Ryder Cup 2016

Should there not be a reappraisal of the qualification process to enable the very best teams to qualify.
We all know the world rankings are a load of codswallop, where Tiger had accrued so many ranking points that when he took a lay off he was still number one for months and months after.

Case in point here is Willett who having won the Masters in April was all but guaranteed a place on the team but he has been looking for form recently and evidently struggled clearly. We all know that's golf, you can't just show up with you A game week in, week out. His guaranteed slot took up a place in the team and form players like Knox missed out completely. It's the equivalent of having a top striker who won the golden boot in the league having to play in a cup final while carrying a late season injury, he produced the goods early in the season but is in no shape to contribute effectively.

So do away with the world rankings, and have perhaps the top 6 from the European Tour rankings qualify automatically, which keeps the tour relevant for the top players, and then allow the captain to have 6 wildcards where the form players can be chosen.

Alternatively, turn it into a free for all. With the captain and the litany of vice captains putting together a team of 12 players with no qualification criteria whatsoever. The qualification based on european ranking points is like a loyalty bonus for players.

There's no point in going down the road of sabermetrics analysis if players are automatically qualified based on world ranking points despite those same statistics suggesting that other players are in better form. It would lead to the captain having to make captains decisions such as telling the Masters champion that he won't be playing as he's out of form. The European team would have been 1up before the matches even started i.e. we could have the Masters champion but we won't, we're the stronger team etc etc.

It could make for stronger teams in better form and consequently better, closer matches.

Willett would still have qualified, as he was 2nd on European points ranking list. and is currently 1st on RTD.

What you would need to do if you went down the form route is shorten the qualification period to say May/Jun to Sept. Currently runs Sept to Sept for year before Ryder Cup. That would weed out the guys playing well in Dec-Apr, and losing form over summer.

sky88 wrote: »

for example knox tried his best to get on the team played european tour to qualify was 20th and just missed out on automatic but still didnt get picked. Might lead to a sour feeling for him.

You can't rely on a captain's pick. There are so many factors at play that it's never something you should expect based purely on form. I think we all agreed that Clarke had very few options in making his picks given the number of first-timers he already had. They didn't all work out, but neither did all of the automatic selections either.

bren2001 wrote: »

Knox can feel slightly unlucky not to be on the Ryder Cup team. Wins the WGC, joins the European tour and the WGC points are not retrospectively added. If they were, he would have been the last automatic.

i wasnt actually aware that happened, that must been a kicker

Thoughts on this Ryder cup:
-It was a wonderful event overall, the Reed McIllroy and Garcia Mickelson matches being just two examples of scintillating match play
-The Americans are now serious about the Ryder Cup
-If we're honest this contest was a bit one sided, Europe made a match of it after the Saturday foursomes, but that lasted for just one session!
-Clarke was a very average captain, Westwood was an atrocious pick, selecting him to pay 4somes was plain daft. Knox should have been there.
-Overall it was a very good Ryder cup, with a well deserved and timely win for the yanks. That should be good for the cup.

On a general note, it was obvious the Americans had not just played the course but had putted to all the final day pins over several rounds. As a result of this preparation they putted like Gods on the last day,which with no real rough, or penalties for going off line, turned the contest into a putting competition between the two sides, with the US side having distinct advantages (preparation, practice putting to pins, maps, videos, etc, etc, etc) Tbh,I think there are already enough advantages conveyed on the home side, without allowing them pick(or know in advance) the pin positions (& practice putting to these positions) for the critical last day. I'm not sure the best way around this, but maybe there should be say 6 (or more) pin positions per green, and these should get picked out of a 'hat' for each days play, but particularly the last day. This would be fairer Imho and would make for a better contest overall. (They could consider similar schemes for the tee position selection to make the course set up very random each day, which would be better than picking tees so that particular players can best dovetail on par 5s or whatever.) I know it's a crowd pleaser to have home sides win, but a more random& hence fairer course set up would make for a more even, & hence better contest imho. Other than that, the Ryder Cup is wonderful though. Golfing Nirvana actually, long may it continue!! :-)

daithi7 wrote: »

