Soly and TC are joined by Kyle Porter and Jamie Weir for a spring Ryder Cup roundtable. The Americans are still betting favorites, but should they be? We look at who’s trending and potential options for captains picks, course setup and take a look back at the Hat-Gate controversy in Rome.
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ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the first and i would say delayed rder cup roundt episode uh the delay is entirely on me we’ll explain that here coming up shortly but sie here joined uh by my guy on the american side holding down the top of the screen with me mr kyle porter from normal sport hello kyle how are you mr sullie solomon my first uh my first appearance as a as a business owner as a uh an entrepreneur yeah yeah jumped in with with all of all of you guys so it’s good to be back lot to talk about with the riter cup i i could what was our last one that we did was it post rome i don’t think we did one post rome i think i was too depressed uh we we had to keep jamie away from the wolves i’d gone into hiding post rome that’s the voice you hear is is jamie weir he got cancelled pretty much i think enough time has gone by that he’s uncancled but i think we’ll talk about some of that but hello mr jamie weir how are you christopher it’s a pleasure it’s wonderful to see the sunshining here in barkshire and i am uh how many months are we now from new york but already excited can’t wait four months away mr tc is of course here uh hello tc i know you tough morning for you but i i thank you for joining us tough morning you played played some match play and just just got beat you know i was i was giving up 18 shots and uh got beat four and three uh champion there yeah played pretty good but yeah it was it’s uh you know things have changed for the boys on on here we’ve got got business owner kyle we’ve got podcast host jamie of course the uh is it is it sky skyolf podcast sky sports golf podcast yeah yeah exactly no it’s all real on that microphone and everything now so uh we want to give a shout out this rer cup update brought to you by our friends at bmw they are not only the official vehicle of no laying up but also a worldwide partner of the 2025 rder cup looking forward to spending some time with them on site at beth page later this year to experience the ultimate team competition speaking of the ultimate team competition kyle i’ll start with you how how are you feeling about your team at the moment if you’re new to listening to these episodes i root for the american team kyle roots for the america team tc is a trader and roots for the europeans and of course jamie is the biggest european golf fan uh on the planet i would say but uh kyle you’re on my side uh here for today i think how are you feeling uh not great not good no it’s not not good bob um you know i was thinking about this i the top of this is is we’re fine right like the top the top five six but then you start to get past and i know we’ll talk about like the the individual kind of slots in the 12 but you get past six and you start looking around like what huh what what is this you know and and look like it’s it’s may 20th like these things it it it can take a different shape over the next three four months i mean we’ve seen it think about go back to the lucas glover discussion you know like that changed in like three weeks and and you know i think we’re on the same page s we didn’t think he should be on that team but this stuff changes so quickly so i’m not like fully hitting the panic button but i think there’s a lot of things working against the united states in ways like this year in ways that they they weren’t even if you go back to to 2016 and and 2021 on on the home home turf guys levig hadn’t even hadn’t even left college yet at this point a couple years ago long ways to go these guys are trying to pin me down on jt poston and andrew novak and all this stuff in may i think i’m just gonna i’m gonna keep a running list of all the uh of all the stuff that that gets thrown at me over the of the that’s been thrown so far and will be thrown in the next several months but uh tc how are you feeling about your european uh squad right now i feel good it’s almost you know i don’t listen i don’t want to get overconfident long way to go we’ll see how they set up the golf course i feel like it’s a more well balanced team now i think se is is you know really solidified himself tommy continues to play just like above average golf um that’s a great way to describe it yeah yeah i’m not gonna i’m not gonna take the bait on that one uh rahm you know rahm’s showing some some signs of life uh sergio’s really really like a lot of negative selft talk there uh which usually means there’s some good golf that’s about to be played by him so like it seems like there’s just a ton of depth and like like i don’t want to call it an embarrassment of riches but i do think uh i think there’s some surprises on the back end too like i could see a guy like arasmus nearguard peterson uh who just played exceptionally well yesterday at us open qualifying uh i could see him you know sneaking like sneaking onto the team getting really hot here he’s a absolute flusher so jamie does that align with what you’re thinking yeah i just i don’t think i could be happier with where the european team is right now and i think luke donald molinari probably sort of feel the same way obviously it’s been a season of unprecedented success on the pga tour in terms of tournament winners rory and sept with multiple winners the likes of ludvig and victor and okay tom dietri who might be on the outside looking in at the moment but he’s he’s a winner on the pj tour this season and those players who haven’t won the likes of shane and tommy just playing consistently brilliant golf and i think it’s an extremely settled team i think you could see maybe 10 perhaps even 11 of the team from rome being on this team as well whereas there’s going to be an unbelievable amount of churn i think on the us side you probably only pin your hat on four i would say absolutely guaranteed of that team that were in rome being in beth page sheffller marawa cha and um i’ve just had a completely and and thomas exactly but those you’d absolutely put your house on at the moment some people may say that’s a good thing given how heavily they were beaten in rome but there’s going to be a lot of change in that us side and some of the the sort of superstars of that team likes of keep have just fallen off a cliff players like max homer who was the superstar of that team in rome you know that their star player in rome has been very open about his struggles this season as well good to see a little bit of form from max last week at quel hollow but i think that the us side is going to change a lot european side is going to be very similar and in terms of the backroom staff for both teams and obviously that doesn’t guarantee any points on the golf course but you’ve got in luke donald a man who has been in the role for over three years and has treated it like a full-time job in all that time whereas the us captain’s full-time job is to be a golfer and a very very good golfer and he’s sort of a part-time captain at the moment and he’s done a fantastic job of trying to compartmentalize and do that as well but his full focus rightfully so has been on his own golf whereas luke donald’s entire focus has been on making sure that europe are as meticulously prepared as they were for rome so i think in that regard europe are in a really settled place having said all that i think the us are going to have a really strong side that marginally will look statistically better than europe’s and they’ve got the home crowd factor which we’ve spoken about plenty of times in the past and i think especially with some oiled up new yorkers that’s going to be amplified this year but i think in terms of where europe are right now in the past if we were having this conversation two years ago we would have been worried about 9 to 12 in the european team i think nine to 12 are now looking really strong in the european team and in fact you’re thinking like who’s going to get left off the team now real quick can we fact check this like they did with the uh the debate speed has not fallen off a cliff that’s that’s not it ludvig is ranked 26th in data golf and and speed is 29th so okay speed’s actually playing better golf now than he was back in 2023 yes max has fallen off a cliff i think that that’s fair to say and brooks what’s happened to brooks he’s disappeared like my my gut feel on pretty much everything kyle is kind of similar to yours of just like it certainly doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of momentum i can look at at all the stats and all the numbers and start to paint a better picture i would say the positives on the us side scotty is like legitimately a lot better than he was at the last red cup now he also played horribly but him as a player is also just a completely different level just found this out today he’s the ninth best putter in the world in 2025 like on top of being historically great ball striker i kind of it kind of it kind of broke my morning honestly i haven’t like fully wrapped my head around the fact that he’s like a top 10 putter in the world on top of this ball striking bryson has clearly leveled up he was not on the team in rome uh should be a good course fit he call it just goes dead straight it seems like a less complicated locker room presence than it did two years ago um is something i can kind of talk myself into by by the end of the year i think jt is back in a big way compared to how he was playing in 2023 speed is not going to have a kid two weeks before the event uh this go around i just checked on this the baby’s due in july so we we should be should be fine by then they’re not going to get hit with this mysterious unpredictable thing called jet lag that they were all complaining about uh in rome and again if you look at the numbers like over the last six months five of the top seven players in strokes gained are american and including the top two and 12 of the top 19 are american so for all the talk about europeans dominating overall when you factor in all the numbers that’s not been the case now we’ve been through this enough times to know that means jack [ __ ] when the balls actually go in the air but it’s all to say like on paper it’s not like europe has already won to this point in the season again it’s worth zero points but if you if you check the numbers that would be the case now the downside the negatives there’s a lot of these xander’s been pretty meh health in question and kind of you know just coming off the injury has just been very very much just okay max has fallen off a cliff uh max was looking like the rder cup like dog dude that this team needed to rally around and if that goes backwards like i don’t know if we get to the point where we can justify giving him a pick even with the track record his game has fallen off worse than jt’s did in in 2023 and that was a hot topic of conversation for adding him but we can talk about that nobody’s beating down a spot beating down the door to get a spot on this team near the bottom like i honestly don’t know how to fill out a team of 12 guys as of right here right now the good news there is it’s may and we don’t have to do that right now sah going backwards big tone’s inconsistent kept’s really struggling kantlay has not been full patrick klay way down the leaderboard windom has gone way back i’m just talking about like guys that we were counting on as of a couple years ago to be a big parts of these team have kind of vacated the premises and left the door wide open now and nobody’s really stepped up to fill the void haven’t and again like one of i would say one of sah big tone kepka kentlay windham clark just honestly naming a few names i think it’s fair to say one of them will play will bounce back at least and play some really good golf between now and the end of the year and make a strong case to be on the team right now it certainly doesn’t feel that way but that’s why you have a little bit of time to get this uh sorted out but last negative i have the mojo doesn’t seem to be great in terms of like player buyin on this process i kind of was hoping that the keegan call would be like pretty significant overhaul in terms of like the players leaving leaving it up to like a fellow player of theirs and a peer of theirs to set the tone for how the approach is going to be like what i get really excited about is the american team like from a strategical standpoint leveling up and and trying to match what europe brings to the table on a strategical standpoint rather than just roll the balls out and try to beat them which is what i feel like they try to do in rome and i thought i think keegan can be that guy i thought he can be that guy it maybe it’s just a media thing now but the unnecessary distraction of us talking about should keegan fit you know he’s playing so well should he just put himself on the team all this like makes me a little concerned just on where the overall direction of the team has gone but i can also spend a heck of a time a lot of time uh digging into all that is strategical a word probably not but for the sake of let’s go with yes strategic strategical speaking of presidential debates sully the i think the thing with keegan is like as captain i know we’ll talk about him as a player in a minute but it feels a little bit like like europe always has a plan for the next three ryder cups and i was actually pro keegan as captain i liked seth wall kind of going outside the box and it it was like really interesting to me and it provided some juice that honestly like the americans haven’t had in in from like a off the playing field writer cup standpoint but i just don’t know that there it feels like a one-off thing and it feels like it it’s just this oneoff deal where it’s like after 2020 it doesn’t feel like there’s any sort of succession plan after that right tiger right like tiger’s just going to do a dare manner in 27 and i think they were i think they were pinning their hopes on tiger being captain at that for sure but tiger’s just going to do his own thing kept them waiting and did his own thing but it it’s like these it’s like these captains are almost bigger than the plan and on the european side the plan and the and the and the whole culture is bigger than the captains and and the captains are there to serve the culture right and we hear that i mean i don’t i’m i’ve agreed with you throughout with that jamie like i i as an american very jealous my thoughts on i i think the usa had the formula i think they had it right in 2020 2012 davis love was an exceptional captain that was just a freak rider cup where 99 times out of 100 the usa win that ryder cup what happens one of the greatest miracles we’re ever going to see in sport let alone golf and all of a sudden they’re like “oh my gosh what do we do uh we need to throw the baby out with the bath water we need to go for tom watson england eagles.” which was an absolute unmmitigated disaster so what do they do lo and behold they go back to davis love two years later at hazeline and it’s a roaring success and then 2018 they i felt they kind of had this succession plan furick okay i think he got in lucky and i think thomas bjorn was meticulously prepared and etc etc etc but then you know steve stricker was a great captain again on home soil and i think zack johnson was just a weak captain who allowed the boys club quote unquote to to bully themselves into the team and then got painted as this awful captain and then the pgf america again went “oh my gosh uh right we need to do something radically different we need to think left field let’s have keegan bradley.” and it just came out of nowhere altogether and they’ve created a rod for their own back now because he’s he’s a good enough player to be on the team and as i said it’s not even whether he should pick himself or he shouldn’t pick himself or he qualifies or