Matt Cook explores Europe’s Ryder Cup win and Luke Donald’s impactful captaincy, dissecting the final score and U.S. team’s issues. The episode discusses New York crowd dynamics, golf’s elitist image, and Rory McIlroy’s reactions to perceived hypocrisy. It examines broadcasters’ focus, Donald’s strategy, and the role of data in modern golf. Tommy Fleetwood’s standout performance, U.S. team prep issues, and course setup blunders are highlighted. Celebrations of Team Europe and a look ahead to the 2027 Ryder Cup are included. The episode concludes with thoughts on Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods as potential captains, player performances, and sponsor acknowledgments.
Key Points:
– Europe secured their first Ryder Cup victory on U.S. soil since 1993, with a final score of Europe 15, USA 13.
– Luke Donald’s exceptional captaincy, including meticulous preparation and strategic use of analytics, was pivotal in Europe’s triumph.
– The U.S. team’s lack of adequate preparation, especially in terms of course practice, contributed to their defeat, highlighting the importance of thorough preparation for future competitions.
Chapters:
0:00 Europe wins Ryder Cup & Luke Donald’s captaincy
1:47 Introduction to the episode
2:09 Sponsor: DevRel Golf
2:50 Sponsor: Rockform
3:49 Ryder Cup final score & U.S. team analysis
6:40 New York crowd & golf’s elitist mentality
10:10 Rory McIlroy’s reactions & hypocrisy in golf
13:47 Broadcasters’ focus & Luke Donald’s strategies
15:50 Data and analytics in golf
16:25 Tommy Fleetwood & U.S. team issues
20:11 U.S. team preparation & course setup mistakes
23:15 Team Europe’s celebration & 2027 Ryder Cup lookahead
24:01 Phil Mickelson & Tiger Woods as Ryder Cup captains
27:44 Cameron Young & Scottie Scheffler’s performances
33:54 Bryson DeChambeau’s effort
35:28 Rule on injured players
36:46 Closing remarks and announcements
37:34 Sponsor: Devereux Golf and Rokform
Europe records its first RDER Cup win on US soil since 2012. The final score was Europe 15, USA 13. It was a heck of a RDER Cup from just being a weird Ryder Cup. We came all the way back and almost pulled off the epic comeback upset on that final day in the singles matches. We got dominated. I mean, there’s no other way to kind of put it. Like, if I’m the Europeans, I don’t bring on another captain. Remember, he wasn’t even supposed to be the RDER Cup captain 2 years ago. So, for him to be thrusted into that, it was supposed to be Henrik Stenson who ended up going to live golf and then they were like, “Yeah, you can’t be the captain of the Ryder Cup team.” So, they had Luke Donald step in and what a job he did. And then on top of that, really showing that he is such a great captain. Like it was almost like if you’ve ever been in a golf match before and you just run into a buzzsaw, the guy that just can’t miss, the guy that’s making everything. That’s what the Europeans look like. And it came at no surprise whatsoever to myself as well as to Botsy or to Brent that were on the podcast last week for the Rder Cup preview because guess what? We called it. We said the core setup was really going to favor the Europeans. The Europeans were the favorites heading into this. We believed on paper, it’s the first time that the European team really stacked up on paper just as good, if not better than the US team. And we talked about how the crowds like hopefully the crowds would end up helping Team USA and it seemed like it backfired. Welcome back everybody to Pull Hook Golf the podcast. I’m your host M Cook and on today’s episode we have the RDER Cup recap for 2025 and it was an interesting RDER Cup needless to say. But before we dive into today’s episode and go over everything RDER Cup and what took place, breaking it down and analyzing it, I do want to give a shout out to our sponsors, Devro Golf. I’ve got the quarter zip on right now. I don’t know if you could see that it is little white-on-white action or a little off-white action for this quarter zip. Um, this is from their old school collection. I don’t even know if it’s still on the website, but man, keep an eye out because this fall they are releasing some really cool golf attire, uh, street wear, it all goes and it is awesome. So, definitely check it out. You can utilize the promo code pullhook 20 at checkout for 20% off your entire order at devrogolf.com. And then folks, Rock Form, which you see the little speaker here over my shoulder. Um, Rock Form is known for their strong magnets, whether it is putting your iPhone case on and putting it up onto your golf cart. No, you do not need an attachment if you have Rock Form. But this little speaker that attaches to the golf cart cart as well. It pumps. It’s got 24-hour battery life. It is the G-Rock speaker. And then I use all the time whether I’m working out in the gym, on the golf course. I’m always utilizing the magnet. It’s their golf magnet. If you go into their golf section on their website, they