Thoughts on this Ryder cup:
-It was a wonderful event overall, the Reed McIllroy and Garcia Mickelson matches being just two examples of scintillating match play
-The Americans are now serious about the Ryder Cup
-If we're honest this contest was a bit one sided, Europe made a match of it after the Saturday foursomes, but that lasted for just one session!
-Clarke was a very average captain, Westwood was an atrocious pick, selecting him to pay 4somes was plain daft. Knox should have been there.
-Overall it was a very good Ryder cup, with a well deserved and timely win for the yanks. That should be good for the cup.

On a general note, it was obvious the Americans had not just played the course but had putted to all the final day pins over several rounds. As a result of this preparation they putted like Gods on the last day,which with no real rough, or penalties for going off line, turned the contest into a putting competition between the two sides, with the US side having distinct advantages (preparation, maps, videos, etc, etc, etc) Tbh,I think there are already enough advantages conveyed on the home side, without allowing them pick(our know advance) the pin positions (& practice putting to them) for the critical last day. I'm not sure the best way around this, but maybe there should be say 6 (or more) pin positions per green, and these should get picked out of a 'hat' for each days play, but particularly the last day. This would be fairer Imho and would make for a better contest overall. (They could consider similar schemes for the tee position selection to make the course set up very random each day, which would be better than picking tees so that particular players can best dovetail on par 5s or whatever.) I know it's a crowd pleaser to have home sides win, but a more random& hence fairer course set up would make for a more even, & hence better contest imho. Other than that, the Ryder Cup is wonderful though. Golfing Nirvana!! :-)

Good point on the pin positions. I agree entirely with you, simplest way in my book would be to have it done entirely independent of both teams each morning of the event. No golfers get benefits of pre-awareness of pin positions in any tournament, so why the Ryder Cup?

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Don't know if this has already been addressed, but I was wondering about this business of having to give every player a run out before Sunday. If you have one or two guys who are off form or just not very good, would it not be better to just let them take their chances in the singles? It's not like they've never played matchplay before. does the supposed benefit of 'blooding' them really outweigh the downside of putting out a weaker pairing than otherwise in a fourball/foursome?

Couple of factors, I think. Aside from the fact that it is asking a lot for golfers to play 5 rounds in 3 days (see how emotionally drained McIlroy was towards the end of his singles), it is simply considered bad etiquette on behalf of a captain not to give a player at least one outing. Of course their primary job is to deliver the trophy, in whatever manner they see fit within reason, but simply relying on your trump players and ignoring the depth of your team, however shallow, is not just a risky strategy, but also leaves you exposed to the charge of ill-treatment. If I remember correctly, Mark James was heavily criticised in 1999 for leaving at least one player on the sidelines until the singles.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Don't know if this has already been addressed, but I was wondering about this business of having to give every player a run out before Sunday. If you have one or two guys who are off form or just not very good, would it not be better to just let them take their chances in the singles? It's not like they've never played matchplay before. does the supposed benefit of 'blooding' them really outweigh the downside of putting out a weaker pairing than otherwise in a fourball/foursome?

The general approach from the European team was that foursomes and fourballs was always their bread and butter, the idea being that they try to accrue as many points as possible before Sunday where historically the US teams have been stronger in the Singles. The hope being that a half here and a full point there would let Europe limp over the winning line. In that regard it made sense to have the form players playing as much as possible.

I think it is probably known by the captain and vice captains who is playing well in the team going in, however you have egos to manage as well. Look at Mickelson throwing Watson under the bus after 2014 because he didn't get to play on the Saturday for example. I would think that the approach is that giving the rookies a session before the singles is quite important. Like giving the keeper an 'early touch' in football. It doesn't necessarily follow that a rookie is in poor form. It's a highly incendiary experience I can imagine, so that makes sense.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

If I remember correctly, Mark James was heavily criticised in 1999 for leaving at least one player on the sidelines until the singles.