he doesn’t the fact is his full focus is not on being the us rder cup captain right now and luke donald’s full focus for three and a half years has been on how do i prepare this team as best as possible for the rder cup um and that’s not a criticism of keegan he he can’t do both jobs to the to the same level that mcdonald is doing one job a rod in their own back that’s such a good such a good phrase for their own back don’t s with their own back i think and and j i think jamie that’s that’s a really good point like dj’s been making this this armageddon uh analogy of uh you know we’ve got astronauts and we’ve got drillers and instead of teaching the astronauts how to drill why don’t we just find some drillers and it feels like i mean just knowing what i do about beth paige and how keegan you know keegan wants to make this team on points like he’s a competitive sob and that like i know he said “hey i’m not going to pick myself.” but his focus you know his focus is is i’ve got to think if you’re one of the european players i think you’re probably more scared of coming against a fired up chess pumping keegan bradley than you are of playing jj spawn or russell henley yeah i agree i agree and sally like regardless of you know i know you’ve said “hey keegan doesn’t want to pick himself but he said that.” no i know and he said “hey i’m going to do and and he’s kind of said hey i’m going to do what’s what’s best for the team.” or maybe what’s best for the team is him playing and then at some level you know it just it just seems like this is such a distraction in of itself right now and then and then w exited stage left yeah that’s where like that’s where it seems settled to me was like “no no we’re not going to do the whole captain’s pick thing it’s not going to be a distraction here if i beat the [ __ ] door down sure i i’ll go play on the team.” that’s more of an indictment of like who we who what’s going on with the americans right now i feel like keegan has gotten this like backup quarterback treatment that just feels completely out of bounds for me like he is two top 10 finishes in majors in the last decade the last time he played on a rder cup team he got trounced by jamie donaldson for the final point he went one and two rory showed up eight minutes before the tea time in 2012 that ended up being the deciding match they he cost in the 2012 rder cup he had a great run with phil in the few team matches before that one like no one has gotten a better he didn’t look bad that’s that’s hugely rory’s showed up eight minutes before he’s got to go beat him he’s playing the best golfer in the world at madina let’s maybe point a finger at steve stricker who’s won up with two to play and lost his man that was tough there’s a lot of tough stuff but anyways nobody’s gotten a more kind like his like revisionist history treatment than keegan has gotten in in this in this realm like two top 10’s in part of that is just cuz nobody else is playing well true crazy and like that’s where like you know like harris english we haven’t mentioned his name yet but he seems to be playing some of the steadiest golf anybody he’s on my on the us side right now and like like he would be a lock for my team if we were if we were choosing it today you know i think we are i think yeah i mean i think he’s he’s so the us top six in points right now is scotty xander bryson jt morawa and henley and english is seventh and he’s close to henley henley has not played well over the last couple months after getting out to a somewhat early lead next six that are not in are harris english mad mcneely andrew novak brian harmon jj spawn patrick canle so really i mean i don’t think anyone’s beyond that is getting up past number five on the list may and this is where it’s like gets hard to predict because bryson i guess could fall out because there’s going to be so many points available in all the big money signature events that bryson can’t play in and so basically only thing i’m worried about in there is like if somebody from that like if jj spawn goes and wins a signature event then we’re going to end up in the brian harmon situation again of like like forcing your way onto the team despite not giving not improving the team’s chances harman was not a liability in rome harmon was harman stunk in rome he absolutely was a liability i will not say alongside max i thought they were pretty good he harmon was terrible though like max had to carry him like sie let’s let’s say we get down to like jj spawn or ben griffin or keegan being on the team and keegan said “hey i want to do what’s best for the team.” what’s best for the team there that’s where i don’t know the answer but i think like removing himself from the conversation like how do you i don’t know how he could look him like tying a lot of things together here players getting paid now for being on the team also so like a part of this also would be like “i’m going to get paid myself by picking myself to be on the team.” and like i don’t know how you make that call to somebody else and be like “yeah i picked myself over you bro.” like that that’s kind of the whole what i think he’s trying to get out in front of like that’s not going to happen where i think like it gets interesting is if he says if the team demands it and i finish like seventh in the points which points seem to matter to those guys then we’re going to do a vote and yeah the boys club is going to vote on this super super messy uh in there but i don’t know it’s kind of already messy and it’s well i wrote this down it’s a lose-lose situation right and and i don’t think seth wall intended this but you you can’t pick yourself because then if you lose the the rder cup it’s like yeah man like you shouldn’t have shouldn’t have picked yourself like it it you’re you put you put keegan into this box that he can’t get out of but then i i’m a tc he he probably should pick himself at this point because the bottom of the team is is that weak and he’s playing i mean what if keegan wins the bmw again right like well on like winter season grasses like the kind of the rye and the bent and stuff he’s yeah i don’t know i just the only the only american player from the rome team that beat keegan bradley at the pga championship was scotty sheffller sure i mean what happened at the mass like this is where like you tend to do and i get that’s part of the fun similar golf course it’s part of the fun like it’s the most recent tournament you look at and you say like i mean zach johnson top 10 at the masters as well are we are we going to that that would be sick talk about putting him like you just it’s fun to do but it just is it always tends to be like where i guess i have a lot of problem with the conversation why i tend to like fall back on the strokes gain stuff to much ridicule is like yeah you remember the popups on the leaderboard but there’s very few guys in golf that when they fall below 40th you take note of and like remember like if keegan didn’t top 40 at the pga nobody would have noticed like but he gets up on the leader board and you’re like oh he’s playing great golf he could miss four straight cuts cuts and he gets one top five and everyone’s like “oh you got to put them on the team.” whereas like for me i i tend to gravitate more towards the guys that are really consistent and the and the dudes that like don’t have these peaks and valleys that’s that’s that sounds like jt poston to me sie i mean sure i i get he to put him in the mix sure if he beats the door down sure but i i don’t know if i’m really seeing that necessarily but then it all goes back to like i don’t know how much you want to unwind it but like i i’m a big believer in like the herb brooks camp of like i’m not looking for the best players i’m looking for the right ones in terms of that’s what europe like robert mcintyre was not one of the 24 best players in the world or between the americans and the europeans not one of the 24 best come ryder cup time last year but like what did europe do they got the most they possibly could out of him why because they had a great plan they had a great plan of putting justin rose like justin rose’s assignment was to play with robert mcintyre i don’t remember exactly what they did but i know they got points out of what should be on paper their weakest pairing but like europe that’s why i i i admire europe’s way of doing things so much better than the us way of like scotty sheffller pissed down his leg last year at the rder cup xander schoffley he went one and three conor cowella went one and three we keep people keep acting like it was the boys club that cost the us the rder cup like their top players sucked like and they kind of refused to acknowledge like why do our top players keep sucking in this event because you try to treat it like every other event you don’t treat it the way europe does in terms of preparation understanding the plan how it all mixes together they just like try to take control the boys club was in charge like so but you’re kind of arguing against your own point there because on one hand you’re saying oh i look at the data and i’m looking for the most consistent players but then you’re saying actually when it comes to writer cup you kind of throw all that out the window because it’s about having the best players for that situation and the fact that there are some players who can elevate their game when it comes to a situation like that like bob mcintyre who’s somebody who just loves the heat of the battle and loves going toe-to-toe with somebody and that’s why he was unbeaten in rome that he might not have been as statistically strong as all the other players that were there but he ended up being somebody that luke donald could turn to sully you’re saying like i don’t want the best players i want the right players well like who are the right players like what do you and that’s where that’s where i’m struggling a little bit with like you know do you want guys that are great putters do you want guys that are great locker room guys like flesh that out tell us who those right guys are and i you’re not going to like my answer to that my answer is like i don’t know the i what i have to like the information i’m working off of is just like what’s publicly available on on what their numbers say right i don’t know these like that you’re going to get that answer through like again i always go back to paul mcinley and the example he laid out for like how he handled victor dubousan which and through graham mcdall which again might be some revisionist history here but it’s like graham you’re one of the best players in the world right now but i’m only going to play you in forsomes and you got to babysit victor dubousan and if you do that for me i’m going to send you out first right and the us is going to put a tired player out first you’re going to be well rested i’ve talked with rory about this he’s fine to go out third he’s going to play more in the like i don’t know i can’t tell you that’s a pretty similar situation to what they had with bob to be fair last time they said they had to sort of sell it to justin rose justin i know you’ve never done this sort of senior statesman of the team taking a rookie under your wing before but that’s what we’ve got you pinned for you’re only going to play two sessions four four balls both days you’re going to have bob alongside you bob was dreadful by his own admission on friday and justin had to carry them to half a point it clicked on saturday they won their point together and then bob was fresh to go out and win what was essentially you know a dead rubber against wind clark in the sunday but that’s what he did and that’s just that comes down to just preparation and you know that i know you did a fantastic podcast with eduardo molinari after the last ryder cup dodto is going to have that so prepared to a te who plays with whom what plan a is if plan a hasn’t worked okay let’s go to plan b but you know that they’re going to have all their ducks lined up s i think like going back to the right guys i think some of that is open-mindedness as well of the right guys may not be the obvious ones of you know maybe that’s a mav or maybe that’s a daniel like i think it’s a daniel burgerer for sure but maybe that’s a michael thorjornson right and and they get him but part of the issue is the us team can’t even get guys to play together at the zurich which is the team event or you know or you scoff at an andrew novak who won the team event and clearly plays well in those settings or you know like it does it it just doesn’t seem like they want to put any skin in the game to figure out or you know kind of explore who those right guys are in those settings and everything whereas the european team is you know goes out of their way to pair guys up during dp world tour events or you know like i mean i know dodo’s got he’s looking at at guys that we’ve never [ __ ] heard of right now like truly i mean like he’s got guys that that are so deep that you’re just like hey just in case break glass him in case of emergency but you know like solid like is that a denny mccarthy um you know like there’s just because i think there’s certain attributes too of like getting certain puzzle pieces how do guys fit together how do how do compliments build and it doesn’t seem like like i mean that that seems so far beyond zj last year of it seems beyond the us in general like i again i’m like this is where i’m like i’m not like two feet in on following 2021 the way stricker handled it i was in on like okay they they’ve got this like figured out they got the blueprint figured out like they’ve they’ve it’s really seems like they have and cj like i honestly i talked myself into zj because i thought like the system was strong enough that one guy couldn’t [ __ ] it up and i was i was wrong about that because it was messed up in more ways than than it could count so i’m back out on like the the process and honestly like a lot of the excuses i heard afterward were just kind of like yo yeah we were competitively rusty this event was on the schedule for like 15 20 years how long not knowing that they were like like who they were going to be paired up with until the day before right they’re jetlagged we end tournament reps like oh my god they chipped they just made more putts than we did like no they beat you t they beat you in every possible way like dig into why that might be instead of just like assuming again i i i i understand the take here that i’m talking out of my ass but like i have doubts that the us can get through to all the things you’re talking about all the things that i think truly matter in this team event about getting the most out of everybody so what do i do i default to like okay who are the best golfers i think the us would rather do it that way of like just getting the strongest golfers out there roll the balls out and play and that works at home like you kind of that that that approach has worked at to great extent at home to the point where like i don’t know if the us from a cultural perspective and from talking to a lot of these players can get anywhere in the realm to like be able to buy in like the way rory does and rom does to the european process like i don’t i just don’t think they can copy that i would like to see that that would get me really excited that’s honestly why i’m a little bit muted on this ryder cup is i’m just not that excited about it because i think the us should win at home like i think they should and i think that if they do they’re going to pat themselves on the back and not have really learned a whole heck of a lot before going to try to win at a dare manner because i think they treat the home in a ways the same and what works at home doesn’t work on the road and it’s just kind of like you’re expected to win this you should win it even if like the momentum is not on your side right now that just leads me towards not like if they do win i won’t like be that excited about it i just i i’m i’m because i’m just not in love with with the overall process yeah i love what you’re saying about