No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1078: Ryder Cup Autopsy Report with Duncan Carey and Jamie Kennedy

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Our coverage of the 2025 Ryder Cup moves in the US post-mortem phase as Soly searches for answers and insights into what makes the European Ryder Cup machine so effective.  In this two-part pod we open up with Duncan Carey - one of the first analytics consultants for the European team in the 2010s - for his thoughts on what the US got wrong on the setup at Bethpage, plus the story of the role of analytics in team competitions, how pairings are formed, and his work with the International teams during the Presidents Cup.  In part two (39:00), Soly chats with Jamie Kennedy - Golf Digest director of Digital Content, and social media contributor for the European Ryder Cup team - for a behind the scenes look at what the Euros got right at Bethpage, the role of their various captains, and some guesses as to who’ll be the captains for both sides in 2027 at Adare Manor. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support our Sponsors: Rhoback The Stack If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Yes. I mean, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Sali here, got yet another Rider Cup episode for you. If you love the Rider Cup, I'm excited to tell you this is not the last one we're doing. If you're ready for us to move on, I apologize. We got one more coming on this topic next week as well, very different than what we've done. I think you'll like that one. I think you're going to like this one as well. We, in an attempt, you've heard all of our takes on all of this stuff.

In an attempt to put a wrap on the 2025 Rider Cup, I have a two-part episode for you. The first half is going to be with Duncan Carey. is a golf course strategist. We get into some of his background. I won't give any of that away. But debriefing on the mistakes the U.S. made, you know, what he has implemented in team events in the past strategy-wise. I really, really, really enjoy talking with Duncan. You're going to learn a lot from that one. I know I certainly did. Back half is going to be Jamie Kennedy. Jamie has a background with the European tour. Now works for Golf Digest. We get into his background as well, but has seen this process evolve on the European side. And we give him a chance to celebrate a little

bit for Team Europe and his perspective on what happened on the grounds of Beth page over this past weekend. I want to give a shout to our friends at Roebuck. Fall golf is here and you already know Roebuck is our go-to for polos, hoodies like the one I got on right now. I love this one. We got our own NLU logo on the sleeve on this one. Hoodies, joggers, pants, all of it, best fit, best feel. It's as simple as that. The Roeback Delta pants are our favorite pants. I told them, send me every color. I'll throw out every other pant I have. I only wear Roeback pants on the golf course now going forward the stretch elastic waistband game changer gives you extra room for added comfort it maintains that best fit possible the fabric is smooth it's wrinkle resistant easy to pack into

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There's no better feeling than wearing a Roeback hoodie fresh out of the package. As we head into fall, roback.com, R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com, use code N-LU at checkout for 20% off your first order through the end of this week, pants, hoodies, vests, Roeback has you covered. Roeback.com, code N-LU. Let's get to the pod. First up, Duncan Carey. All right, Duncan, thanks for joining. I really appreciate your time.

First of all, before we get in the nuts and bolts of it, let's give the listeners a little bit of an idea of your background and where your expertise is coming from here. Yeah, of course. Yeah, good to join you. So I've worked in golf most of my life as a golf pro originally. And it's actually Ryder Cup, which started my life as a golf analyst, data person in golf.

I was working at a golf club, and Darren Clark was our touring professional. So I got talking as he was about to become announced as the captain of the Ryder Cup team in 2016. This was around 2014. And I've always been into stats data, looking at the numbers, always been my thing. So I said to him, look, I think the data and stats is probably something that could really help you in the Ryder Cup. Peaked his interest. He got the job.

I got a phone call. I was interested at what you talked about. Can we have a meeting? One of my good friends worked in soccer football, doing this kind of thing. And we got our heads together, went and saw Darren, told him we think we can help with course management stuff, pairings, wild cards, all that kind of thing. And the first job we got before we'd even set anything up was, right, you're doing the 2016 Ryder Cup.