have this magnet. And basically, when I’m working out, I just attach it to anything metal and attach my phone to it. It is awesome. I get people asking me all the time. But you can get 20% off over at Rockform using the promo code pullhook 2025. Again, that’s pullhook 2025 for 20% off at rock.com. Let’s get into today’s episode, which is the RDER Cup recap. And first off, folks, if you’ve been living under a rock and don’t realize what happened at the RDER Cup, Europe records its first RDER Cup win on US soil since 2012. The final score was Europe 15, USA 13. It was a heck of a RDER Cup from just being a weird RDER cup in my opinion. Europe dominated in the team matchups and we came all the way back and almost pulled off the epic comeback upset on that final day in the singles matches because man, we were down a lot heading into that final day. We got dominated. I mean, there’s no other way to kind of put it, but I related it this way. I was talking with Brent Grant a lot during the RDER Cup. Uh we were texting back and forth and he was saying ah the US just you know they don’t have the effort going into it which some people certainly you could draw conclusions there and say oh the USA team doesn’t really care. Um they didn’t really practice hard heading into this. Uh there’s a lot of reports out there too around that part of it that uh and I’ll get to that in a little bit. probably towards the end of this podcast. I’ll talk a little bit about the reports of as to how the US team prepared or the lack thereof and how that all turned out. But to me, it wasn’t a effort. It wasn’t that the Europeans wanted it more. That’s not what I saw. Well, I saw a lot of emotions coming out of the US team to where a guy like Scotty Sheffller was devastated that he hadn’t racked up a single point throughout all the uh all the matches, all the team matches I should say. And that was very devastating to the US team as well. But it was almost like if you’ve ever been in a golf match before and you just run into a buzzsaw, the guy that just can’t miss, the guy that’s making everything. That’s what the Europeans look like. And it came at no surprise whatsoever to myself as well as to Botsy or to Brent that were on the podcast last week for the RDER Cup preview because guess what? We called it. We said the core setup was really going to favor the Europeans. The Europeans were the favorites heading into this. We believed on paper. It’s the first time that the European team really stacked up on paper just as good if not better than the US team. And we talked about how the crowds, like hopefully the crowds would end up helping Team USA. And it seemed like it backfired because in a lot of ways, and I want to talk about this for a minute, that around all the talk that the New York crowd went too far. Like I’ve heard the stuff that they were saying like New York fans a lot of times are intelligent. There’s a few bad apples for sure that get through there. And were they too much on Rory? Yeah, that they went they cross the line with Rory Mroy, but some of these others that you’re hearing like some of them are jabs like funny jabs like Bobby McIntyre go on Ozmpic or when are you going on Ompic like things like that I don’t like I don’t know if that’s crossing the line for you but for me as a fan of witnessing that like would that be something I’d ever say to him no absolutely not but it is something that was said out there now there were some things about Rory with the cheating and everything and his wife and kids were out there or at least his wife was out there and she ended up getting a drink thrown on her. Like there was a whole bunch of stuff that went across the line in my opinion and that there there’s no place for that just in sports in general. I do not like the rhetoric and the commentary around the fact that golf needs to be held to this higher standard than other sports. No, sports in general need to be held to a higher standard in my opinion. And if it’s taking place in basketball, baseball, football, whatever team sport, it’s probably going to happen in golf as well. Like I hate the elitist mentality of golf. Like that’s one of the things that I just absolutely can’t stand about this sport is that it thinks it’s better than everybody else and it’s not. Like I’ve played sports growing up, played team sports. Like if anything, you learn just as much if not more in team sports than you do at an individual sport like the game of golf. Like yes, are there, you know, ethics being taught or is there a is there I guess you could say a gentleman side to this whole entire sport? Absolutely. Like that is traditional golf. And do I buy into that? Sure. Like I love the fact that golf is a bit of a mirror of life and that you know how you act like you’re in it on your own and how you act represents how you look out there on the golf course. The part that I just don’t really buy into is that it’s better than everything