the difference in a home team and a road team i mean we see this in in in other sports as well but i think especially here one of my takes after rome was like hey when you’re on the road you have to bring your own juice whatever gets you like you have to bring guys that are going to i i almost would like rather see somebody like billy horchel who’s just completely psychotic in in in situations like that but he kind of laid an egg at the president’s couple big time yeah which was but was that was that at home or no it was at home coil hollow it was a ghost well yeah well i don’t know i i just i think when you put guys like uh like a kepka in a road situation they’re just i i don’t know they they don’t they don’t do a ton for me but then at home the the crowd provides the juice right like there’s no you don’t need to stir anything up it just you kind of roll the best players out there like sully’s saying and and let the crowd carry them um but i think one of the problems this year sully and and one of the things i’m interested to hear y’all’s take on is this is the first time where like i think back to 2021 it’s like “yeah man we can’t take kevin kner and kevin na because we have to set the course up at 7,600 yards or whatever because you got all these poofers on the other side like pter and flipped now right that has totally flipped.” and i don’t know i mean the us’s problem tc is that it’s dogs like the guys that you want are not bombers and it’s bombers like it’s guys like windham and and and guys that hit it a million miles are not really dogs dude that’s where i would i would lean into that then and you know and lean into the can’t lays but then then you start looking at guys like patrick reed like cool let’s get some of the best wedge players in the world or you know i’m sure we were so i didn’t know when you wanted to get into sort of core setup stuff but well so yeah just noting this again i i feel the same way and i don’t know exactly how data golf’s model works in terms of like if it flattens out the whole teams or if it counts like all righty’s is going to play five times so it’s going to be his distance is going to play more to advantage i don’t know exactly how that models out but it says that they project the us to be 0.03 strokes better per round off the t so very very marginal difference 4 yards longer per drive off the te so again very marginal difference and they expect europe to hit 0.2 more fairways per round who like what’s the what’s the group that they’re going with is that out of the top 20 like candidates or is that so it’s it’s i hope i’m describing it right but they’re modeling it off of like probability of making the team like a predicted skill so it’s not just taking the top 12 current it’s like you know but in a nutshell there’s regards regards skill set there’s really nothing separating the two sides at the moment whereas it was the case that the european golfers were the more that they hit it straighter but shorter and they sort of plotted their way around the golf course it now seems you look at potential players that could be in the us side the likes of russell henley and brian harmon jj spawn those kind of guys they are more the sort of strategical golfers and and the big the guys that hit it a mile rory mroy raasmas hoygard seb strapp doesn’t hit it a mile but you know ludvig all the they’re the european guys now and i don’t think it’s possible to set the black course of beth page up to be a a little strategic plot your way around kind of course it is a big ballpark i think it’s going to be pretty neutral and i i would be curious to see what that chart would look like 2018 teams like how different that would look between europe and the us because it does feel like it has evolved since then but like the big course boost guys on the european side i mean it’s rory he gets 3/10en of a shot gain per round which is that’s massive and it’s and the big one on on the on the us side is is uh bryson he gets like 29 shots like approach otherwise it’s it’s still pretty minimal like tommy gets a slight hit shane gets a slight hit rom slight boost seep slight hit aaron ry gets a big hit um i don’t know if he’s like seriously in the conversation but like yeah he’s in the conversation 100% they would they give it a better than 60% chance that that he makes the team so it it it basically all that to say like the us is a little better on approach a little better around the green a little better at putting and a little bit better off the tea and europe is slightly more accurate but it’s so marginal that it’s just like like i wouldn’t even call anything an advantage so i don’t i don’t know what the us is going to do with setup i honestly don’t uh i think there’s anything they can do right i don’t think it’s like you know valhalla where paulinger can be cutting down tree limbs to help his team and things like that there’s nothing they can do which makes that this course more more suited to the us side based on the info we have like you can get really granular on fades and draws and left pins and right pins and front pins and back pins and all that stuff that like i could see them doing and i know they do do i just don’t have access to that information and i have no idea what favors what or or have any insight as to how they might set that up but yeah it and i think all of our course setup stuff for this course is with high rough during majors like as far as like when we’ve seen it prior so that that kind of throws a wrench into things too where i you know i doubt they’ll have the same level of rough uh up and they’re pretty pretty flattish greens for the most part so yeah i mean sally if i like god the more i think about this the more [ __ ] if i’m if i’m keegan i’m like i want you know you’re gonna have xander and kentlay and sha and and uh and sheffller and jt and those guys but man give me give me some dogs like i want some junkyard dogs like burger hogy you’re probably going to see sam burns again that sort of thing and it’s it’s like you know even like a keith mitchell or somebody like that dudes that you just you just wanna hang out in the locker room with and you know guys that can roll the rock and and kind of hit it straight right here’s what i’d love to see him do is figure out a way i haven’t looked enough at beth page hole by hole if you could do this but can you do it where like all right let’s say we got four guys that bomb it odd holes you guys are going off the odd holes and we’re shaving the rough on those holes but the even holes we’re growing it up and it’s you know could they can they [ __ ] with them on that level detail which i think is again i i don’t think home teams should have as much uh work from but like poston or jackson kovven or clinton you know [ __ ] like like we’re just going off the how many american golfers have you listed so far tc a ton that’s the thing a like there’s there’s just so many like all right if it’s just you’re taking a lottery ticket with windom you know what you’ve got with windom right you might as well try to develop something for the future and i think that’s what they’ve done such a poor job of in the past and then the guys that the guys like auraus or um you know a sahith they haven’t really backfilled in like you thought they were going to that’s a little bit my point though tc is there’s there is no through line all these writer cups for the us happen as like a oneoff in a vacuum vacuum thing and they don’t think about 2027 or or i somebody does but there’s no like continuity in terms of the way that they think about 2027 or 2031 or 20 whatever and this is going to sound like an excuse but like the president’s cup coming in like that you’re just on to the president’s cup next right and it’s the same group of people doing it and i think so much of that comes down to the fact that there does seem to be no sort of continuity sully’s much wider point about the cultural differences between europeans and americans you’re just there is no world sport where that the no global team sport that the us are good at it’s just it’s something that doesn’t come naturally to americans as a as a just general concept being part of a team all the team sports in the us are sports you invented yourselves um and you know individual sports golf and tennis and you know olympic sports like swimming or athletics yeah that’s where all the american superstars are but there’s a reason why there hasn’t been a great us soccer on the global stage or there hasn’t been a great you know pick your team sport it’s because just culturally america is much more of an individualistic society and europeans british wherever you’re from in europe there seems to be something that is much more in our dna about coming together as a team and i think that’s the you see it on tour week in week out how many european guys come from the dp world tour which feels like one big family where they’re going out and having dinner together there every night they’re traveling to tournaments together and they go to the states and they get homesick and they struggle to adapt there because everybody is in their own little bubble with their team around them but they don’t mix as a group and then suddenly you’re asked once every two years right forget all that individualistic stuff we want you to come together as a team and it’s something that they just find very difficult to do that that hit me during the masters jamie after uh so rory wins and just the exchange that that him and rose had and then yeah even the wives had after kate kate with rory yeah and and rose’s wife hugging rory and and you’re you’re watching it and you’re like i don’t think it’s just that they make more putts right like that’s they just made more putts it never was i i know that’s what i’m saying the frustrations with the players it’s more ingrained in their dna too to like play team golf play play play you know play sport full stop yeah like they do that more often and sally you are you are discounting dp world tour does have the team cup uh which you know i know a few years ago dr jaw helped help set this up but you know tommy tommy was the captain of the uh you know of one of the teams last year or you know two years ago team rose was the captain this past year but like tommy lorie caner hatton matthew jordan tom mckibben like all those guys showed up and played right like that says something some of this though i i i i’m as hard on the us side as as anyone i i do feel like all right if we really objectively look back since tom watson debacle you know in team events they’ve gone win win loss yeah but i think that win win they’ve done that purely on talent though is what i’m i know i know but it is like they’re they’re what seven and two since 2015 and i know that includes a bunch of rider of president’s cups which don’t end up really counting for anything but there’s a reason why europe need to sort of have an advantage going into sunday and that’s because talent-wise the us probably will win most single sessions but when you’re when you have to play alongside somebody that’s where europe have have do have an advantage and historically have always had an advantage ian flipped their historic disadvantage on its head with uh in what the the first couple sessions last time too right with the was it fourball or or forsomes they went friday matches they went um what did they do first forsomes four ball oh sorry it was foresomes first and they went so basically like won the first session four if you look at the difference in all the rder cups it has been that like the home teams dominate forsomes like that’s the big thing like the us dominates forsomes at home and cannot play them on the road like absolutely cannot play them on the road for whatever reason it just i don’t know just just to go off a slight tangent to to the point about that first session in in new york i think that first session is so crucial the first session is always crucial but the reason i think it’s particularly important to beth paige is if you get a lot of red in that board those new yorkers are just going to be on the europeans all afternoon whereas i actually do think and i had this chat with the aforementioned billy horell actually billy said new yorkers will eat their own if europe suddenly if europe go if europe were to win that opening session 4-nil it’ll be the american players getting dogs abuse all afternoon so for europe it is crucial if they can get off to out of the blocks fast then that crowd could turn very quickly i would love to get the sports talk radio guys mad dog and the boys these guys suck keegan’s [ __ ] himself get him out of here oh it just i god i think we we can spend a lot of time and we will over the course of this year figuring out the bottom of the us team i i think it’s a faster answer to like the the us winning the rder cup it’s gonna be figuring out why the number one player in the world cried uh in rome like scotty went 02 and two and lost nine and seven like that is a much bigger problem than them than like sam burns being on the team or jordan being on the team but anyways we’ll get to all that before we get uh too carried away uh look it’s hopefully we get a nice sunny uh sunny rider cup i know we’re headed towards a sunny summer at least down here in florida orrison alps sunscreen is the best sunscreen on the market if you ask me you’re not going to end up smelling like a pinina colada it’s lightweight it’s not greasy or sticky tc i hope you were all lthered up this morning it was so like no wind today not a cloud in the sky i was lthered up teed off at 7:30 and still like you know how much sunscreen i have to put on my head to keep it from having the stew sink and you know what i don’t see you know what i don’t see i don’t see a white cast or a residue on on your head at all because it doesn’t give you one it’s simple fast easy to use they got a travel friendly option men are not wearing enough sunscreen it’s degrading their health your golfers are 250% more likely to develop skin cancers it’s not good there’s a it’s available in spf 30 50 and 70 and the travel size spf 50 is what i would recommend for your golf bag it’s again not greasy it’s lightweight it’s totally clear go to oresandalps.com take the skin quiz build your own kit you can also check them out on amazon again it’s great product great spray radius you want a good spray radius uh to make sure you’re getting the skin coverage you need it’s very very very important thanks to ors and alps check them out again on amazon tc can i just say i think stu sync has been surpassed as the the the the tan line in chief golfer oh yeah did you see alex noran when he took his cap off at the weekend and was hand shaking on the 18th green i mean that’s almost like it’s done with a ruler i mean it’s extraordinary so i think stu sync has finally been usurped norin’s got a little bit of buzz up there though so is that just or is he or is he started totally it’s it’s gone it’s gone full sap now wow scotty’s up there too oh since yeah scott fighting losing battle he’s like 45 i mean uh i mean zach johnson was and then and then he had just one of the most miraculous resurrections we’ve ever seen look it’s made seav a better golfer just admitting defeat leaned into it yes be proud of it you know we’re i think we’re one of the most you know maligned groups in the world you know there’s a lot of baldests out there guys so the last well you european guys what what does your team look like as of right now again i went through the the top six um for europe right now on the point standings again top six get automatic selections are rory shane rasmus hoygard tier hatton septraka justin rose the next six on the list are tommy fleetwood levig oberg thomas dietri matt wallace uh rasmus nor uh nicholas norgard nicholas norgard victor havlin uh and then the next eight that are not inside the top 12 are thorbjorn olison lorie caner robert mcintyre aaron ry uh rasmus norgard peterson peterson neargard peterson excuse me jorge campilo jordan smith paul wearing i believe rom