We walked down the meeting and we said, we better start a business. So that's where 15th club, as you probably remember, that's where that started. So we did that. I'll go back to that bit in a minute how we helped Darren. But then from there, we started helping with the Ryder Cup, did 2016 Ryder Cup. As we did that and worked with the European Tour, improving their systems so we could do that job. We started picking up some players, working with some players, helping them with core strategy stats, data. And from there, now I work since 2020 on my own, helping players, help the International Presidents' Cup teams and Three Rader Cups and Solang Cups.

everything from setting season goals to how do I beat this golf course how do I play the golf course how am I playing this season scheduling all that kind of thing so everything sort of performance related course strategy all that kind of thing so yeah that's that's a very quick overview that's that's all I needed to say very confidently very well qualified for this conversation is what I want to get at now part of what I was thinking about here is we don't talk about, you know, there is, you know, we talk about course fits every single week when it's a stroke play tournament. But if you're talking stroke play, you, you have to have a whatever, 95th plus percentile performance that week to be in contention to win that week

anyways. Whereas on a team event, correct me if I'm wrong on this, it seems like the stats, the strategy, all of that can play a bigger factor when it becomes 1 v1, 2v2 in individual matches, and 12v12 overall in terms of tilting the advantage in your in your favor by making the right decisions am I on the right path with kind of analyzing why we obsessed maybe over course setup and strategy over this event more so than we do an individual stroke play yeah I think so like stroke play it's you turn up at the golf course a couple of days look at the golf course how do how do I how do I play you can play really well and come 10th or you can play really well and come first you can play really run from 30th it's kind of it's a little bit more random and

and it's, you know, you lose most weeks, right? This tournament and Presidents' Cup, solemn cup, the same, but particularly Ryder Cup is it's around. How do we do all the different things we can do to give ourselves a better chance of winning? I'm an analytics person, but I'm certainly not one of these that's like, you must use the data completely.

I think the best way it's used is the captain should run the show, but the analytics should certainly help him to qualify, his decisions or challenge his decisions it shouldn't be if you go the other way and it's all data led the captain's role is kind of irrelevant in a way other than the motivational stuff and the videos and what that stuff you see so i think yeah for a rider cup particularly i think there's three real things where data analytics really can help is the if you're a home team the course set up which we'll probably talk about i'm sure oh yes we want if you're the away team how do we play the golf course on how are they going to set it up your picks and then your parents

Those are the three key things, really. But going back to your question, it's all those little things you can do in a head-to-head match, which will give you the chance to then be successful. The players have still got to play well. Everyone talks about data analytics. The players have still got to do their jobs

and they've still got to do their thing. But if you can give them the confidence and you've done everything you can to make sure that they've got the best chance of winning their match, then that's what the analytics is for. People, I mean, quickly, we'll go to, we'll probably reference this,

but Luke Donald mentioned about shampoos and cracks indoors, and people are laughing and going all that. But if you're a player, if you think, oh, he's doing that, then he definitely knows which, if I should be seen on the odds on the evans. Yeah, 100%.

Definitely knows that if he's done that. It's those little things that all build up. But yeah, I think matchplay it's around how can we get an edge over the opposition, which I think week to week, you're not thinking like that. You're not thinking, how do I beat Scottish Sheffler this week? How do I beat Roy this week?

You're thinking, how do I win well? And how do I beat this golf course? Because I think you can, I've been saying this and I'd be curious to test it up against your knowledge here. I'd say, like, all right, the course setup, I believe, these are my words. You can use your words if you want. I think it was a complete disaster this week. But it doesn't fully explain Europe dominating and putting to the level that they did through

two days, right? I think they made a mistake in giving them the stage to take that opportunity. But if you rolled the balls out, same setup and played again this week, do I think Europe would beat the U.S. by that much on the greens? I do not think they would. Again, I think there's factors that contributed to that, which are mistakes that Europe would never make. I overheard assistant captains on the microphone saying,

we've got to speed these greens up. And I wanted to pull my hair out to say, guys, you're in charge of this. And I know there is a transition period where you hand the course over to the... A very short period. And the person who then takes... of you should be fully aware of what you want to happen. Right.

It should never have gotten to the point that it got to. So let's work backwards here. And I'm asking you to paint this with a bit of a broad brush because I know what I'm asking involves a lot of intricate levels of data. And it's to say like, all right, if you're going to set, because setting up the course

and making and filling out your team and coming up with your pairings are all connected, right? It's, it's if you're taking a certain guy, and I want to talk to you about Morikawa as well, if you're taking a certain guy, you need to have a reason for taking him and put him on a stage where his skills can best be used to your advantage. I think that wouldn't, I'm not good enough at this to be able to explain why it worked out

this poorly, but take me to setting up Beth Page Black as well as filling out your team and how you think the US should have done this differently. Yeah. So I'll start at how I think you need to reverse engineer it a little bit. Okay. So obviously, if you straight away think, right, how we can set the course up, you're probably not doing your job properly. The first thing you need to do is 18 months ago have a system in place is what we did for Paris and Whistling Straits is who is likely to make our team. So you need

