Mark Rolfing joins Golf Central to reflect on the 2023 Ryder Cup, breaking down what went wrong for the U.S. team, how Luke Donald pulled all the right strings for Team Europe, what’s next for the tournament and more. #GolfChannel #GolfCentral #EuropeanRyderCup
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Luke Donald was ‘absolutely spectacular’ throughout 2023 Ryder Cup | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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39 Comments
The, "Is it too hot" question was really bad. I'll stick to NLU and Fried Egg which seem to be the place for golf coverage where the people in charge don't treat me like I don't understand the sport.
Europe (Luke Donald) made better picks, were better prepared, and were (as per usual) a proper team!
US team is in the process of finding a stunt double for Jordan Spieth to play in his singles match. Going forward the US team will draw straws to determine duel, I mean foursomes competitors. Lastly Brooks Koepka will only have to play his own ball, foursomes and singles.
Jack Nicklaus appropriately described the Ryder Cup as an exhibition match. However, the media will continue to prop up the ‘meanness’ of this event as it drives people’s interest higher hence the money grows which benefits the media & viewership, not the game. Golf is a great game. Yes, a competitive game but a game where those competing (and, spectators) should act with appropriates behavior (and, manners). Media people who say they ‘love’ the bad behavior are only sparking more bad behavior by all. Enough is more than enough.
la cava did cross the line on the 18th green and is lucky not to have ended up with a punch in the mouth.
Zach Johnson is the worst captain in competitive golf history, he shouldn’t be allowed near any future team rooms or events
I think America lost its way in the Ryder Cup a long time ago.
When they gave Tom Watson two kicks at the captains can while Hale Irwin gets none?
Larry Nelson gets none?
Gene Littler gets none?
Mark OMeara gets none?
Perhaps the PGA Tour has lost sight of the spirit of the game as it reloates to this event, and perhaps the players understand that.
Funny you Americans were not worried about course setup when you won 19-9…weird that…
If you take two teams with similar talent levels (and these teams were, especially 1-10) whoever has home course advantage will be extremely difficult to beat in the Ryder Cup. The reason for that is simple – golfers NEVER play "road" games… ever. They are not like NFL or NBA players, etc. who are used to all the negative energy/emotion of a road crowd with 50,000 people booing them, jeering them, etc. The worst that it ever gets for PGA Tour golfers is that a few of them occasionally get heckled. But by and large, it is quite civil, with a lot of support and positive energy to feed off. It is incredibly inspiring and comforting for the home course team and shocking to the system to the away team in a Ryder Cup. The home team feels invincible, and the road team is a mentally fragile…
The flip side of Luke's performance is that Zach Johnson didn't know a certain bodily orifice from the proverbial hole in the ground as far as captain's picks. He simply picked his friends and frat boy buddies, watched as they took a few weeks off from competitive golf, and didn't get them prepared to play an opponent on the opponent's home turf. Then, after Rickie Fowler ran up the white flag and surrendered the last iota of USA hope to Tommy Fleetwood, Zach had the gall, the unmitigated gall, to say that, "We made them earn it." What utter BS!
Europe – all the players played Wentworth (DP tour) a couple of weeks pre ryder cup. Went out in pairings expected in the cup. I think 7 or 8 of them finished in the top 20.
USA – Didn't bother going to Wentworth and only 9/12 came for a pre-scouting mission to Rome.
I think USA was way too complacent with the large win last time, didn't put enough effort into the planning and it come back to bite them on the rear…
Europe handed the US their totties 🏴🇮🇹 deal with it internally and stop looking for excuses. The phenomenon of home advantage is real and established so get over it and do better on the road, end of. Here is an extract of an example of an article about the centuries old established phenomenon:
The results of previous studies have identified 4 factors thought to be responsible for the home advantage. These can be categorised under the general headings of crowd, learning, travel and rule factors. From the accumulated evidence, rule factors were found to play only a minor role (in a limited number of sports) in contributing to home advantage. Studies investigating the effect of learning factors found that little benefit was to be gained from being familiar with the local conditions when playing at home. There was evidence to suggest that travel factors were responsible for part of the home advantage, provided the journey involved crossing a number of time zones. However, since high levels of home advantage are observed within countries where travel distances are not great. travel factors were not thought to be a major cause of home advantage. The evidence from studies investigating crowd factors appeared to provide the most dominant causes of home advantage. A number of studies provide strong evidence that home advantage increases with crowd size, until the crowd reaches a certain size or consistency (a more balanced number of home and away supporters), after which a peak in home advantage is observed. Two possible mechanisms were proposed to explain these observations: either (i) the crowd is able to raise the performance of the home competitors relative to the away competitors; or (ii) the crowd is able to influence the officials to subconsciously favour the home team. The literature supports the latter to be the most important and dominant explanation. Clearly, it only takes 2 or 3 crucial decisions to go against the away team or in favour of the home team to give the side playing at home the 'edge'.