not listed anywhere on there i assume that’s something to do with with membership or whatnot but obviously rom’s going to be on the team but what what’s your team look like jamie as of right now what what are you i think there’s i think there’s 17 players for 12 spots is the simplest way i can putting it putting it and and i think actually you could even argue it’s seven players for two spots so i think those top six i will i imagine will all be there rory shane raasmus hoygard tier seb and justin rose justin rose may fall out of the automatic six but i think he gets a pick purely for i mean i want to come into justin rose a bit more detail in a bit anyway but i think you’ve got you’ve got who you’ve got rory shane rory shane raasmus tier sep and justin are the are the six in the spots at the moment i think they’ll all be in that team and of the ones who aren’t in the top six whether they manage to get into that top six or whether they don’t i think that who i think will definitely be on the team are tommy fleetwood ludvig goldberg victor havland and john ram i think we were all in we would all be in agreement in that in which case you’re suddenly talking about i think seven players for the final two spots and those seven players are bob mcintyre matt fitzpatrick who we haven’t mentioned yet nikolai hoyard aaron ry thomas dietri matt wallace and uh nicholas norgard who would be an extreme dark horse but a very good course fit so i i think that that and as i said earlier on you could see a scenario where 11 of the team from rome are all in this team as well and perhaps the only swap is rasmus hygard in for nikolai hoygard i imagine there’s a big temptation to have both twins there given just their sort of how well they played together in zurich and a number of other factors uh bob by his own admission is not playing well at the moment but you know won two big tournaments last year and i think has shown that when the pressure is on he performs at his very best if i were to have any concerns about the european team at the moment and it’s really sort of nitpicking it would be the likes of ludvig isn’t playing great at this very moment in time victor hovind has been very open about the fact that his game isn’t exactly where it wants to be but you’re talking about two generational talents there who i am fully confident will have sorted it out by september and of course who played together and will hopefully play together for the the better part of the next decade and beat scottish and brooks kepka nine and seven last time out so i i’m not worried in that regard and i think it’s just it’s looking really settled at the team at the moment and there are so many easy partnerships to be had there um so i i all in all i think the european team is looking great so if you were if you were to put a gun to my head at the moment i would say the top six will all be there tommy ludvig victor and john will be there as well i think bob will find a way of making his way into the team so you’re talking about the last spot there matt fitzpatrick really great to see some green shoots of recovery from him in recent weeks nikolai i think fitzy will probably make the team even if nikolai might be the better course fit i love that real quick tc i love that our problems are jj spawn and denny mccarthy and your problems are ludvig and and victor holl yeah i think i think ludvig had i think that bout of norovirus or whatever he had just kind of set him behind and he’s like he’s in a blender right now but i have no doubt he’s won since that exactly he won a tory after that yeah any concerns jamie so how is the points list working this year is it what is it one points list there’s no yeah there’s no european in world anymore it’s all just one points list um which is why raasmas hoygard is probably the the one that sticks out in that list at the moment but he got off to such a good start mostly in europe and has been playing pretty well on the whole pga tour and i think he’s a player who you know he was thomas bujornne’s cart driver in rome two years ago and saw his twin brother play and just i think that lit a fire in him to make sure he would be on this team as well nikolai has not played that well this season but when the two of them were thrown together at zurich i mean they should have won the zurich really they missed a ton of putts and were still runners up so i think it’s very tempting to put both of them on the team i i i i think what’s really exciting from luke donald’s point of view is luke donald will have walked away from rome knowing that the likes of rory mroy terrell hatton shane li ludvig goberg victor havlin john ram knowing that they weren’t going anywhere but the emergence of somebody like seep straa as not just a solid player but as one of the world’s very best players has got to be something that is just like an added bonus when you look at somebody saying “right i’m actually going to elevate myself to the next level.” and playing great golf like on lots of different styles of golf courses you know linta in january isn’t philadelphia cricket club in may and isn’t royal liverpool in july he seems to be a golfer for all all weathers and all sort of types of golf course now as well seg is really exciting um and i think there’s some other names that are a little bit further down that might not be ready raasmus negard peterson eugenio chakara lori caner they’ve all been playing solidly but it’s on the dp world tour and it’s very difficult to to put your hand up and get a pick for a rider cup on us soil when you’re playing in europe all the time but i think there are lots of nice headaches for luke and dodo to have at the moment it’s such a different spot than they were in a few years ago where that five or six spots were were were super unsettled i think the one thing that could maybe throw a wrench would be like if you know if somebody like a a wallace or a even pavon or you know steven joerger somebody like that kind of goes on a run like like i don’t know what you do with steven joerger he’s top 50 in the world but he’s not you know he’s not and i think he was i think he was two years ago as well but he’s for for whatever he’s never really in the ryder cup discussion matt wallace i don’t think is would be a particular problem because i think matt wallace is somebody who’s just need for something like the rder cup and i think he has got such a bit between his teeth to try and get on that team as well and top 20 finish at quail hollow next week last week coming off an injury as well i think you’re going to see some pretty good golf from matt wallace over the summer him against the new york crowd would be there would be a lot of ear cupping going on i don’t know if he’s ready for that i don’t he is rabbit ears as it stands right now can i throw like two challenge flags at you guys here please again just kind of going off of the golf that’s been played where their current game status justin rose and rasmus uh hoygard rasmus is is like if if we’re looking again if sorting by any level of play over the last three months six months like rasmus trending the wrong direction and is is trending very close to just being a a a zero player an average player as of right now way down that list and he’s third in the points list right now could there be a situation and i don’t exact i’m not exactly positive in how it holds on but end up in a spot where he holds on in a point spot despite his game not heading in the right direction and having not being having the luxury of being able to choose a lot of guys that are playing better golf than he is if you ask a question like that my answer will always be we’ll see luke and dud duda will find a solution the way they did for well nikolai was a pick but the way they did for bob two years ago in rome you know there will be some a trick up their sleeve as to who they pair raasmus with to get the very best out of raasmus what format they use him in how they keep him fresh for singles plus i would say that rasmus’ game sets up really nicely for beth page because he hits it an absolute country mile um and for somebody like justin rose if you were saying “are there any concerns over justin?” i mean i remember walking the back nine with kyle at augusta and we just kept saying to each other “man whatever you think of justin rose what a competitor he is.” and and somebody who just is able to when the pressure it is at its absolute most intense able to produce exceptional shots under the pump and he is somebody you want in that team and it’s funny i think even before rome there was sort of talk hey justin rose is sort of being slowly put out to pasture now and he’ll be a vice captain if not in rome he’ll be a vice captain of beth page well he was a hugely important part of the team in rome and i think he’s going to be a hugely important playing member of the team this time as well and perhaps he’ll be captain in ireland in two years time who knows but i think there’s still a lot lot of life left in the old dog yet and he’ll be a brilliant captain it seems like too he’s just methodical and all of that i mean yeah jamie like his his performance at at augusta was among the most impressive of our lifetimes i think truly one guy we haven’t really talked about torbjorn he’s playing pretty good golf right now and he’s been on kind of a run since last fall you know i know the talent’s in there and it’s just a matter of you know kind of drawing it out but like i think the where i get the most excitement both for this year but really more so for 27 is the danes there were five danes in the field at the us open or at uh at the pga and between nurgard peterson and then the kid that nicholas nicholas norard norard and then jacob scavv olison as well he’s you know he’s kind of an older rookie or or you know he’s 24 or 25 but uh he’s a he’s a stud as well so not quite ready for prime time yet but i think he’s he’s coming but i think i think norard and i think the other rasmus rasmus nurggard is an absolute flusher so i think i would not be i would not be shocked if if one of them goes on a tear this summer and kind of inserts himself into the conversation but like i feel like ry and fitzpatrick would be kind of tough i like i imagine they’re probably tough to pair with other guys because they’re so much as i love much as i like both of them i think i would agree with you in that regard aaron is he’s a really lovely guy but he wouldn’t say voodoo goose he’s he’s very quiet he keeps himself to himself he is a bit different he came up is that is that is that a a british saying wouldn’t say boo but you all looked very confused when i said it i was about to say he’s quiet as a church mouse which is maybe also a british expression as well but he’s just very okay you have heard that one he’s just very shy um he he he’s always done things a little bit differently he didn’t come through the same sort of ranks as a lot of guys didn’t do the college system like a lot of guys do coached by his dad and he is very different and i also think he is more of the sort of methodical kind of plot your way around the golf course kind of player as opposed to somebody i can’t imagine aaron ry like pumping his chest and and cheer and getting the crowd going in new york yeah like or even just being a great fit for somebody to play alt shot with yeah like whose ball are we going to play and and fitz look i love fitz to bits but um you know hazeline okay i give him a pass in that cuz he was a rabbit in the headlights he was too young whist whistling straits he was kind of paired with westwood which was just awful for him we did see a little bit more of you know you know he’s a major champion by the time he played in rome and we did see a little bit of what he is capable of he was paired with rory which helps um but i do think fitz is somebody who maybe isn’t a natural fit for a ryder cup team but he is coming out of his shell more and more as he as he matures as a golfer and i played golf with his dad actually a couple of weeks ago who was saying that you know he had an awful tournament the heritage which is a tournament that’s very close to his heart came away from that and spent time with his coach and just found something and since then there have been green shoots of recovery and you know he was in a while he for a while he was in the mix on sunday at the pga championship as well so i would love to see fitz you know former temporary classes permanent i would love to see him have a summer where he forces his way onto that team i would love to see fitz’s brother get himself through the conversation yeah al’s not in a great place at the moment with his with his game but like future that would be that would be awesome to have the two of them on a team together hygiard’s in a team together and the fitzpatrick’s a team together so sally sally to to answer your question we got the horses in the back what did i ask he asked if there were concerns over rosie and and raasoyard which real quick one i got three things one did y’all see the tweet uh when aaron ry almost domed that girl up on at the pga and and somebody said uh will he sign one glove or two if he had hit then he takes one of his gloves off when he hits bunker shots it was wild two i think one thing we do and this is a little bit i i love the hoy guards i think they’re i think they’re really good but i think one thing that happens with some of these european guys is when you become the best guy in your country you get talked about differently even if you would be like the 40th best guy in the united states yeah and so and so it’s this weird like i just looked at data golf rasmus is ranked behind cameron tringali right and that’s not everything like i think rasmus is a better player than cameron the maddening part is these guys show up and play great in the rder cup kyle that’s like that that’s me looking at these spreadsheets and just be like what how are they losing to these guys they’re also put in a position to succeed at the ryder cup too that and also i think there is something about like hey i’m the best dude in my country there definitely is and i’ve had this very conversation with thomas dietri who and that is like a i will i will always be the first belgian to go on the pj tour and that means to me and and so you take that into this team event and like hey i’m representing i mean the video in rome where they’re like they say their name in their uh in their home like that’s freaking awesome yeah and it’s just i i don’t know it’s it’s like it’s an interesting juxtaposition with how we talk about i mean jt poston might be the best player in i don’t know name a country like wales but he’s like the 33rd best or i don’t know he’s probably like the 17th best guy in the united states so it’s just that’s interesting you know what’s an interesting sorry kyle not to interrupt your point but what’s interesting in that regard is when if we look at the president’s cup the reason or one of the reasons that cited that the international team have already str always struggled is they don’t have one identity to rally around whereas if you’re on the us team you know it’s the red white and blue we’re playing for the star spangled banner well it should really be the same kind of logic for the writer cup there’s nothing really to being european nobody really feels european you feel spanish or you feel french or you feel italian or feel feel british or irish and you know so many of those countries they rally around brookline yeah and so many of those countries have historic beef with each other as well there’s no really reason to unite under the european flag and we’re up against a team who are representing their country not their continent but we seem to be able to do it it’s because the americans were aim pointing all through joseé maria’s line in 1999 that was the that’s the rallying cry they’re still working off of my last thing what do you do with sergio we haven’t talked about sergio there’s a reason i mean you know he he said “i hope this [ __ ] tour it’s like fails or you