaking of Stricker as not being a winner in a more general sense. He reminds me of Roy Munson from the movie Kingpin.

Niles Crane

https://www.independent.ie/sport/golf/ryder-cup/comment-it-may-have-plenty-of-swing-but-the-ryder-cup-dont-mean-a-thing-37370724.html

Eamonn Sweeney

October 1 2018 2:00 PM

Irisj Indepenent


The Ryder Cup is Fake Sport. A third flop renewal in a row lays bare the event's essential unreality. It is becoming a cod and a con job where a molehill of meaning is dwarfed by a mountain of hype.

If the Ryder Cup is not competitive it is nothing. There's no denying the hugely exciting nature of a close final day, with its unlikely comebacks, sudden momentum switches and nerve-wracking finales. But there haven't been any days like this lately.


This year's model was strikingly similar to its 2016 predecessor, a sudden glimmer of hope for the losers half-way through the singles being quickly extinguished and everything petering out as players down the order went through the motions. It ended not with a bang but with a whimper.

Things were not always thus. Between 1987 and 1999 the competition was reliably exhilarating. It produced four single-point victories, a draw and a pair of two-point wins.

This millennium has been much less exciting, with six of the last eight contests woefully one-sided. The last time the Americans won on European soil, Jon Rahm hadn't been born, Bryson DeChambeau was ten days old and neither Justin Thomas or Justin Spieth had taken their first steps.

The latest damp squib denouement left plenty of time to wonder about the point of the Ryder Cup. Genuinely great sporting events furnish us with significant information about the state of the game and the qualities of those involved. Competitors have something important to prove.


But what does the Ryder Cup prove? That Europe has better golfers than the US? Hardly when this year Americans won three out of four Majors, all four FedEx Cup play-off events, the Players Championship and the three World Golf Classic events played so far. These were the tournaments that mattered in what has been a great year for golf. The Ryder Cup pales into insignificance by comparison.

Sergio Garcia may have become Ryder Cup record points scorer but this achievement means much less in the grand scheme of things than the Masters he won last year. Any competition where Ian Poulter is an all-time great and Tiger Woods a serial failure is hardly a true test of merit.

Claiming Poulter's defeat of Dustin Johnson makes him in some way a better player than the world No 1 is like suggesting Andrej Kramaric of Hoffenheim is a superior footballer to Christian Eriksen because the former scored in the Denmark-Croatia world cup penalty shoot-out and the Spurs star didn't.

The Ryder Cup is a bit like a penalty shoot-out or cricket's T20 format, an attenuated and slightly unreal version of a great game which is especially attractive to those without the patience for the subtleties of the real thing.


Each European victory is greeted by klaxons of triumphalist chauvinism. This seems like the oddest form of jingoism in the world, belligerently celebrating an otherwise non-existent sporting entity. The eagerness with which the continental cause is biennially embraced probably has more to do with bandwagons than Brussels.

The unedifying spectacle of American players being booed and barracked cast an ironic light on the pearl-clutching European reaction when faced with similar partisan behaviour Stateside. Old Tom Morris must have been turning in his beard.

The louder members of Tommy Bjorn's barmy army sounded like lads who'd take Alan Partidge's advice and get decked out in Strolling Pastel for the trip to Paris.

The Yanks don't complain about crowd carry-on quite as much as we do when the boot is on the other foot. Perhaps that's because the Ryder Cup seems to mean infinitely more to Europe. This continent has a tradition of high-profile international competition. Every European golfer knows what it's like to support a national soccer or rugby team. Americans grow up following sports where the big competitions take place at home. They don't seem to really buy into either the flag-waving or the idea of golf as a team game.

European zeal may also be stoked by the fact that the USPGA tour is still where the real action is. The Ryder Cup is a consolation prize. Long before the final ball was struck you sensed American thoughts were turning to future individual challenges. The WGC Champions event taking place later this month will offer a more telling illustration of status within the game.

Sky informed us yesterday that while these players often play for millions, this week something priceless was at stake. Priceless? Or worthless?


When Tiger Woods retires, his Ryder Cup misadventures will not be viewed as subtracting one iota from the sum of his greatness. What does that tell you?

The patriotic drum was nevertheless beaten relentlessly by the host broadcaster in a manner which recalled fiercely one-sided GAA club match videos or those cringey, "Come on Steve, come on Paula," BBC Olympic commentaries. Normal balanced coverage was replaced by a 'backing our boys' approach. Paul McGinley may not be the worst analyst in the world but he enjoyed some extraordinary cheerleading during his stint in the commentary box.

He was not alone. Silliest of all was the insistence yet again that the captain of the winning team, Thomas Bjorn in this instance, plays the same kind of key role as a football manager. In truth, with Europe amassing seven victories out of nine since the switch to even numbered years, most of us could probably pick a winning team.

The build-up to 2020 begins today. Don't believe the hype. It may have plenty of swing but the Ryder Cup don't mean a thing.

Irish Independent

I think the writer completely misses the point.If the players really care about and the fans really care about it (both of which are true) then it does have real meaning whether he likes it or not.

Mantis Toboggan

I wouldn't waste my time reading that.

Mantis Toboggan

McIlroy has backed Harrington for 2020 so he should be a shoe in.

Loafing Oaf

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

McIlroy has backed Harrington for 2020 so he should be a shoe in.

Odds on with the bookies anyway. Westwood seems to be his only serious rival...

prawnsambo

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

I wouldn't waste my time reading that.

Yeah. Typical Indo clickbait.

ridonkulous

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

I wouldn't waste my time reading that.

I really wish I'd seen your post before I did. I won't even bother giving my two cents on it, complete drivel.

Joe_ Public

I just read it for the pure comedy. “Old Tom Morris must be turning in his beard.” Like, what the actual fck?

