View From The Fairway by Derek Clements
I make no apologies for returning to the subject of the Ryder Cup once again this week as the fallout from Bethpage Black continues unabated.
One thing that has become abundantly clear is that Americans are sore losers. All sorts of nonsense has emerged during the past couple of weeks. There have been ridiculous and utterly unfounded allegations of European players cheating. PLEASE! And Keegan Bradley has, of course, had plenty to say about “the envelope” and Viktor Hovland sitting out the final-days singles when he was injured. Bradley insists that the rule has to change, conveniently overlooking the fact that the Americans used the same rule to their advantage when Steve Pate was supposedly injured at Kiawah Island in 1991.
There have been plenty of calls for Luke Donald to take the reins for a third time. Personally, I hope that he gives somebody else a chance to lead Europe in 2027 but Donald has earned the right to make that decision for himself and he will, no doubt, let us know what he plans to do in due course.
Traditionally, a European captain has only been given one stint but I am coming round to the idea that he should be given the job for two Ryder Cups, home and away.
To be frank, Europe has a blueprint and a framework in place now that is so embedded, so successful and so well-proven that I think it relieves the captain of a huge amount of pressure. Analytical performance data means he knows his likely pairings long before the event begins. He simply has to react to loss of form, as Donald did by dropping Rasmus Hojgaard on the second day when it was obvious that he had not brought his A-game to New York.
Of far more interest to me is what on earth the Americans do in order to avoiding yet another crushing defeat at Adare Manor in 2027.
Unbelievably, there has been plenty of chatter about Bradley being given the job again. Apparently he was extremely popular with his players. That may well be the case, but there is no getting away from the dreadful gaffe he made during the opening ceremony when he mixed up Justin Leonard and Justin Rose. He also made the ceremony all about him. And then there was the extraordinary decision to pair Collin Morikawa and Harris English in the foursomes and put them out again the following day in the same format.
It has emerged that Stewart Cink was interviewed about leading the Americans at Bethpage but was then hung out to dry when nobody at the PGA of America bothered to get back to him to tell him that Bradley had been given the job. Cink is a front runner for 2027 but I wouldn’t blame him if he told the powers-that-be what they can do with their job.
Brandt Snedeker and Webb Simpson are also in the frame. And, incredibly, there is much support for Jim Furyk – the same Furyk whose team were thumped at Le Golf National.
It strikes me that one of the main problems that the Americans have is with finding and building team spirit when it comes to the Ryder Cup. In my mind, it cannot be coincidence that they perform best in the singles, when it is all about the invdividual. And that is one of the main reasons why Tiger Woods would surely be a disastrous choice as US Ryder Cup captain. His entire career was built on individual success. He would be the first to admit that he is a selfish individual who has struggled to buy into the team ethic.
Personally, if I was an American I would be moving heaven and earth to persuade Fred Couples to take the job. He remains one of the most popular figures in the game and is a wonderful communicator. There is no doubt in my mind that he would get the most from his players. But would he be bothered with the hassle? Probably not!
And then there is Phil Mickelson’s idea – one that only he could come up with and keep his face straight.
Mickelson says that, having tried just about everything else in the quest to end European domination, the time has come to turn to another sport for inspiration. He believes that next US Ryder Cup captain should be an American football coach, basketball coach or baseball coach.
Mickelson played in 12 Ryder Cups and contributed little to team spirit. In 2014 he publicly lambasted his captain, Tom Watson, during the team’s post-defeat press conference. It was completely classless.
He believes that Mike Krzyzewski or Lou Holtz are “worth exploring”.
Krzyzewski coached men’s basketball at Duke for 42 seasons, winning five NCAA national championships and accumulating the most wins of any coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball history. He also led the American men’s basketball team to three Olympic gold medals and three world championships during his tenure. It could be argued that those basketball players were so good that they did not actually require very much coaching, but that is a whole different debate.
Holtz gained a reputation for turning around ailing football programs and coached a number of college teams, winning a national championship with Notre Dame in 1988. After he retired from coaching, Holtz worked as a college football analyst for both CBS and ESPN.
Mickelson has come up with plenty of left-field ideas in his time but this one takes the biscuit. Past European captains have called upon the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson to address their teams, and Gianfranco Zola was part of Luke Donald’s backroom team. These people have been there and done it in their own fields and were used to deliver inspiring speeches but the prospect of them having any say in team selection and tactics is unthinkable. And for the sake of the future of the Ryder Cup, let’s hope that nobody is listening to Flaky Phil.
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