piece of [ __ ] tour.” like i mean you know i think sergio’s got a long way to go before he’s he’s ever back in good graces if ever uh and guys like we haven’t even talked about callum and sandy scott or adrien deontart or like for sure the bench is so deep jamie and there’s guys that could pop at any moment that you know we’re we’re we’re on to 2029 2031 on a serious note i think the one guy who i think there’s might be one rder cup too soon for him but we could see in ireland is maybe maybe eugenia chakara because i think he is a properly good player and i think he’s already shown he’s cut above a lot of the players in the dp world tour but i think there are some question marks with him regarding what how much of a fit he’d be in the team room i think he might rub a few people up the wrong way i’m not sure sergio sergio 2.0 in some regards perhaps there’s eight europeans that have been among the top 12 europeans in each of the last four time periods which is 3 months 6 months 12 months 24 months like guys that have been consistent through any window that you look for we’ve named seven of them and left one off which i think tc is going to have to own this one that’s alex norin well i know i was gonna yeah it’s it’s i mean it’s just over time right hang on over sorry sully over what time period so each of the last like if you look at um like strokes gained over the last three months 6 months 12 months and 24 months sample size he’s played twice in nine months it is but he’s been that’s sample size incomplete right he’s played twice in nine months and one of them was a top 20 finish at a major championship another one that fits that category though is aaron ry he’s been a remarkably consistent performer for but i agree with your reasons for why he’s probably not a great fit i think on the rose front great unbelievable masters i think come september that’s going to feel really far away he’s going to be 45 years old he’s had a injury pop up since then it might be one too many which i think immediately once whistling straits kicked off it was like when you had pter you had you had all that it was like oh that’s this is one too many and you’d almost rather be my counter to that at sollywood be how many people came away from royal trune last july saying justin rose was runner up that that’s probably his best chance of winning another major gun i can’t see him doing it again the very next major championship he’s in the playoff to win it so i think justin rose has has proved people wrong um a lot of times during his career and i i think he’s somebody that dodo and ruke would want to be there it’s basically like if if the equivalent of keegan is like let’s say keegan plays really well at oakmont right almost wins oakmont it’d be like the equivalent of like justin rose being the captain right now right justin rose is like seven years older isn’t he than keegan yeah but but just like as far as their you know position on the team um one other guy jamie tom mckibben i know he joined liv it’s tough to kind of assess him but he seemed like he was kind of on a trajectory to being yeah and he was definitely on on he was definitely on the radar for luke and dodo as well um when i put his name to dota last time i was chatting to him he just said it’s just so difficult to get an accur accurate gauge of how well these guys are playing tom tom did play in the pga championship and he’s definitely going to try to qualify for the us open as well i think he’s already in the open championship and so he will play you know at least two maybe three of the majors this year and that’s really where he needs to make hay while the sun is shining if he wants to have any chance but i think he’s very much a dark horse at the moment which is a shame because i think he’s got all the talent in the world tom mckibben any and then just on the i know chakara’s been kind of the one we’ve been talking about but puj has been a far better player on liv uh any any rumblings of him again yeah so tom and david puj were the two players that that dodo mentioned to me that he is keeping an eye on on leo so it’s just hard to gauge them you know they’re not playing in on on great golf courses and they’re not playing in overly competitive fields so how do you gauge how well they are actually playing and i think that’s the difficulty for for guys like that obviously for till hatton and john ram we know that they’re great players it doesn’t really matter you know and we’ll see them in the majors so it’s different for those two but if you’re if you’re not a john ram or a till hatton and you’re playing in le it’s very difficult to put your head above the parapit it’s also just as much as we’ve been at the teat of of the europeans so far but like like luke donald having a a deputy like dodo like a two-headed multiple who’s doing who’s doing that job in the us that’s what i keep coming back to yeah it might be yeah heard some rumors of john wood being either shove pushed aside a little bit or undermined or whatever like the the players seem to be really taking over uh well i mean i wrote this i wrote this down in my notes tc but having a player captain would be kind of like fitting in some ways for these it really would like it would it would be it would make a lot of sense like honestly like just make scotty the captain and just let him you know or scotty and ted scott are the two captains cool like we’re or like make like joe grryer the captain a caddyy would be an interesting thing uh for not a bad show one other guy blandandy we haven’t mentioned him you mentioned a lot of guys below blandy in strokes gained let me just say that it’s it’s quite remarkable blandy’s for blandy to even make the cut last week for how far he hits the ball and how old he’s remarkable and i think he’s defending a major chump he’s defending this week at congressional on a proper golf course uh you know we’ll see how it and then he’s showing up at oakmont because he’s the he’s the defending us senior open champion as well like he’s going to get some serious reps here as we move forward all right we got to get to the american team before we do that whether you’re dialed in every shot or just following the action on sunday fanduel keeps you locked into the pga tour action all week long right now all customers get a profit boost every third and fourth round each week you can use your boost on anything from closest to pin to outright winners to 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sportsbook.fando.com gambling problem call 1800gambler or visit rg-help.com live odds as of when i put this agenda together were us minus 125 europe plus 145 thai plus 950 just an interesting note kyle minus 125 that’s disrespectful it feels feels kind of generous to the us huh i mean it’s a home game disrespectful to the euros yeah for sure that’s as small of a favorite as they’ve been in any of recent rder cups i think the books are catching on to like yeah we shouldn’t be doing i don’t know i it would still be an upset i think if europe won on opposing soil i think for all the stuff we’ve talked about like the home field of again a part of the ryder cup that kind of bores me to death if the us goes on to like romp in this one is just like what are we doing here like what what what like clearly one team is doing this better like the the whole process and you can just come back home and wipe the floor with them all over again it just kind of seems like we need to do something about this this home field advantage anyways us side kyle do you have a team are you willing are you willing to put 12 guys uh out there i i do i i wrote down 12 i wrote down my 12 and i think what’s interesting sally is there’s there’s so many different ways you can talk about this you can say “well what’s what’s my 12 that i would select if i was the captain what’s my what’s the 12 that i think they will select what’s the 12 they should?” you know there’s there’s a bunch of different ways um and i guess before i give mine i i want to kind of revisit you like philosophically do you value consistency over a long period of time when you’re when you’re putting your team together or do you value like like what’s your hierarchy of what you value when you’re putting your team together it so it’s like an unjudgable scale on this but it’s like all right like honestly i just gut gut feel of like hey when this guy goes to tee it up in front of 10,000 people on that thursday morning do you feel good about that or do you not because at times i’ve tricked myself into like ricky fowler’s been very consistent over all this and as soon as he puts the peg in the ground i’m like “ah [ __ ] here we go.” like this is not good this does not feel right so how do you how do you like i that’s where i’m at that’s where i was so adamant about jt in 2023 was like dude kind of just seems like i know he hasn’t had the best year there’s no argument about that but like who do i feel better about putting him out there him or lucas glover like that was a pretty easy question to be answered on on my end so there is like you look at the numbers you want to see who the best player is but also just that gut feeling of do they have that dog in them is is where i end up going and i somebody like kepka i i don’t like have that dog feel when it comes to this event like i just don’t think he cares that much about it and i’m like as of we’re sitting here right now i have absolutely no problems leaving him at home like his game is not in good shape and like i just don’t think we need a vibe like that that’s kind of like the little ringer test i put somebody through like am i going to feel good despite all of jj spawn’s numbers looking really good am i going to feel great if he’s on the first te at beth page and i’m not going to so i’m going to look past that name for somebody like as of right now i’d rather have big tone i honestly would like at least i’ve seen him perform in some of these rder cups like he’s not been amazing but what’s his overall record in rder cups he is three and three like that’s a better known quantity for me than than a mystery like jj spawn and i would feel differently if it was like an upand cominging young talent that we hadn’t seen under the gun but i don’t know i also like i was a big writer for sawith and then when the president’s cup came around last year when he was out there i was like this doesn’t feel right it does not feel like like guy made for the spot so yeah i i i think we’re on the same page there i think what’s interesting is you talk to guys behind the scenes of like hey here’s who i don’t want the other team to pick like that should be your team like whoever they say they don’t want to see is who who should be on your team um you have to have a baseline you can’t pick max homer right now um do i think that max is closer than maybe some guys that are in the like the top 50 in data golf yeah because he has equity built up over team events from the last six years and for compet for those who are saying well how can you ride for jt and 23 and max not max and 25 like the level of falloff is completely different max is like a he’s credit is different as well uh the true also true jamie um i’m with you uh it’s kind of the way that i look at it i think okay there there’s got to be a bar of i kind of look at last six months i think three is pretty short 12 is getting i like last six months i think looking at that is good and then i think like do i want this guy in a match where the the the final writer cut point is on the line like max was in 2023 in a row like do i want that guy over that putt uh so the 12 i came up with i’ll just read them off and subject to change obviously i don’t even think i if you were saying like bet on this get on fanduel and and put your put your money down i don’t even think these are the 12 that i would necessarily bet on being on the team eventually but these are the 12 that i have as of today are is this for if we were playing next week or if we had to lock in now to play in the fall no we’re playing next week playing next week i think that’s a different question but that’s an interesting scotty obviously bryson just i’ll never forget whistling straits him driving the first green on sunday and just whipping up the c he is made for this event it is it’s incredible this version of bryson too that like is clearly hamming it up for the crowd is going to be it’s going to be awesome like he could be like a he could carry them yes yeah totally so scotty bryson uh xander jt uh morawa those are five blocks can’t as of today is still there he’s playing not great he’s not been horrible but for him it’s been bad uh burger henley spe h harris english and then my last two are i’ve got maverick mcneely and sam burns i don’t love those last two i don’t necessarily love henley and harris english but if that’s my if that’s if the rder cup’s next is next week those are the 12 that i’m taking so you’ve got sorry scotty i’ll go through my it’s almost mine’s almost the exact same so i’ll go scotty bryson xander colin jt kentlay burger spe henley h and then like honestly my answer was gonna be i i’m not even willing to put the last two guys because i want uh i’m i’m stripping the captain of his captaincy he’s got to go back out there and earn it like you gota it’s an open trial for the last two spots i don’t even want to pencil somebody in it’s a 10-man team as of right now i’d say mav uh big tone burns denny oshay jt poston or a true wild card uh would be at the bottom of that like i i would not need to see a ton from luke clinton to just be like “let’s [ __ ] go.” you haven’t mentioned you haven’t mentioned uh new york’s very own kam young yeah well i i i i it’s been a long enough run of i i don’t even with a with a hot run here i’m not i’m not willing to do that i think pete reed’s in that i would throw p reid in that that group oh hell yeah here we go baby i think i think no inclusions he’s not included on this refused yeah he is there’s exclusions today but i i actually wrote this down i i wonder if it’s been long like i had this i had this thought during the pga that i i think i went so far out on him that i kind of came all the way back around on him and i’m a little bit in and i wonder if it’s just time to get him and speed back together at a an entertainment product baby like let’s just let’s just do it just send it uh not happening i cannot let sorry i’ll let you go tc i just cannot let that go by without reminding people what happened in france so sick where he bitched about not being able to play with jordan played with got to play with tiger [ __ ] woods shot like 84 and then said tiger apologized to him went and went straight to the media afterwards to just completely undermine the captain and complain about all this stuff like i that was the the then cheats in front of allegedly cheats in front of the president’s cup goes down there makes a whole scene that his caddy pushed a fan at the president’s cup and then went left for like i think we’re ready to move on from the read thing i think i’ve mentioned before on our rder cup round table podcast that the the all blacks the the new zealand rugby team have a very well-known philosophy that is no [ __ ] you don’t want any [ __ ] on the team because it just drags down the rest of the team and i think that’s what patrick reed would do and i think bryson’s a good enough player to offset the [ __ ] i was going to say he he’s a [ __ ] but he’s he’s a talented enough [ __ ] that we’ll find room for him i think the [ __ ] thing has gone out the window with the us team there’s a few of them on there so it’s maybe it’s only [ __ ] tc yeah uh so for you guys like where’s your where’s your line of like this guy had a bad summer but he’s still on the team kind of thing like if if somebody like let’s say let’s say xander keeps keeps just fiddling along or let’s say morawa has a really bad summer or canley has a really bad summer like those guys feel like they’re locks regardless yeah top six for me i’d say so i mean if we’re talking like max level falloff sorry