to start projecting and run projections of what is the most likely make-up of our 12 players because then once you know that, that will then determine right then how do we need to set this golf course up and also who's likely to make the opposition team. So we did this for Paris. We started 18 months out. And we did it for Hazeltine, in fact, because we wanted to know. And our algorithms and systems and programs were pretty good. Like, we knew fairly long range out from the tournament. Who's likely to make the team? I mean, you don't need systems in place to work out who your top five, six, seven are going to be. You know that. Sure. But you need to know, for me, you need to know that information before you then start

the golf course up. Or you can do it the other way where, right, this is a golf course. got and we're going to set up this way who do we then want to make the team so you need to do one of those two things and it feels like this week and neither of those things happened so it was like this is the golf course we've got oh these are the guys you've got oh hang on a minute that doesn't quite work so it's that that's for me is the glaring error is like you you shouldn't ever be in a position whereby you've the golf course set up and the who you and the who haven't been put together. So yeah, so going back to it, who's going to make the team? Once you know that, you can start setting your golf course up. And there's two ways you do it. You can set the

golf course up to enhance your team and hinder the opposition if the data allows that. I think the data at Bethpage more than ever probably didn't allow that as much as happened in the past. In Paris, compared that to Hazeltine, right? Because that was a way different makeup of the two teams. And there was a somewhat similar setup. But you, was able to exacerbate the distance advantage they had then yeah so hazelty and i got there on the saturday before and the green kips were cutting out the lower limbs shaving the rough down i think phil might have even been there from memory orchestrating this whole get the limbs out the trees get the rough off we want to be able to hit it anywhere and fire at the pins in the middle because we're the

we're good at that and they're not and it worked it worked that's and then paris it was i think i mentioned is before Paris was, let's win the hole with the T-Shart, not the puck. Which made for horrible golf viewing, if I may say, great strategy. I was so mad at you guys. But then this actually leads into Bethpage. Did they want a birdie fest that everyone was entertained or did the Americans want to win the right of code?

That's kind of a different argument, like that's a different argument. And that's beyond my, you're getting into different worlds there. But that is the only explanation I can come up with for why it ended up the way it did. They won a birdies, won a crowd, and that was the strategy.

But then part of this is if you're going to pick Beth Page as a venue, what would have happened if Keegan had turned up to Beth Page, having picked six wildcars who completely fit Bethpage as a difficult driving hole where if you're in the rough and the pins at the front, you're dead, you have to be in fairways, you've got to be a bomber, and you need to be a good ball striker. and then he turns up to that like how's

what would have happened then like it's it's which is kind of a little bit of what's happened but going back to the point of like so Paris we thought right we are we're good off the tea we're an accurate team of the team we've got some good good tea

players there we had people like Alex Norrin and Sergio Henrik Stenson Rory people at that time who were hitting fairways and we're good we know not as good

as good as iron players as the American team and probably not as good on the greens. We then decided we need to almost decide some of these holes, particularly in forsooms off the tea, because if you can control, if you're good off the tea there, you're in the hole. If you're wayward off the tea, you're making bogey and you're not winning any holes.

So little things like knowing our driving distances of our team, tightening the fairways, moving the fairways in and out, the rough wasn't five yards and then spectators. It was 25 yards, ropes are spectators. because we didn't want the rough trampled down to give the Americans advantage if they were wayward off the tea. Can I pause on this for just one second

because I think we've talked a lot about this on this podcast about, all right, well, if your narrow fairways and thick rough can lead to Bombers Paradise in general, why was that not the case at LaGolf National? Like, is there a length of hole where it makes sense that it puts an emphasis on hitting the fairway versus, hey, everybody's going to be in the rough anyways,

let's hit it down there as far as pilot. Why didn't that strategy work at LaGolf? Yeah, because, because when you put Bubba Watson and Phil Mickelson and your foursomes pairings what was the reaction to that when that happened honestly when we saw that they were playing

foursums I didn't outwardly say this but me and the guys we've won this and that sounds not arrogant but it was like they haven't it made you think they don't have a plan they don't know what they're not what they're doing but they don't know how to play this golf course they don't understand

what you've got to do here and it just makes it gives you and the team confidence like when you see that the confidence that runs through the team is like they don't know they're doing this is they haven't worked this out and that's that's an extra margin as well when you when you see that the other team haven't done exactly the right things so yeah so we did that and I think at Bethpage I think yeah so you need to know what players you've got you then set the golf course up accordingly to maximize your chances in Keegan's defense I think the teams were fairly evenly matched this time. However, I'm not sure cutting the rough down and neutralising

people like Scotty, Colin, JJ, Zander, Russ Henley, Cantley, who were all ranked in the top 10 approach play, the last 50 rounds, you know, last year and a half, versus probably two or three Europeans. And then you've got five or six your team are better off the tea than and probably only Rory and John Rammer probably better off the tea regularly than six or seven of the American team. So you're taking that skill is becoming neutralised

and you're putting all your eggs into a putting a putting basket, which could work. They could have putted Europe. Yeah, they could have. He's made it a punt in contest and he'd out part of them. But Europe generally put better at rider cups. Like Justin Rose, something happens to him. No one can explain.