else that’s out there. That you don’t learn that in other sports, sportsmanship, things along those lines. It’s just you you got to have a and I shouldn’t say you got to have because that’s not the point that I’m trying to make. It’s just I feel like it’s on the same level as all other other sports when it comes to we just need to see better out of fans. I mean, you hear it all the time with little league games and so forth of getting in the parents getting in on the refs or umpires and it’s just yeah, a lot of these things need to change, but it’s in the heat of the moment. It’s in sports. It’s about like that competitiveness that comes out and sometimes that competitiveness even with fans is ugly. So, it’s not that it wasn’t expected. The Europeans handled it beautifully outside of I would say, you know, Shane Lowry and Rory Mroy, which people might be like, “Yeah, but they were being hackled.” Like, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be telling fans to shut the f up and then turning around and saying, “Uh, you know, we expect more out of golfers and the things that Rory was saying.” And then Rory even afterwards in the celebrations putting the European flag over Bryson Dshambo’s name and yelling out to the crowd. So those types of things, they don’t go hand in hand. And I have seen it like Paul Ainger talked about it on the Subpar Golf podcast. So I’m not the only one that has this opinion in regards to this. Like it is well documented and like a lot of people are like, “Man, that’s really hypocritical of somebody like Rory Mroy.” And of course, the people that don’t like Rory Mroy because he was the face of the PGA Tour versus Liv Golf are obviously talking about Rory in that way a little bit more negatively, too. Like, oh, it comes out of both sides of his mouth and so forth. Like, I get it. I I get where you’re coming from. But to me, like, he dealt with a lot of frustration and he gave it back. So, I don’t really have a problem with Rory saying the things that he did. I do think afterwards when he’s trying to talk about how like the fans need to be more respectful, golf needs to be held to a higher standard, blah blah blah. Like, that’s the part that I’m like, “Okay, now you’re a hypocrite because you literally lowered that level in your responses to those.” Like, could you have just kept going along your way without acknowledging it? Absolutely. But those things get to Rory Mroy and I understand it. He’s a human being, right? We’re all human beings. So, does anybody want to be talked to like that? No, absolutely not. But it’s a hostile environment. And I don’t think the comparisons was to, oh, the US crowd versus the European crowd. European crowds just do this. It’s like in a lot of ways it’s the same stuff. It’s just US fans, especially like New Yorkers, they do their homework. They do their research. they come into these like I’ve heard of baseball games to where like they know about somebody’s childhood like going into Yankee Stadium. I saw a post by Chipper Jones who is the famous infielder for the Atlanta Braves and he’s like I would never allow my wife, family or kids to come into Yankee Stadium because I knew that they were going to be saying some horrible things to me within a game. Like you just need to know that. And that a lot of ways like that’s the New York crowd getting under people’s skins. That’s what makes New York in a lot of ways like a lot of people aren’t going to understand this if you’re not from New York don’t get it. But that is the home field advantage a lot of times in New York. Like I worked within virtual reality for Major League Baseball u for the Major League Baseball teams. Not for Major League Baseball, but dealing with like the Baltimore or Orioles for instance. Like they wanted fan noise. They wanted heckling. They wanted the stuff that was going to be said during the game to be in there when they go to Yankee Stadium because their team always had a tough time, especially when they had young teams to go into Yankee Stadium and to actually perform. They would always technically choke. Um, and they wanted that preparation to be able to have their team ready to go and be able to handle that when they get in there. So, I get it from both sides of the spectrum. Um, again, I like me personally, I think that there was a lot of things that were said that did cross the line just in sports in general. Again, not a fan of holding golf to what a an invisible higher standard. I just don’t buy it. Um, in the least, it’s a competitive sport and this is a team sport for the RDER Cup. All right, moving beyond the crowd because that took a lot of the attention away from the actual RDER Cup itself in my opinion. Like you even had the broadcasters during the RDER Cup talking about it throughout over and over and over again. It’s like all right, let’s just move on. Like I was even thinking about muting the TV at a point. I’m like gosh, they just keep bringing