for a dig at our boy like that’s a different conversation than just like not being they’re they’re close to their scotty xander bryson colin kentlay and jt those six i’d feel about right with that so guys there sully that you didn’t guys from rome that you didn’t even mention there when you even gave your long list were max brian harmon windham clark you can’t see any way that any of those windom is in the the last two spots for me that sally mentioned windom is in that for i i probably have more guys than he did i probably have 10 guys for those last three i mean it’s really more than two on this list it’s just two spots but i think in reality it’s more like four or five spots that guys are playing for i think spe is probably in if he just maintains this level that he’s at he’s been good pretty good not amazing and he just has so much equity built up and and history there but all that to say like my list of guys that are playing for those last four or five spots is very long because there’s so many spots there and it’s just like that’s where it gets into a really indistinguishable group of guys numbers wise that it just gets down to that factor of what i’m talking about of like yeah the process that keegan should have for putting this team together of interviewing players of talking to them throughout the course of the year getting to know their personalities getting to know what their preparation is like i i if i’m being totally honest and some uh a certain lot of people might not like this take but like i have genuine concerns about like bryson’s readiness for the event like i i bryson kind of lives in his own universe and he he peaks for these major championships and i don’t know how much time he’s gonna even he treat it the same wouldn’t he he was doing long drive stuff ahead of the rder cup in whistling straits right after right after right after yeah but he was like “yeah i think bryson is a different player than he was four years ago.” i agree too he’s obviously a different person than he was as well i i think he’s managed to he managed he managed to he’s managed to f find that ability to peak for the majors now which is a very rare skill to have and i think he would treat the ryder cup exactly the same way i i’ve got absolutely no doubts that he would be an absolute stud in beth paige that that’s a unnecessary diversion for me at all to say like i don’t think like in 2021 we were arguing kevin na and kevin ker versus scotty sheffller and i felt very strongly about the talent difference between that group and that i do not have the same feeling near the bottom of this team of like you cannot leave this guy off the team i think if anything it’s like a bunch of guys i’m very indifferent about at this point and that’s where we got time we got time to figure this out i think the time we we did this pot around this time last year i think for europe and i think we said or two years ago for europe and i think we said like europe’s got time and honestly that’s not a bad place like a bad place to be like you you have some kind of openness what you don’t want is like thinking you’ve got your 12 guys three of them fall off in some form throughout the course of the year and then you’re kind of panicking in your process to try to find who’s going to fill the back end of that team you’ve also got the unknown factor of somebody like a joe highmith or a brian campbell who who’ve played their way into the elevated events now by winning and they go and win the travelers or something let’s not get carried away do what you guys do you guys are listed like you go way down the board and list some guys that have they’re pj they’re pj tour winners this season sie yeah highmith can i get back on that he’s playing really good golf right now and you know who he has on the bag joe the show lava 2.0 0 jamie this is a point that gets made often and i i’m glad you brought it up like you know i hear a lot of questions like with a win would he be on the team i cannot stress enough for me how little like one peak week means to me in predicting how well a player is going to perform at a team event in september oh no don’t i’m saying you could play that in points it’d be really really hard they’d have to win like a signature you got to win the big money events that’s why i just i literally just said that they’re not going to win one ability though oh i mean jj spawn almost won the [ __ ] players spawn’s a possibility joe heismith is not going to joe heismith’s a better player than jj spawn though like i don’t know about that anyway like spawn’s already got the points like that’s what i’m saying like he would have to it’s going to take multiple of these you can’t just have one freak signature event and make the team the way it’s structured out currently and like the the guys near the top have a shitload of points as it stands like it’s hard it’s hard to make movement uh in the actual points list i tell you what you really need is for like yeah guys like kantlay or somebody like that to win a little bit and just move up like bump up that points list so there’s nothing fluky going on at all that’s yeah i agree it’s also interesting there’s so many different ways you can cut this which i guess is sort of what we’re getting at right now if you if you go just based on data golf rankings you get one list if you go on owgr you get a kind of a completely different list yeah i wouldn’t use that if you go on last three months you get a like i i guess what i’m saying is i don’t i can’t remember a time in the past where these lists have been that different like they’re disconnected yeah they’re very different and i think that’s going to be interesting because i think a lot of this stuff comes down to like what team like for the captain what team can i put together where i’ll get the least amount of criticism you know especially on the us side i think they’re just so fearful of like doing something that’s going to be critiqued or seen as like oh that was risky shouldn’t have done that you’re going to you’re going to blow your your your chance as writer cap captain so i think that is uh one thing to keep an eye on as we kind of come up on the picks here that’s the thing where like if you know let’s say andrew novak keeps playing good golf and he finishes 10th in the standings and it’s like what do you do right because he and he he would be an unbelievable locker room guy dog lit literal terrier literal literal dog uh and like he like he’s a guy i’d love to have on the team if i was one of his teammates right and he’s clearly played good team golf before and all of that but you know it’s just like all right then then you know who do you leave off but i think the guys for me like i’m totally with you guys on those top six and then i i think that the two guys that are like if they play well at all the rest of the season like they’re borderline locks for me is mav like mav mav mav’s played so much ri or so much walker cup palmer cup you know college golf um he’s raised his floor it feels like he’s just like like he had a great walker cup record knows how to play match play golf he’s gained distance all of that like he seems pretty malleable as far as knowing how to play with different personalities and then burger i think burger is a dude that like you’re talking about the guys that you want on that team that you know junkyard dogs that are going to go out and want the ball he wants the ball he’s quietly played some excellent excellent golf since both of those were on our teams right sully i had burger and mav right as of right now and then i think harris english is not far behind him either i mean i think harris is is a world beater so that’s why like i’m not overly stressed at the current moment about the team is like you’re already seeing some some guys emerge like i feel better about burger now than i did two months ago i feel better about harrison singler than i did now two months ago and like where i guess like i don’t know like for why i feel like i always have to default to the stats on this it’s like when you say andrew novak in there it’s because he’s played good golf right like it’s because of the quality of the golf that he’s put out but the measurement of that quality of golf that your eyes are telling you like he’s the 29th best american over the last six months that that’s where it just the the weekly conversation tends to be of of any of these guys he shoots to the top of the leaderboard it’s like oh davis riley he’s got to be in the conversation now and we’re going to do this for like 26 more weeks uh or not that many weeks leading up all into it and that’s where uh where i end up getting dismissive of somebody like novak’s chances it’s like all right novak’s going to be on the team going to become crystal clear by the end of the year like extremely clear more than it is like does he have a an outside shot of making it as of right now but i think also you have to look at the the context and the trajectory of someone’s career right and yes novak learning how to yeah yeah like novak’s learning how to play well on the weekend in a big spot like you you know tory pines versus now tangible things with novak as well is like i don’t think you can really sort of quantify how difficult it must be to lose a tournament one sunday and then go and win the very next tournament seven days later okay it’s with somebody alongside you is a bit of a quirky term but like for a lot of players that would take a little bit of time to get over losing in such losing a signature event an iconic signature event like that in such devastating circumstances he gets right back on the horse and he wins the very next one and i think that shows something about his character and his mentality not only that jamie i think going from last year you know playing the the fall series events the fedex cup you know finish in 86 then having to play his way even into the signature events even to have you know a shot or playing his his way into the pga championship stuff like that i think is you know looking at where he was last year here but like sally if you go back to t8 at waste management phoenix open in 2024 t8 the following week t9 the following week t7 at valpar like second in bermuda during the fall like he like a bunch of really good finishes just to get to this point and then and then keeps on playing well and then is learning how to play good golf in high pressure situations and you know growing in his career as we go along here i think i think that counts for something right it and that’s where it’s like if the ryder cup was next week it would be a different conversation than like thomas dietri i didn’t hear a lot of thomas dietri talk from you guys and he won an event by like 85 shots just a couple months ago but it feels far away now like that’s kind of my point is like you you you people can tend to not necessarily you guys but i’d say more on the social media side can tend to get really amped just for one peak week and i’m not saying that’s what novak’s done but like it it just takes a whole heck of a lot more to have truly raised the substance of your game to be able to withstand things and and i tend to go to ball strikers too like novak’s got a great short game like that’s what he’s really separated on but like i tend to default to ball striking especially when these get to these competitions and all that so i think there there’s also a sense of when you’ve got somebody that’s almost 30 like novak versus a clayton you you kind of are starting to know like mostly what novak is the ceiling is maybe a little higher than he has shown but you don’t know what the ceiling i mean clayton could be anything right like there it’s it’s almost like the nba draft where you you almost want less film because you want to be able to dream on what that player could be um and so i think that there is a difference in projecting somebody like a clinton or a i don’t know somebody that’s like super young which the euros have had some of in recent years i think the best comparison for what you’re talking about is nikolai hoygard being picked over adrien moranc last time around sure yes exactly you know you luke donald saw nikolai hygard being part of european teams for the next decade he didn’t see that with adrian [ __ ] that’s some of what the us team hasn’t done in the past too is is kind of stake stake a dude out you know because you’re not just playing for i mean the the the two matches that the guy plays it’s like is it going to affect the ryder cup i don’t know maybe but the seven that he plays in the over the next four years like that’s going to affect ryder cups and i think the us has been shortsighted on that that’s where i’m like you know the three guys that i mentioned beyond the locks and i think henley’s borderline lock and just a really good dude to have there that super consistent can kind of pair him with a lot of different guys just just pausing on that tc to say like we we we said after the president’s cup last year and and henley’s had some success then like “hey that’s scotty that’s your partner that’s that’s it.” and that’s that i think is going to count towards something in this process too of like those two paired really well together with the and i’d rather do that than scotty sam burns is is a reason why i was going to say then that that and that’s a reason which comes against sam burns i feel so uncommitted about burns as my 12th pick i’m just like throwing him in there because he drives i it just i don’t know that those 11th 12th spots to me are so so so wide open so that’s the thing you’ve got 10 guys then if we’ve talked about those those guys it seems like we’re all pretty aligned there then then you’ve got you’ve got max spath uh you know we had sp so i don’t have sp at this point especially with another kid on the way you know like we’ll see what happens i think max is going to play really good golf i think max is on the verge of playing very good golf over the next two to three months and so i can see max like making noise and i think if anybody like max has almost earned the tiebreaker over spath if you know if they’re both in that similar bucket and if max has put some good stuff back on film and carded some good results um but otherwise man i’m looking like i would be looking at clanton kovven thor bjornson you know one of those guys you know at least one of those guys on the team and then you fill it out with max spe you know keegan whoever you know denny mccarthy tom hog whoever gets hot as [ __ ] towards the end of the year i i i think the demise of jordan speed has been greatly greatly exaggerated uh he his first start back at the at pebble beach he finished on like t69 in signature event did not that did not go well he missed the cut at the genesis his all of his other events he gained shots on the field he finished t4 at phoenix he finished t9 at honda 59th in the players t28 at valbar t12 at valero t14 at the masters t18 at heritage fourth at the at tpc craig nelson james t34 at truist and missed the cut at the pga but like you look at his page it’s green green green green green green green all of his recent starts and you go to max’s page and it’s red red red red red red red with a good masters oh like right now it’s a no-brainer but i’m just saying like and and i’m long speed maybe not for this year but for the next five years but i think just looking at kind of what you know who we and granted you know played great at the president’s cup in 22 listen i had no issue with speed on that team i’m just saying if speed doesn’t have a great summer and max does it almost feels the other thing i’d say about jordan spith as well is i can imagine if you’re playing him in match play he must be infuriating to play against because you must think he had to drive three fairways to the right and you must think right i’ve got him in this hole and then he produces some bit of magic to put it about 4 feet and drains the birdie part and that must be such a way of getting under the skin of the opposition when you’ve got somebody doing