James left three players on the sidelines until Sunday, Van De Velde, Sandelin & Coltart. All were heavily beaten in the singles, contributing at the time to the biggest comeback in Ryder Cup history.

I could understand that maybe he didn't fancy Sandelin or Van De Velde, but had been forced to inherit them into his team, so only played them when he had to. But doing the same to Coltart was baffling as he was one of his wild cards!

Another European captain who'll be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

it is simply considered bad etiquette on behalf of a captain not to give a player at least one outing. but also leaves you exposed to the charge of ill-treatment. If I remember correctly, Mark James was heavily criticised in 1999 for leaving at least one player on the sidelines until the singles.

Yeah I figured that was a big part of it. Maybe the next European captain should flag he might do this well in advance of the next tournament, say the guys concerned shouldn't take it personally etc., just in case the points system lands him with a couple of duds.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Yeah I figured that was a big part of it. Maybe the next European captain should flag he might do this well in advance of the next tournament, say the guys concerned shouldn't take it personally etc., just in case the points system lands him with a couple of duds.

I suppose he could do that, but danger is everybody will know who he is talking about and it doesnt seem very motivational to be hinting to players that their captain might probably prefer if they weren't a part of the team. Then again, the corollary of that is bigging up all the rookies, as Clarke did in the build-up to Hazeltine, and then not really trusting them to deliver when the crunch came (with the honourable exceptions of Pieters and C-Bello). Tough one I guess.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

A terrible captain and a terrible choice as captain. The time himself and his buddy Ken Brown, whom I love as a commentator, had been players on the team and acted the maggot should have disqualified him from taking the position forever. I still remember his cringe-worthy press conferences where he'd deadpan single word answers to every question though the Americans seemed to think he was funny.

What did him and ken brown do??

Couple of points here.

The qualification process wasn't a problem for 6 of the 7 Cups from a European perspective.
Granted they tweaked it a bit to allow for reduced participation in European events, but on the whole it's much the same. I can't think of too many examples where dud players were there at the expense of others because of too few wildcards picks for example. This was a bad outcome but I don't think the team would have looked much different no matter how you slice it.

The world rankings aspect for Europe it's points earned during the qualifying period, rather than anything else, so a persons standing before the qualification period begins is meaningless. It's a 1 year period of examination.

I agree that a shorter period might work, but then that makes events from say August to September much less attractive every 2 years. A lot of players might play events in Europe around this time to build up RC points. If they aren't eligible for RC points then they won't play them, and if they need to compete in a certain number of events in Europe then that could be a problem. They might decide that playing the the big money events in the States is more important than playing in the RC. The short-term qualifying period might also represent a problem from a total nobody having one really good week and getting into the team.....then he unsurprisingly is found wanting when the time comes.

I get the feeling that the European guys don't really know Russell Knox all that well.

The Americans were always serious about the Ryder cup......always!

Benching a player until Sunday leaves the man feeling like he's not part of the team. He's going to be watching on the sidelines for 2 days while 11 other guys are fistpumping and shouting and feeling the experience, and then the 12th man goes into the singles totally cold. It leaves them quite vulnerable and disengaged from the process. Imagine being in the teamroom after the 2nd day trying to relate to the other guys in the teams in terms of the conversations going on. That being said it's a strategy that makes you look a genius if it works. I feel if the guy qualifies then he deserves 36 holes of golf if the games go all the way.

The idea that the US are traditionally stronger in the singles is a bit of a myth. I think they had scored equal points accumulation in the singles in the 10 events prior to this one. It goes back to the old days, before it was "Europe".

To be fair to Mark James in 99, Coltart, Van de Velde and Sandelin were up against Tiger, Davis Love III and Mickelson respectively. No easy task regardless of how many they played before then. I think Coltart got in rather than Langer too, so understandably questions were asked there, albeit not many said anything while Europe reached a 10-6 lead without them. That being said though Mark James is a tool, and is obsessed with calling the Nordy golfers "Brits". I dare say the criticism he received after Brookline were mainly due to the fact that people just don't like the guy. Faldo absolutely trashes him in his autobiography, not that that's a particularly career destroying criticism.