Home advantage in sport: an overview of studies on the advantage of playing at home
November 1999
Sports Medicine 28(4):221-36
Source
PubMed
By Alan Michael Nevill
University of Wolverhampton
The selection process for the American team is flawed.
Completely overlooking Europe’s away wins and some US golf that wouldn’t have stood up in a club scratch comp.
The Ryder Cup means more to the Europeans…..they want it more, its in there DNA to play in a European Ryder Cup team.
The course setup has nothing to do with this. Was probably the most even course setup we’ve seen in decades. One team played better golf and had all the momentum, and with fans behind you that momentum is almost impossible to turn around.
The Americans didn't hit fairways whereas the Europeans did, that's not home field advantage, it's better golf
It's not rocket science, Luke made a series of sensible decisions. Zach on the other hand had no plan and the whole team appeared directionless. Some people are good managers/decision makers and others are not.
So funny. The discussion on home field advantage. ZJ had an enormous pool of players to choose from. He could have set up team USA exactly to fit the type of golf needed on that course. He chose to only call up brooks from LIV. There needs to be some reflection here. Because politics cost them the ability to even make it competitive.
Picking your best players would've helped.
Don't you think the REAL issue is the LIV v PGA squabble still simmering despite the agreement to merger…It obviously affected the USA picks.
Its quite simple really. The americans in my opinion don't have the same affinity for the Ryder Cup as the Europeans. The Europeans have those legends to look back on, the ones that stood up for the european tour back in the day, and this is so well managed by the Captain and the VC's and is understood so well by the current players. For the yanks it is just another competition, I reckon if you asked all of their players the Ryder Cup is on the same level as the Presidents cup there is no difference. Also what I found alarming, in the closing press conference at one point the yanks were laughing about something during their week, I just cannot imagine after being thrashed you would see that from the european side of things. This goes to my original point, I dont think they deep down care enough about this.
The US team sucked
The US picks were shocking, no way Fowler and Spieth should have been picked.
I think the US captain choice for NY will be important.Davis Love and Steve Stricker proved to be good captains when winning and were hugely respected.Matt Kucher may be a popular choice with the fans and players.
The US needs to rethink what they’re doing. And guys like Xander and Cantlay need to NEVER be included again! This was my same stance when Phil was complaining about money for playing too! This type of crap is why we’ve had our butts kicked for over 20 years now, and haven’t won in Europe for over THIRTY YEARS! That’s PATHETIC! Guys like DJ and Bryson, who actually have NATIONAL PRIDE and wanted to represent our country left off the team and these 2 jokers bargaining for money? Yeah go listen to what the cup means to the Euro players! THATS the type of guys we need! Heck even the CHEATER Patrick Reed should be selected over those two DISGRACES! At least he wears those colors with PRIDE, and would pay to play vs holding things up in the 23rd hour negotiating for money to represent your country!
"Do Euros have TOO MUCH fun watching golf? Should we somehow rein in the fun?"
He done great,,as did everyone connected to the whole European team
I see ALOT of opinions saying “rebuild” – “root and branch review” – “start over”. Everyone of those takes is complete and utter nonsense.
You cannot expect to win the race of you don’t have your best horses running in the race. Replacing Thomas and Fouler with Gooch and Dechambeau makes this a completely different prospect. Does it mean we 🇪🇺 would still would win (hypothetical question) no point in worrying about that, but it would have made the challenge ALOT more difficult thats for sure
Ridiculous statement about setting up the course! These are the top golfers in the world and should be able to adapt to any course
SHUT THE HELL UP about this home field advantage BS.
Give me a break….his players played better golf he didnt do shit
You can come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses, but it still comes down to the players. The captain nor the vice captains played. It's all on the players!
When Fitzpatrick is draining 20' putts like tap-ins…you win. No amount of scouting or practice can overcome a hot putter.
So hope Luke does 2025 Ryder cup
Yes, he was spectacular. Put together a team mix of age experienced players, moral leader players with rookies (hungry to show service) and players that are on fire 🔥 recently. Things that Team USA lacked..
Luke did 👍 ok, basically thrown to the wolves after Stenson did a runner, and the experts thought that the Yanks were going to run riot, but basically failed to show up for the first two days, probably just as well, but the boys done good 👍
He didn`t have to do much. With the slugs US put up. What an embarrassment.
Having a Seve Ballesteros banner draped across the 1st tee grandstand and constant reminders of him throughout can also inspire a team. Creating a common spirit and drive before play doesn’t guarantee a win, of course. But it doesn’t hurt either.