it up. But Europe did what you have to do to shut them up. They won and they used it as motivation which is awesome. Like I love that. Like think of Michael Jordan in basketball as to how he would use anything he possibly could as bulletin board material. I also talked about how Luke Donald on the other hand had really prepared his team for the New York crowd. But in addition to that, all the little details that he did leading up to the RDER Cup with just how they set up everything, the little slogans, the um using Excelsior on their golf bags, which is the New York State motto, like all these things that he did were the difference makers in my opinion. And he might go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, captain of a RDER Cup team. remember he wasn’t even supposed to be the RDER Cup captain two years ago. So for him to be thrusted into that, it was supposed to be Henrik Stenson who ended up going to live golf and then they were like, “Yeah, you can’t be the captain of the RDER Cup team.” So they had Luke Donald step in and what a job he did. And then on top of that really showing that he is such a great captain. Like if I’m the Europeans, I don’t bring on another captain. Like I allow Luke Donald to run this thing until he loses. Like just like a coach. Like Luke, will you continue to do this? I think he really thrives in that environment and really enjoys it. And then the European side, you’ve got uh Molinari, which I believe it’s Matteo who’s the stats guy and the entire stats portion. If you I forget who he went on with. Oh, I think it was with no laying up. He went on and was talking about these stats and he knew who would play what holes when they’re going in alternate shot because of the shot patterns that they know basically all the shot patterns. They have it all marked down. They have it all notated and they know exactly who’s going where then you got on the US side Scotty Sheffler and they’re debating whether or not like at the last minute what who should lead off. Now am I the biggest data and analytics guy in the world? No. I believe that there is some gut instinct that comes with playing sports that are the intangibles that you can’t really get from data and analytics. But when you’re putting together a team and you’re putting together who should play together and you’re looking at alternate shot like those things do matter. The other side to this is that Tommy Fleetwood on the European side to me he was the difference maker. Like Tommy Fleetwood came into this and it was of no surprise. Dude had been playing so well at the end of the year throughout the FedEx Cup and then obviously winning the tour championship. The dude was unbelievable. So, like, shout out to him and his performance. We have somebody on the US side that in my opinion was just as good, and we’ll get to that in a bit, which is pretty cool to see a breakout of a US player. But Tommy Fleetwood, you’ve got the MVP for the RDER Cup for the European team. All class. Like, I love the class from Tommy Fleetwood. Did he say a peep to the crowd the entire time? No. just a great dude and absolutely loved it. Now, this is the part that gets interesting because to me, was there an issue with the US RDER Cup team? Was Keegan Bradley, did he do a good job as a captain? The teams that he was putting out there, a lot of people were complaining about some of the pairings that he put out there. I don’t have a problem with the pairings. Like I I really don’t at the end of the day like yeah you could look at some of the data around some of the pairings and be like that was a terrible decision. Hindsight’s always 2020 with all of that stuff. So I don’t have a problem with anything Keegan did. Keegan went with what he believed was going to get them the best outcome. Um, now if you go back two years ago with Zack Johnson, I feel like the picks and then on top of the picks, the pairings that there was a lot to be excited about with that and I feel like there were mistakes with the pairings. Keegan, not so much. I think he made good picks. I think he put together good teams. So, you can argue with me on that. I know I’ve seen some stuff out there about the pairings being the problem. To us on this podcast last week, we talked about it in detail around the golf setup or the golf course setup and how that was the biggest mistake. Even Keegan Bradley in his post or post post press conference afterwards goes into how yeah the thing that he felt like he might have screwed up was the core setup and that it rained became super soft and it basically became a putting contest to where the Europeans are going to win that. Now if you look at strokes gained t to green the US dominated so why wouldn’t you make the golf course harder grow out the rough make the fairways smaller like the Europeans were able to spray it wherever they wanted the rough was no factor whatsoever there were so many times where like John Rom had sprayed