that so i i think you can’t really put a price on that how how aggravating it must be to play in match play and i think we knew speed differently if he should wasn’t on the 2023 team like he probably shouldn’t have been like he had a kid two weeks before the tournament and i said i thought he would be ready i thought he was you know like from a professional standpoint and like again having gone through the newport process again i’m like very understanding of why he was in complete [ __ ] form for that uh that ryder cup and they tried to force the speed jt magic in there and it just didn’t it wasn’t there that’s kind of where i’m at is like if he’s going to be on the team you’ve got to be willing to split those two up then because it seems like they’re pairing them up based on their skill sets circa 2018 to 2021 and it seems like speed is a different player than he was back then as far as putting and driving and it’s just a much different mix now and they did do that in in uh whistling straits they split him up and a lot of people don’t remember that like i think jt went and played with kantlay and i think speed played with brooks that sounds right i think that’s right um so yeah i i i will i’m with you on max in that if i see it would not take i don’t need to see amazing golf like i don’t think max has to get his numbers all the way up by the end of the year for me to campaign for him to get 11th through 12 spot it’s just got to be like i got to know that the the dreadful days are not there the floor is higher yeah that because that’s just what that was what will crush a team is a dude that just brings zero there which like again i trust max to like channel something for for an event like this i mean he wasn’t great at the president’s cup last year if i remember right um i hope i hope i’m getting that right but i just remember being it was a controversial pick and uh i mean he was obviously great at the first president’s cup and obviously great at the first rder cup that he played and he played with brian harmon that was just not a great not a great uh team matchup there and there’s some zj problems with some of that and you know like they practice together and you know they didn’t practice at 7 a.m and they harmon te’s off the second hole and max has four iron in when he was hitting nine iron in during practice and they’re like “oh [ __ ] we might have miscalculated this one.” so let’s say brooks comes out and like wins wins at oakmont just out of nowhere what do you do you have to put him on a team right yeah i mean probably making on points if that happens because there’s so many points available in the majors ah no because he he he’s far enough down that he he probably wouldn’t i i think i think you like and here’s the difference between what i want and what you sort of have to do from like a pr standpoint if you’re the if you’re the us team i i’m i’m like pretty out on brooks at team events i don’t think he brings energy i don’t think he brings leadership i don’t think he brings i think he brings negative energy yeah it’s just like we’ve done that whole thing we don’t need to relitigate that but like you you have to take him like you can’t not take him can’t leave you can’t leave a six time major champion yeah it would be a disaster can though we’re going to end up in this boat yeah he wins us open and then you like you have to take him is going to be the mindset and then you’re just going to like it just seems like it should be obvious through the consistent play i don’t know is jamie they did this in 2021 six-time major winner wins a major that year phil and they didn’t take him and yeah that was that was that was the only thing he did that year fair but you’re talking about a very comparable situation yeah that might be the only thing brooks does this year yeah exactly 80th ranked player in data golf rankings that includes all golf and isn’t it crazy you’re think like the last ryder cup was less than two years ago three of the us team were reigning major champions on that team brooks keepka brian harmon and winden clark and we’re talking about a situation where none of them are even close to the team this time well scotty’s going to have three of the of the majors going in so he’ll just my point is on those three like just how quickly they’ve kind of they’ve fallen off the radar and my point on that too would be jamie is like where you you can get yourself trapped in on some of this stuff like jimmy walker and i mean it didn’t end up hurting them in 2016 but i think he went from 29th to fourth if i remember right when he won the pga in 2016 may as well didn’t end up mattering but it was like dude i mean it wasn’t even the conversation before he won one tournament then all of a sudden it’s like yeah i bet you’re going to play like three months from now you’re going to play great in match play i it just you can get trapped in this environment of not you know getting guys on your team that you don’t want but anyways it’s really funny like brooks is nine spots behind bubba in the standings uh 20 spots behind bryce garnett he’s very limited on events he can earn points and he’s 34 spots behind zack johnson cj had a top 10 this year what do you do if zotator torres goes out and balls out that would be a welcome that would be a thrill that would be a thrill weigh in i think one of the things with the us team is they don’t this is one of my this is why i’m pro max if he’s like does anything almost um who’s the who are the lock who’s the guy in the locker room that’s like “hey i’m i guess you have jt there.” but when i think back to 2016 i remember phil saying “hey spith is like the guy at for for the us like in these in these events over the next decade or whatever.” and now that’s kind of like huh is he going to be on the team is he not and i think homo is is kind of that guy uh jt i guess would be that guy if and i think he will be on the team but you look at the top of like is xander the guy like like europe has this very clear like rahm and rory like we’re the guys you guys follow us and we’re going to before that it was westwood and paul we we’ve had guys for the best part of 20 years even more to that kyle would be like rah and rory don’t try to control the room again we’re not in the rooms don’t know this but they’re just the ones who are like i’m checking my name plate at the door like i’m team europe this week i’m not i’m not rory i’m not rahm like it’s luke and dodo’s team like i’m doing what they say and then it becomes like well [ __ ] if those two guys are just going to follow these guys like hell yeah i’m excited to follow them and like that’s what the us team does not have that that’s not how the us burger 100% agree like i i guess i’m just saying when you when you have this weird hierarchy you don’t know who the who the team leaders are because guys aren’t playing good they might not even be on the team it’s just a weird dynamic whereas europe has always had like clear-cut leaders that check their pride at the door on monday and uh and they’re and they’re playing good golf you know other than rory in 2021 like that’s they pretty much have always been playing really good golf and for the us it’s been a little weirder over the last several years which also it’s it’s got to be tough for a guy like scotty or xander to be vulnerable or check their ego at the door when they’ve got bryson who’s like the least self-aware guy on the planet and like isn’t going to operate in that space knowing that all right we’re checking our egos at the door and these guys are being vulnerable you know what i mean like what’s the rodman theory like if if you got a good enough core you can have one crazy person like you can have one total psycho but you can’t have two i think that was uh i thought that was bellich was it dennis robin i don’t know it could be it’s a good theory by the way yeah you can you can control one but you can’t control two it’s interesting anyways we can keep going around in circles um we we got we got to circle back to where we started there jamie we haven’t we haven’t talked to you in a long time it’s been a long time since what happened in rome since he didn’t want to speak to me that’s not true at all i spoke to you immediately after it happened but it it got a lot of backlash a lot of people not happy uh with how that all went i’m just g um i remember walking down i think it was 16 fairway with kyle and everybody’s just waving their hats in the air it was like i think that was a moment of like i had no idea the power of social media until that moment in that exact moment you and me both in your own words kind of take us back to what happened there and where to begin i mean you know i mean it was a horrific couple of days just absolute dogs abuse i got on on social media and i think you know a fundamental misunderstanding from a lot of people that a lot of people were sort of saying how much i must love making myself front and center of this story and you know any good journalist knows you never want to become the story you never want it to be about you and you know information came to me on the thursday afternoon um that there was a little bit of a disagreement in the us team room about being paid to be there uh and that caused a little bit of tension like any good journalist you don’t just go with that you have to double source triple source the story the same way as when i’d broken the story a year earlier of henrik stenson being stripped of the ryder cup captaincy because he was going to go off to live that wasn’t on one source i made sure that two or three people had told me that before i was ready to go with that um and yeah sy like you said you’re never really sure sometimes you you sort of uncover a story like this and you think and you think this is massive and instead it just sort of fizzles out and goes nowhere and then some stories just grow legs and become these absolute bamoths and that’s what this one did like you said i was walking down the 18th and 50,000 people are waving their caps in the air and i’m thinking i want the ground to open up and swallow me here i i did this and then there’s there’s a fight in the parking lot and i’m thinking i was kind of the cause of all that and i barely slept that saturday night i made a beline for for the european one of the european press guys on on sunday and i said i feel like the pj willlet at this ryder cup does everyone in that team room hate me and they’re like absolutely not they’re fully focused on the job and and blah blah blah but you know then in the weeks that followed the story was sort of more came out in the wash and michael bamberger had that article a week later about the fact that patrick connelly had been overheard saying in the tea box that yeah i’m not going to wear a hat unless i’m paid to and then a few weeks later i think lucas glover did a podcast where he said he had spoken independently to people on that team who said that there there had been a rift created a bit tension created because one or two of the guys felt they should be paid to be there but for me that’s what that story was always about that story was always about being paid to be at a rider cup and i never at any occasion sort of criticized that i just said this is why this is perhaps one of the reasons why the us aren’t performing where the anywhere close to their talent levels and the thing about social media is you know one tweet can be read and and interpreted any way whatsoever and especially for for americans reading that tweet that all they’ve got to go on is the tweet now anybody watching sky sports news throughout that day will have seen i did multiple live crosses where i’m able to flesh things out a bit more i’m able to talk about the fact this is nothing new in 1999 mark and tiger woods and and david duval asked whether they should be paid to be at the ryder cup before that sevy you know mr the rder cup had suggested there should be pay as well so i was able to flesh out the story more when i was doing live television crosses but black and white words on a page or you know on a phone on a ipad wherever you’re reading that tweet can be interpreted any way you want so you know if i have one regret from that whole situation it’s probably the use of the word fractured in that tweet because i think fractured is a very emotive word i i don’t necessarily think it was a fractured team room i do think it created detention in the team room and i do think there was a disagreement between some players about whether they should be paid or not but you know it was when you have zack johnson sitting in a press conference and tearing apart your integrity as a journalist and steve stricker taking to twitter to like literally at me in a tweet and and and create this pylon that was really difficult to deal with and i’m not on twitter anymore um i haven’t been on twitter for for almost a year now and it’s been the happiest year of my life but but you know sometimes you got to put your head above a parit as a journalist when you under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc under unc uncover a story like this would i do it all over again i’m not really sure i would because of of just how poisonous it got and people demanding that i got sacked from sky when when i knew my bones that everything i’d said was true and i think the vindication was at one point on sunday a fairly high-profile member of the pg of america took me to one side and just said “look everything you’ve said is absolutely spot on so you know keep fighting the good fight and and don’t don’t let don’t don’t let the bastards grind you down basically but it was um yeah it was it was a really difficult sort of 24 48 hours that followed that and um i i think it’s it’s come out in the wash but it was probably that there was more truth in it than truth but but yeah it was it was a strange old situation yeah uh jamie i think you know going back to it i think the yeah the word rift or the word fracture is probably that where it left some subjectiveness in there of guys can attack that that were in the room and say “hey like i think i think some i think one of them said “we’re the most united team ever.” and it’s like well i [ __ ] know that wasn’t the case either like you know and and then but also but also the the most united us team ever might not even compare to to european team totally but also it’s like we’re going into that you know because i heard all the same things you did um and you know between the bamburger piece with him saying that kentlay said that on the t- box to to julius mason who’s the head of comms for the pga of america and then various highle people after the fact kind of corroborating it you know and max max said the same thing on our pod you know afterwards he was like tron like you like like i didn’t know what i was talking about i was like “dude like it’s these these same two guys didn’t show up to the scouting trip uh in advance of this tournament.” and there was a disagreement about uh you know the the uh full swing cameras being in there and zj you know had a like their their team bonding thing was kelly james coming into the team room to do a [ __ ] rap like the night before and everybody rolled their eyes and like what are we doing here and just it just like very like all these little these little instances that just added up to like man like things just aren’t flowing here right and guys showing up and not knowing who they’re playing with or not having any idea why they’re playing with that guy and it seems like all these little things added up and then you’ve got the can’t you know payment thing which was a very real thing of like they didn’t sign the release papers or they didn’t sign the you know all the stuff until you know kind of the last minute so i think all that stuff adds up to like cool like you can look at that from a you know subjective lens but objectively like four or five of these things happened and that’s the reality you know that’s that’s that’s the objective reality of things so that and i’ve definitely been there