but it's leaving for me it's leaving too much to chance like you're leaving too much to right we're just going to put those especially when you've got such good iron players in your team what's the phrase it's you're almost to try and strengthen your weakness you're weakening your strengths right yeah and if you look at the scoring this week where and i've looked at this today and yesterday and i was looking at it's changed my little my opinion we're going off track a little bit here but I think Rider Cups you need your top four or five players to perform

and the other players kind of necessary to chip in a little bit that's how it feels to me that's how it feels to me like Europe Tommy Fleet with Rory Tirohan John Rahm

top four point scorers job done Seps tracker Bob Rasmus try and chip up a little point half point here and there but it's really around

you should set that golf course up to maximise your better players and how let them perform but what they're good at. Because Scott is, they should build the whole week around make sure he performs well, not just with the course, but with pairings and everything. And it goes to something he's

over there that he's never won a foursomes match in three right of cut. He's won one four-ball match and he's never lost at things. So this comes into the whole pairings discussion. Which, pairings is a tricky thing, right? But it especially with with four so there's golf ball considerations but especially this week where I didn't even know this was a thing when you have ball in hand you can change out the ball you want in the fair way as well and it you know you can put whatever ball and play you want off the

t anyway so putting that aside obviously and there's personality considerations I think with it as well but I I'm not of the belief that you can just print off a computer print out to say here's your foursome's pairings and there's a strategy for how that filters down to four ball how many matches everybody's going to play all that stuff but you also like i was i was pro taking colin morikawa for this team because i look you know if you look at his components of his play it is he is far down the list and strokes gain overall and his skill profile has as as decreased from his peak and it's almost entirely from putting yeah so that to say like hey if you take colmora cow on your team he sounds like he'd be a really good fores player at best age black if you set up the course a

a lot more difficult and hand him somebody that can tee off the odds and get that ball out there and in the fairway and kind of looking around the team, you're like, okay, Scotty's good driver of the ball, obviously, you know, Cameron Young, really good driver and long, long hitter. And you start getting down there like, all right, well, Zander, sure as well, but then you didn't really have a fourth guy that's like your boomer, right? So it just, it all didn't work, right? It all didn't add up into, they neutralized Henley and. Explain how you would consider that they neutralize the skills of Henley and Morikawa as well.

Yeah, so Morikawa is your advantage with Morikawa and probably JJ Spawn as well and probably a few of them. But your advantage of them is hitting good approach shots that are hard, right? So finding a pin that is tucked behind a bunker on a fast green or a back right pin that's sloping away. And if you miss it, you're short-sided and you can't get up and down. that's where those players are on advantage where it's they're playing off a fairway but it's to a tough pin or a semi-ruff they're playing to a difficult pin

that the opposition are going to struggle to get to because they're not as good ball strikers and there's consequences for missing and there's a huge factor factor when you think of rider cups you think of people chipping in and great I can't remember any short game this week I can't really remember any kind of

short game action going on because people could just chip in on aid is what people is going to come to line, but yes, that was... As over the week, it wasn't like a big catf being good at short game. It was kind of like people were just firing at pins because they knew they could. So Morikawa gets neutralized because what he can do, the lesser ball strikers can do as well. Because you can just...

I mean, the famous clip of Rory when he turned around to the crowd and said what he said. I mean, Jamie highlighted this on his tweet. This is a great example of from there, normally, to a front left pin, he should not been able to get that ball anywhere near the flag, or probably, hold the green. And he said to five feet. Whereas if you had Morikawa there on the normal golf course, he would have fared better than most of the rest of the field or the two team. So that's where you're neutralizing it.