Deeper Blue

That's one of the worst pieces of journalism I've ever read

Deeper Blue

This is awful, from what I remember though there were definitely shouts of fore.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/oct/01/brooks-koepka-ryder-cup-spectator

The spectator whom Brooks Koepka hit with a tee shot at the Ryder Cup is considering legal action against the tournament’s organisers after losing the sight in one eye.

One of Koepka’s drives on the opening day of the tournament flew towards the crowd and hit Corine Remande. “Doctors told me I had lost the use of that eye,” the 49-year-old told Agence France-Presse. “It happened so fast, I didn’t feel any pain when I was hit. I didn’t feel like the ball had struck my eye and then I felt the blood start to pour. The scan on Friday confirmed a fracture of the right eye-socket and an explosion of the eyeball.”

Koepka was quick to make his way over to the crowd and apologise to Remande, who was later treated at an eye hospital in Paris. “Quite clearly, there is responsibility on the part of the organisers,” she said. “Officials did not shout any warning as the player’s ball went into the crowd. More than anything I want them to take care of all the medical bills to make sure there is no risk of infection.”

Remande, who had travelled from Egypt to attend the tournament, also criticised the tournament organisers for “not making contact” with her following the incident. She plans to consult a lawyer on Tuesday with a view to seeking damages.

Minderbinder

HighLine wrote: »

Minderbinder wrote: »

Enjoyable event but I really struggle to believe that a lot of the displays of emotion aren’t staged. These players win individual tournaments worth far more to their careers and egos and are reserved and calm in doing so. Suddenly in this event, representing Europe (which no European takes pride in day to day) they are going bezurk.

Either it’s staged or they’re doing it just to annoy the other side. I just can’t buy that it’s genuine.

And this year's Oscar goes to.... the winning European Ryder Cup Team.


What a load of.... How anyone doesn't think they are all showing genuine emotions is beyond me.

Because it doesn’t make any sense to me.

There needs to be something on the line to spark that sort of wild celebration. The facts are that winning the RC doesn’t make an iota of difference in these players’ careers and I’m sorry but patriotism does not extend to one’s continent, it simply doesn’t whether you play golf or you don’t.

There are two things that would cause wild celebrations and they would usually require both to happen for what I see in the RC.

The first is a great achievement. I’m sure some people would consider this a great achievement but let’s be fair there are only two teams in it.

The second is if there is a risk/reward kind of situation where something is on the line. As in, if you lose bad things are going to happen. There aren’t even bragging rights anymore to the same extent because it used to be about which tour was better but that’s no longer in dispute. These guys see each every week and are probably as likely to be friends with the American guys as with the Europeans.

I just don’t get where the sense of joy is coming from. Maybe using the word ‘staged’ was not right but it’s almost like the wild celebrations are overcompensating or a way to justify the whole thing.

Joe_ Public

“The facts are that winning a Ryder Cup doesn’t make an iota of difference in these players careers...”

I wouldn’t say that’s a fact at all. Right up to his death you’d never watch a COC Jnr interview without reference to that famous 2 iron. Ask Philip Walton what sinking the winning putt did for his career. Or Bernhard Langer how missing his putt still haunts him to this day. These are facts I think.

You or I don’t have to agree with it or even like it. But the players buy into it, they might not play golf in Europe much but they are all products of the EuropeanTour and have always fed off that connection. That there is no material award seems a crucial aspect. I remember a bit of controversy about that before Brookline in 99 I think, Tiger was one of those complaining about the lack of payment to players. I wouldn’t have expected him to get it back then and not sure that doesn’t still apply even now.

prawnsambo

Minderbinder wrote: »

Because it doesn’t make any sense to me.

There needs to be something on the line to spark that sort of wild celebration. The facts are that winning the RC doesn’t make an iota of difference in these players’ careers and I’m sorry but patriotism does not extend to one’s continent, it simply doesn’t whether you play golf or you don’t.

There are two things that would cause wild celebrations and they would usually require both to happen for what I see in the RC.

The first is a great achievement. I’m sure some people would consider this a great achievement but let’s be fair there are only two teams in it.

The second is if there is a risk/reward kind of situation where something is on the line. As in, if you lose bad things are going to happen. There aren’t even bragging rights anymore to the same extent because it used to be about which tour was better but that’s no longer in dispute. These guys see each every week and are probably as likely to be friends with the American guys as with the Europeans.

I just don’t get where the sense of joy is coming from. Maybe using the word ‘staged’ was not right but it’s almost like the wild celebrations are overcompensating or a way to justify the whole thing.

On the surface, everything you say could be true. But it clearly isn't. So maybe it's worth looking into it a bit to ascertain why.

The first reason is that this is a pretty unique thing in golf. A team event that includes some of the very best golfers in the world. On a personal level for a golfer to be picked, it puts them in a very rarefied group. In a competition that goes back almost a century. For an individual sportsman, a team event is a unique experience.

The second part has already been covered. It's not necessarily a continent, it's the tour that all of them started out on and in which they learned their trade as well as the friendships they made on it.

The third part is a bit more complicated and relates to the dominance of the PGA tour in prize money and TV coverage. This has contirbuted to an 'underdog' view of the European Tour and there's always a motivation for underdogs to beat the perceived leaders. The early history of the Ryder Cup was a long succession of defeats with the odd B&I win, later followed by the expansion to the whole of Europe and an increase in the win ratio. And that's still the case today. The bookies had the USA as overwhelming pre-tournament favourites.

And clichéed as it might be, there is a difference in the cameraderie on either side of the match. The ET players hang out together much more than the US PGA tour players. Much was made of Spieth and Thomas' long time friendship, a fact that just makes the difference more stark.