before where it’s like you have this much depth of a situation and you put it out in this many characters and it’s like oh that’s getting interpreted different than what i meant and it’s like the worst cascading feeling imaginable which i think like this whole thing would have played out very differently i’m not this is not me trying to give you a journalism lesson but it would be like you’re commenting on something why look i’m a broadcast journalist and i was on tv so many times that day as i said able to flesh out the story talk about the fact well look this isn’t new players wanting to be paid and blah blah blah and now you know no it was no criticism of kantlay you know it was just and people ran with the cap thing because that that’s funny right oh look he’s the only patrick klay too like he’s the most unlikable dude out there but but you know people loved sort of picking up on the cap thing i i never i never used the word protest that was another thing that was attributed to me like if if you’re making a protest surely then the whole point of a protest is that you make it obvious to people why you’re doing it i never once used the word protest i just said he’s not wearing a cap cuz he’s not being paid to and that’s what how he feels about the situation and i know from guys that i don’t know if you guys have it in the states but in our broadcast we have the old like the green screen walkups where players like walk up to the camera and fold their arms whatever and we use them as like holograms in the studio when they rec were recording those that week they offered patrick kentlay this sorry in whistling straits this was they offered patrick klay like seven different styles of cap or something to wear for this and the sky guys were like well patrick every single me rest me other member of the us team is wearing them can you just put it on so you know so it all looks the same i’m not wearing a cap well if it’s about the style we’ve got like six different styles i’m not wearing a cap can i can i make that clear so that’s that’s you’re not doing that because oh it just feels uncomfortable in my head you’re doing that because you obviously feel very strongly about the fact you’re not being paid to wear it so why should you wear it and xander’s dad had mouththed off a bunch in the leadup too like he said the quiet part out loud of like yeah it’s [ __ ] that they’re not getting paid we’re working on that you well i think like what what is like again all clear after the fact what’s going to lead to a [ __ ] storm like was led to it was like all right you know if you’re going to kind of the old adage adage of journalism like if you’re if you’re reporting something negative on somebody you giving them a chance to comment like this whole thing would have made sense in an article that would have included like i asked for comment from patrick kentlay and he said he denied all this right which they did ultimately deny it on the back end whether that’s truthful or not that context you know that might have if you get that quote if you get five quotes from that are all denying it in the team room maybe that stops the report from from even going out because then it becomes that you know you’re going to look like whether true or not again that you’re lying on this and is it worth a worthwhile story to pursue now when you put it out there and everybody calls you a liar that’s also just entangled into something that’s just inherently complicated and i think it is uh like you’re again talking through all like the disconnects in the team room you’re not necessarily wrong to say it was a fractured team room and talking about players wanting to get paid that doesn’t seem like it was wrong either but if you trying to simplify something into one tweet leads so much stuff for interpretation adds ability to throw gasoline on it at a level that’s that’s difficult to comprehend to the point where like i honestly have i have treated twitter differently since that moment of just like the power of of like whoa what can catch on is like this is just a risky risky platform so like what’s the upside right yeah that was a that was a very i think i wrote about this but that was a very normal sport moment of like a tweet i mean i know it was more than this jamie but a tweet about a hat upended a hundred million dollar event 15 months earlier i i’ i’d broken the story about the in the current european rider cap cup captain was going to be stripped of the captain something that has never happened in the history of the ryder cup before because he was going to go and join this hugely controversial new golf league and i thought this is going to explode and i think that got like retweeted a couple hundred times that really that and that’s what was like it transformed and and this is what i i think we all joked about this but the fact that the us needed that to like rally around and to get behind was like right yeah that’s sort of that’s sort of the point here i i will say as well like the head of sky sports golf i don’t think was like oh i can’t believe you’ve this this is kind of this has become this huge story that’s overshadowed the entire rder cup and i said to him on sunday night “you should be glad i tweeted that because it made people watch on sunday it actually made it interesting on sunday because otherwise it was going to be an absolute just romp.” and i’m sure the studio shows on on saturday night were about as highly rated as you could get too but yeah it’s truly like one of those things was like “yo that’s just your opinion dude.” and it’s like “all right well you know what like i’m i’m pretty steadfast in in that opinion.” and then on top of it you’ve got zack johnson cussing out the patrons at augusta and then lying about it on the back end you know it’s like that’s hey man like cool like that was zach johnson’s opinion that he didn’t that he didn’t say that stuff but you know that just goes to show you what what that’s worth there so i’m so so so glad i don’t have to listen to any more zj press conferences it it was i don’t you couldn’t really say it in the m i guess you could have said it but it it felt weird to say it in the moment but it was it was brutal like just the awkwardness and the it it was it was tough it was makes you wonder like how his career was so successful because like you know it was built on guts and guile and being greater than the sum of his parts and then his captaincy was just like the complete opposite of just like it was like one of the least impressive things i’ve ever seen i’ i’ve had some guys um from netflix tell me as well that whole scene from full swing in the the house in hoy lake and the whole scene around you know the picks and calling up keegan to give deliver the bad news and calling up the other guys to deliver the good news they were like “we made zack johnson look the best we possibly could have with what we kept in like you should have seen the stuff that was on the cutting room floor if we really wanted to stick the knife in we could have been a lot worse but we actually tried to paint him in the very best way possible and he still came across appallingly which is kind of the problem with full swing to begin with right we’re just getting kind of a whitewashed version of disconnected events almost so anyways well i i’m sorry to open up an old wound jamie but unfortunately the thing is as you guys have seen i don’t think i’ve seen tron in the flesh for a long time but you guys both saw me in augusta fortunately i’m about three stone lighter than i was in rome two years ago for a year i’ve i’ve gone from a 37 inch waist to a 32 inch waist i don’t know if that’s a more american language so yeah i i so new yorker wouldn’t recognize me is basically my point and then jamie the la like we had a we had kind of a a tension or a fracture uh online this was probably the last time you were you were really on x the everything app was was pinehurst was you know we were kind of we had a disagreement over rory yeah yeah which which is quite a topical subject given he did exactly the same thing at at pga championship yeah which i liked porters whereas what a a dereliction of his responsibility as as one of the great abdication yeah that was kind of how i framed it a little bit after pinehurst and i totally got what you were saying as far as you know hey give the guy some space he’s just had the most crushing defeat of his of his life i think some of it was hey go shake bryson’s hand you don’t even have to talk to the media you don’t have to you know peel out of the parking lot but i think just as we’ve seen it like you know skipping four days in a row when there’s something super newsworthy with the driver and just generally speaking when you’ve won when you won the last major and you know it seems like there is something owed there right and you’ve been the guy talking about how golfers need to be more open and transparent with the media and the fans and you know hey i’ve just been to an f1 race i saw how they do it and those guys have a lot more you know demands and asks on their time on site the least we can do is meet with the media and it seems like he’s kind of thrown that out the window over the last you know nine to 12 months is that is that fair to say or is that sounds like you guys have team room problems oh man i mean i agree i i i wrote that um during or at the end of toward the end of quill hollow of uh i mean i think rory like we’ve all praised rory for innumerable things but i did think it was an abdication of responsibility i don’t give i don’t the whole like you got to talk every day i i don’t man like i don’t think that i don’t think you difference in just like middle fingers towards like the entire media which absolutely not i’m not talking or or you know i think i think some of it too like if anything it makes it a bigger story yes yes say you which it is a complete non-story which is what people need to need to realize like a non-conforming driver is really not that big a deal so by by not talking about it you do make it a bigger story than it is that’s what it doesn’t even feel like it’s about the non-conforming driver but i also don’t know what it’s about no exactly you’re right we we we we praise him and we all love the guy we praise him enough it’s only right that we should pull him up on things as well and i don’t think it’s a great look and i was disappointed he didn’t say something on sunday certainly to sort of look back and say “yeah you know wasn’t my week what can you do?” that’s that’s literally all you have to say yep otherwise now it’s a story and it’s like it’s not like it’s the media’s i don’t know it’s just it was like going out of his way almost which was it was so like bizarre and t you know like and i just go back to like say we’re going about tiger but like tiger tiger was pretty good about you know popping in and and and saying stuff like that or you know going way back through the history of golf it’s like all right man like you’re you’re truly one of the greats and the reason that people like you is because you take the high road and you you do the right things you know and you’re you’re giving people ammo to [ __ ] on you for this i think there’s no better way to conclude this pod porter than you and i confirming and reporting fractured team room uh in europe and uh you you could you could take that to the bank right here uh i just received word also that uh one of my children has vomited just outside my uh my door one of your many many children need to go clean that up so uh two hours i this will not be the last two hours we do with this group because this is an absolute blast to do every single time it is my fault that the delay has been this bad but honestly i’ve struggled to get really excited for this ryder cup but you guys have helped me get there at least a little bit there’s some interesting i’m so glad to clear my name 18 months on as well thank you all for being here thanks everybody for listening uh we’ll see you back here soon
33 Comments
If JT or Spieth did what Koepka did at Bethpage we would hear it non stop. He has to be chosen in the team
Europe will win. It should be close but Europe should get it done. I can’t get behind the U.S. teams.
Jamie you’re a hack. David Puig is miles better than chacarra
Why is it hard to gauge? If you finish top 10 in any tour consistently you’re playing great golf
Bro you guys are so biased. I know you hate LIV, but you guys don’t examine how well they’re playing. Bryson is #3 player in the world right now.
using us soccer as an example that the us is bad at team sports is so disingenuous, our best athletes do not play the sport
Making wayyyyy too much about the captain. They are all but worthless.
Be right back: going to go count USA's 32 olympic medals in basketball real quick….
Over/Under on 2 Danes making the Euro team?
Are the European supporters ever going to address that Ludvig, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick all came to the US to play on American college teams to further their craft? Ah yes Europe is so superior thats why their best players leave at 18 to come to America to get better at playing golf.
The USWNT would like a word with Jamie
All of this Ryder cup discussion is to have like a 3% impact on the outcome. 96% is who is hosting the cup. 1% is if Rory gets a police escort.
What a hack
Banana Split 🍧
Can someone tell me what all this amazing “planning” and preparation that Europe does that’s so magical? Because it all just sounds like cliches and flowery ways to explain that they just played better those 3 days in Rome….
The US should bring Phil back, at least he brings some personality.
Soly tryin to denounce Bryson but pump up a Speith lol
Any chance of anyone getting a word in past Jamie?
Scottie is the leader. He's actually showing it this week. He's getting right back on the horse. He's separating himself from all others. If he buys in, the rest will follow. He also brings a laid back vibe. I think he's being underestimated as a leader.
blades brown ? is it time ?
If you didn’t know better you’d think the Euros had won the last 10 RCs in a row after listening to these guys. Whoever is at home wins. Remember Rory crying at whistling? Also love the soccer dig at the US, we’re not as good because our players don’t know how to play as a team……no dude it’s because our best players are playing cornerback and WR in the NFL
Harmon was 4th in SG among US players during the '23 Ryder Cup. Per datagolf of course
Get Austin Eckroat on the U.S. squad. Just set it and forget it, guy is a bulldog
If you are gonna talk odds, at least understand them. The books set a number, the market shapes the number. The number has been out for a long time. The current number isn't "the books" line, it is the line the market has shaped.
Jamie is dead right. The Europeans love teaming up so much that they ask the U.S. to team up and bail them out of every war!
How much do we need to see from thorbjornsen or clanton to just put them on the team?
Jamie’s face at around the 4min 30 second mark when TC mentions Sergio is hilarious
Great to see Jamie back on the pod. Really enjoyable listen.
I almost didn’t make it through the first 10 minutes of this. Soly apoplectic about Weir saying Spieth had fallen off a cliff, and arguing the data says otherwise – I really had to power through that cringeness. Soly, if you’re reading this, Spieth sucks. We all see it with our own eyes and couldn’t give a shit what the data says. If he’s on the team, the US will probably lose and lose badly. It’s that simple.
Where's Jimmy Walker? The U.S. profile for captain has almost always been: Major winner, between ages of 46-52.
Every time the US loses on the road we all pretend like they’re in shambles and the Euros have it all figured out. But the last 2 times it’s been in the US, the Euros have lost by a greater margin than the US did in Rome. The real problem is that home course manipulation has ruined the Ryder Cup.
38:07 one of the worst takes of all time 😂😂😂😂
Take a shot every time they say dog