the golf ball everywhere and yet he’s sticking it in on his approach shot out of the rough. That one to me is the big difference maker and it was something that I had talked to with Brent about like I said on text messages going back and forth during the RDER Cup. It’s like yeah we we saw this one coming. We were hoping that it was going to be a lot closer. Um I did mention that if the US was going to win it was going to be a very close victory for the US. We’re all very high on team Europe. We just felt like them coming in made a ton of sense. The big report that just recently came out is around how the US team prepared and there is if if these reports are accurate and that it is somebody coming out of the US locker room that’s releasing this information that’s been around the team or was a part of this and they want it to be known. First of all, put your name to it. Like the anonymous anonymous reports I don’t love. Never been a big fan of it. have had to do it when we were reporting on, you know, breaking live golf news and stuff along those lines with players that are potentially signing and so forth and that did sign. We had to we couldn’t add agents names. We couldn’t talk about the people in the no that have that. But with a situation like this, if you’re going to drop this type of information, put your name on it. like come out and just say yes I am X Y and Z person from the US squad and I don’t feel like our preparation was very good heading into the tournament because the report is that the Europeans played 18 holes eight or nine times during before the leadup to the RDER Cup. So they went over a week early. They were playing the course all the time. US decided two weeks prior that everybody’s going to play in the Pro Core except for Xander Schoffley who just had a kid and really had been nursing injuries all year long. They come over and they play a couple nine-hole rounds and some matches to coincide to that, but didn’t even get in nearly half the amount of time that the Europeans did on the golf course. I mentioned this last week, the greens at Beth Page are subtle. the breaks are subtle. You have to play it a lot in order to get those subtleties to it. That did not happen. And clearly the US team missed a lot of clutch putts. Now, is that just because they’re not clutch putters? No. We have some of the best putters in the world on the US team. Like a Russell Henley, for instance, is a phenomenal putter. We did not see those clutch putts dropping for the US and we did for team Europe. So, if those reports are accurate that the US team barely played any practice rounds in the leadup to the RDER Cup, yeah, people could be a little bit pissed off in regards to that and that would have been a fail from a preparation standpoint because it showed they didn’t always like there was a lot of misreads, lot of misreads by the US team. Europe did not have those misreads on the greens which it’s like okay that all correlates to this report. So, I do think that yeah, is there some legs to this report? Sure. Sure. Could be. I don’t know for certain. I haven’t heard it. I haven’t really reached out to a lot of people in regards to it, but again, I don’t know. Like, it all kind of matches up to what actually took place. The last part that I will mention around all of this, well, one, shout out to team Europe, and they even did that. Hey, Donald clip. That’s pretty funny. And uh President Trump responded to it on Twitter. He’s like, “Yes, I’m watching. Congratulations.” The uh the part to me that in addition to the US not preparing properly is what does this mean for 2027 at I believe it’s a Dare Manner is the golf club that they will be playing at now Phil Mickelson who has had some really poor hot takes the one about Scotty Sheffller at the beginning of the here how I don’t think he’s going to win before the RDER Cup and all this and then obviously we see the year that Scotty Sheffller has had not always been known for great takes but this one I actually enjoy from Phil Mickelson is that his suggestion of bringing in like a famous basketball coach like a Coach K um or like a football coach like Lou Holtz which I don’t know if Lou Holtz would the right guy for this, but somebody who understands golf, has an analytics team obviously that is there as well that is helping out with some of the number side to it like Molinari did for the European team. But I kind of like that idea of bringing in somebody who’s an actual leader of a team, team sports, and can actually go in and provide some direction, some motivation, and help them understand what the team aspect really is and what that looks like. I would love to know like what is I think Phil Mickelson would be a very polarizing captain. I don’t think it’s feasible at this point with how much damage has been done. The relationships with guys and so forth that play on the PGA Tour. I just don’t think that Phil Mickelson as a captain makes a whole lot