re: Solutions for Team USA heading to Adare Manor?

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Fourball is essentially hunting alone. We only got 0.5 more points from Fourball than we did Foursomes. I know there is a small element of working with a teammate in Fourball, but it's still pretty much playing your own ball.

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in the 64 holes Scottie played before the singles matches, his opponents were 32 under par. That's just a stupid, stupid number. When your partner isn't doing anything in 4-ball to help you, you're going to lose.

On Friday, Scottie actually had a good round but Rahm I believe shot -7 by himself in the 16 holes they played. Not much Scottie can do there. And on Saturday, Rose made everything on the green.

Hoenstly Cantlay had the best answer when he talked about the card game gin

Golf is usually 72 holes just to decide one tournament in the course of a season where there is 40 tournaments . Ryder cup is every two freaking years and each individual match is only 18 holes

For a sport like golf it isn’t played remotely enough to try and really make any good inferences

Imagine if you had one 18 hole stroke play torment every two years and then tried to make an idea who is the best and why

A coin flip is exactly 50/50 probability yet it landing heads 11/15 times wouldn’t be considered weird at all

Name Payne Stewart as Captain and have Azinger fulfill the duties on his behalf.

Stewart would have been a captain if not for his tragic death. He was “all-in” on the Ryder Cup and representing his country. He was the USA counterpart to Seve Ballesteros.

If doing it that way offends, then name Azinger and he can appoint Stewart as an honorary vice captain. The point being . . . if playing to represent the pride that someone like Payne had in the event doesn’t make the USA Team want to run through a brick wall, then sadly, nothing will.

As to the “envelope rule”: before the singles matches, each captain designates not only their player to sit out but also choose a player for whom their match will count for 2 points in the event of a WD from the other team. That way the point is still contested, but there is a little strategy as to who the captain designates. For instance, this year as example, do you pick the hot hand like rookie Cam Young or Scottie as the best player? Do you move who you select so their 2 point match may be against a weaker opponent if you can guess where they will be hidden in the line-up?

I think we need more experienced vice captains.

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the captain didn't win or lose....although Keegan made some really poor decisions in his pairings the first two days...

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Thr US lost by the second smallest margin possible. Luke Donald is praised for focusing on every detail. Keegan didn't even need to focus on small details like shampoo and bed sheets. All he had to do was not play our worst combination twice in foursomes, have Scottie tee off on odds on Friday, and set the course up to reward the best player in the world for hitting long accurate shots, and some of those half points may have been full and some of the losses may have been halves.

When you lose by a slim margin, it putts more of a spotlight on small mistakes that can be avoided.

Top 8 in points: exempt

Next 8 in points play in the Ryder Cup challenge matches.

36 holes per day. Foursomes in the morning. Fourball in afternoon. Switch partner each match.

8 matches. Total points wins. Most holes under par breaks ties.

Find out who wants it most.

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He brought up an interesting idea that he thinks could be done in relative secrecy but have a mini match play event for about 24-30 of the top USA players about 6 months before the event. That would bring the list down to 12-15. Those 12-15 then have a mini stroke play event BUT its not based on your final score its based only on # of pars or better made. Point being, you need guys that can just flag hunt on command and not worried about a big number.

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Does he watch the Ryder Cup? This might be okay for singles. The problem with the U.S. is the team format. We need to build team dynamics for fourtball and foursomes way more than we need flag hunters, that means people being able to play out of the rough, get up and down in tough spots.

Also, good luck getting 30 players together at the same time as the Players/right before Augusta and major season to do essentially a practice for an exhibition that nearly 2/3 to 1/2 of them will not even be on the team.

Phil wants Lou Holtz in the mix

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Down vote away but we need guys like Patrick Reed who has a fire and gets under the opponents skin.....although he probably pisses off his own teammates. In the Ryder Cup his emotions get the fans riled up and he seems to enjoy that role. And he's no worse than several that were on this team.

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I disagree. The last time he was on the team, his emotions meant nothing because the US got their arse kicked while he shot 81 with Tiger in fourball. Like I said in the OP, I think finding ways to light fires under the Americans has failed time and time again. The last time we won, Stricker was captain. The dude had a commercial back in the day all about how milquetoast he is. What he did was put everything in place to let the players do their thing to play their best. I think one example was that Brooks liked taking naps. He fit that in the schedule to allow that. The result was the most lopsided RC in history. Stop expending so much energy trying to match the Europeans. Find something else that makes us click.

Our best two players at this Ryder Cup were the most quiet guys on the team; Xander and Young. It's still golf. A guy might play worse because he amped himself up too much.

ETA: Actually, I may be wrong about he nap thing. The only info I found was him saying the RC is different because he can't get his nap in like during majors. So, maybe Stricker didn't do that.

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Get rid of auto-qualifiers and pick the best players peaking at the right time, not mid golfers who racked up a bunch of points early in the year in bad tournaments.

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Who would you have picked instead?