of sense. But in that same breath, like who does? Like, are we really going to see Tiger Woods be the captain of the RDER Cup team? I did say that, man, if we’ve lost Beth Paige and we end up going international, that that was the time that Tiger would step in that there’s so much benefit to him being the captain. And if he wins, if you lose on international soil, we we did see it with Zack Johnson because we had high expectations for that team and then the picks were off. Like there was a lot of things that were done poorly that he got a lot of the blame for where like losing two in a row, there’s not that much at risk. If you’re Tiger Woods, there’s more to gain, I should say. Like, there’s still risks. There’s still, oh my gosh, if you guys lose and if the US did lose, then but it’s international soil. Like, it’s somewhat to be expected now that when you go over to the other countries, golf courses, and fans that you’re not expected to win. So, to me, Tiger Woods, there is so much upside to him potentially doing this. and becoming the Rder Cup captain that it just makes a ton of sense in my opinion. You might feel otherwise and you might have a difference of opinion about Tiger Woods, but a lot of these guys look up to him. I think he would just be a great person to captain a team. Now, do I know if Tiger would be a good leader in that situation or not? I have no idea. No idea whatsoever. But again, like who who else are you going to get to be the captain of the team at this point? Again, I like Phil’s idea bring in a coach, a US coach, somebody who’s coached USA team. Like, I love the idea of Coach K. I thought that that was actually a great suggestion. But before we jump off here, I do want to give a shout out to one guy on the US team that just stood above everybody else and that is Cameron Young. Cameron Young from New York, father pro over at Sleepy Hollow. And Cameron Young, unreal performance out of him. And I know he had just won not that long ago. Getting that first victory builds a lot of confidence, but his putting, he had fixed his putting and it showed because he made clutch putt after clutch putt. The dude was phenomenal. And I think we actually started to see his personality for the first time out there, that fire because otherwise he’s very stoic, very calm. like a lot of people are just like that know him or like have been around him are just like there’s not a ton of personality there which I think you know you could be reserved introvert being a golfer and you might not show it all the time but seeing that competitive fire out of him and seeing him perform and being clutch I think the US has a guy now that you can count on when it comes to the RDER Cup you’re picking Cameron Young And that dude is your stud. That is your horse going into the next RDER Cup. And hopefully it is not just because it was Beth Paige Black that it was New York. Like I do think that his game translates so well to match play type situations and just being a great teammate as well because dude bombs at a mile, has good iron game and now is a good putter as well to coincide to that. like he fixes putting. He just looked awesome out there. So, shout out Cameron Young, you are by far the MVP of that US team. And yeah, I love that he was a New Yorker, too. Scotty and Bryson, as we wrap up this episode, I feel bad for Scotty Sheffler. Scotty Sheffller has not performed well in RDER Cups. And I don’t know if you guys see this or not, but to me, he’s never been one that under the clutch moments outside of certain instances. I’m not saying that it’s just a blanket statement here, but like when he was going to get the record, when he was going to win the Masters for the first time, there’s just moments where Scotty Sheffller and I and I mean, you can go back and look and see there are a lot of these moments to where like he still wins. And you might not look at them and go, “Oh man, like that’s that’s a little [ __ ] in the armor.” That is something that he just hasn’t figured out yet. And to me, there’s a clutchness and it’s different with different types of pressure. When he’s very comfortable, he’s got everything going in his way. He is very, very good. And you could say that he’s clutch in those moments and wins golf tournaments, wins them by a lot, but there’s other pressure moments when getting records, when winning for the first time a major championship, these different things. Remember, he forputed that final hole. And that is a bugaboo in my opinion about Scotty Shaffler is that he’s one of these guys that his talent is so dang like better than everybody else that you can’t quite see it with the naked eye. You have to understand it in order to understand that Scotty Sheffller struggles in certain pressure situations. And we see it at the RDER Cup when this is bigger than him. It’s for his country and all of a sudden it’s not just, you know, his usual of how do I even put this because he’s made golf secondary or actually third. There’s God, there’s his family, and then there’s golf. And he made that point at the Open Championship. I’ve talked about it numerous times on this podcast. I think that is a really powerful place to play from as it’s not the most important thing in the world to him. The RDER Cup kind of shifts that pressure and it kind of elevates it to where it is bigger than him, but it’s not like it’s something that he actually really cares about. And that’s why I don’t think the effort side to it of saying that the US team doesn’t care like Scotty Sheffler cares. Like that dude was crying. He cried a la two years ago. Like Scotty Sheffller cares, but he might care a little bit too much and that adds an additional level of pressure that he’s not comfortable with. And seeing when he needs to stick a wedge on the last hole of his team match and he shanks one off to the right and misses the green. That is not Scotty Sheoffller. FedEx Cup couple years ago, shanking one out of the bunker under pressure where he’s about to win the FedEx Cup and then loses it. These are the areas that I’m like, man, Scotty Sheffler does really, really well when it’s not the most important thing, when it is something that he’s comfortable in. But then all of a sudden, Scotty Sheffller under these situations, and I feel for him because it’s something that he can figure out. he can turn into a strength and I do believe that he will eventually figure it out and I’m pulling for him because it sucks to see him struggle in these RDER cups playing as a team. Bryson was not much better. So you live fans out there, poor Bryson. Bryson once again cares so much and usually Bryson when he cares so much he tends to perform well and match play you want Bryson Dshambo like it was awesome to see him out there interacting with the fan base like yeah he’s that guy that you need in this team environment so but again a guy who almost did not get a point the entire time and he played in almost every single match if I’m not mistaken same with Scotty until the final day when he won. But Bryson and the gutsy performance. But again, I will not blame these two guys for the lack of effort or the lack of caring. These guys wanted it. And it’s unfortunate that uh they did not get it done. I mean, again, running into a buzzsaw. Europeans were better. They made more clut clutch putts and the US team ran into a buzzsaw in my opinion in the two days leading up to the finals. Hell of an effort by the US team in individual matches almost bringing it back. And I almost forgot to mention about Victor Hovlin. That rule has to change. That is stupid that if a guy on your team gets injured, it’s an automatic half. That changed the entire dynamic of that final day. Shane Lowry wouldn’t have won the cup for them. the other two matches would have still mattered. I mean, we lost 15 to 13. So, people will say, “Well, you still lost. Doesn’t matter about the half point. You still would have lost anyways.” The mindset and the difference when all of a sudden the whole thing’s over and done with and you can’t win. You’ve lost even though you’re still playing versus grinding it out to the end. That’s a big difference. And in my opinion, it would have been a pretty big like I I think it played a very big mental factor and we might have seen a different result. We’ll never know. But that rule has to change. That captain’s agreement ahead of time that if a player gets injured, has to withdraw, it’s an automatic half. Tell you what, in the words of Rory Mroy, shut the [ __ ] up because that is a terrible, terrible agreement. If you got an injured player, that’s a loss. Bottom line, screw that. I hated that. And when I heard about him, I’m like, that makes no sense whatsoever. And it doesn’t. Like, everybody’s been in uproar about it. But obviously, it did not change the outcome. And you can sit there and point at that, but in my opinion, mindset would have been different, and we don’t know what the outcome would have been if that had been a full point to the US. Think about that. Instead of a half point to the US, a full point. That would have been a lot more interesting on that Sunday. Might have been the greatest comeback in RDER Cup history. We might have gotten screwed. Who knows? But that’s all for today, folks. I appreciate you jumping on to the RDER Cup recap. And uh yeah, until until next time, which uh there might be some announcements coming up in regards to the live stream. I don’t know if we’re going to be doing that uh anymore for the remainder of the year, my restart in January, but uh for the time being, just be on the lookout for any updates there. And we do want to give a thank you to our sponsors, Devro Golf, as well as Rock Form. at DevRowgolf. You can use promo code pullhookgolf 20 for 20% off your entire order. And then over at rockform.com, that’s roof fo pull hook 2025 for 20% off. Thank you everybody. Peace out. Eight town down.