And Henley, I mean, Henley's a good ballstrike as well, right? He's really high up the approach. Sure. He's been ranking good, and a putter. But, I mean, the odds even things with him and Scotty kind of encapsulates the problem of. I know for a fact because I've done several and the European team

would have known that months ago who they're playing with and what we in the like anybody that log on online knew that

like it was a foregone conclusion yeah but it's like but even if it wasn't right even if it was let's pretend it's not an obvious thing which everyone knew it's how you communicate

to the players and how this is where it comes back to culture and trust and everything how you can use you you got to a player, any pairing and go, you two are one of our best foursums pairing, you're going out Friday morning,

we have full faith in you getting a point, but the best possibility of you to win as a point is for you to deal off odds and you to deal off evens because of this. I mean, if they haven't gone through the process of, right, if Scotty is off the first hole, then Russell hits the second shot,

they haven't gone through that process for 18 holes. And they've had two years to do it, then that's like, you're just gifting, you're just gifting a point or you're gifting shots per hole to the opposition. You're gifting a percent advantage that may or may not

affect the outcome of the match, but there's no point in gifting that percentage advantage. If you're gifting little percentages 100%, you're gifting in the Red of a Cup. Exactly. But to your point there, I know of a story of two players on the U.S. side in a President's Cup that were explained this. You are odds, you are evens on this hole,

and the two players said, eh, we want to do the other way. And it's like, all right, well, now you have it. That's the world's all right. if they can tell you why. But it also signifies, I think, a distrust in the information in the process, right? If Dodo Molanari comes up and says, like, clearly, like, hey, you guys should go off these holes? Like, do you think Rory and Tommy are going to be like, nah, I don't trust you, we're going to flip it?

Exactly. But I think that, I think that comes back to an even more of a deeper cultural, not cultural, but like, philosophical culture of the team of like, we trust you that we know that's the right thing to do because we completely trust what you've done, because you've done. We know you've spent two years of your life doing this. So, yes, we agree with that. People that get on us for talking too much about the Ryder Cup, I'm like, dude, I can't do this about any of, I can't do this about any golf event, right? There's so much strategy.

Going back to like, one thing that I really picked up on, I went back today and I looked at Keegan's press conference on Saturday night, and I wrote it down or printed it off, he said, and this sentence, like, it made me look at the screen when I was, when I was, he said, I think historically, We play faster greens on the PGA tour than they do. And I just thought, is this where we're at? As a group, you're still of the impression that you are playing them from a different tour.

And it's a little thing, but it's kind of, wow, is that it gives an insult to the thought. The data would probably almost certainly say, and as always supportive, that the American players do put better on faster greens than the Europeans do. That doesn't mean they don't play the fast greens. They just, U.S. puts better on them, yeah. Yeah. And then he says, obviously, when we go to the British Open, their greens are slower.

And it's not really about the fact it's not wrong. It's that kind of, have they, are they still of the impression that we're the bombers, we need short rough and we can hit it anywhere, and they are short to hitters and they need soft greens? It's all that kind of, you're just wondering. if that's kind of still, they're going through conventional wisdom of 10 years ago at Hazeltine, still with that kind of them and us, how we play golf. I don't know if this is inherent in just American culture, but there is a, there are certain tropes in at least two of our sports.

And I'll use baseball as an example as well of just like people that grew up believing this, even if it can be clearly proven that the opposite is true now, have it ingrained in their head because they still have a so, so 50 year old guys saying like yeah putting is the most important thing in the game even though we can definitively say it's not like I was on I'll tell you like I was discussing I thought talk for 30 minutes

over the span of two days with Ken Griffey Jr. who's a baseball player ed about baseball stuff and like it was I realize I'm like I'm arguing with King I'm trying to prove I'm righted with Ken Griffey Jr but he was like oh they guys do just as hard in my day as they do now and like I'm like oh my God dude the statistics are so far from supporting that. And again, they changed the way they measure miles per hour.

And I was like, no, I can't, like, I can't tell you you're wrong here, but you're wrong. That's not the right thinking. That's just wrong. But I'm going to argue with Ken Griffey Jr. But so this, I keep pulling the thread on this to say like, all right, man, this was not an expectation of Keegan Bradley. Like, you should not, if he was fully further invested into the right. Cup captaincy role he could have gotten to this level, yes, but like he was cruising along with his playing career and this got thrust on him in a sudden way. I feel like I'm really hard

on him, but like it speaks, there's a, can you speak to the higher level of European culture that would have never let this Keegan Bradley thing happen? Yeah, it's a full-time job. It's a full-time job that you have to, you have to almost sacrifice your golf career to do this job because it's, and I think I think there's a distinct difference in the way that Europe and the US are doing things at the moment, not always at the moment. I think the European culture at the moment is it's almost like, and I think I mentioned this to you over the weekend, I feel like, and this is no disrespect to Luke because he's the reason why this theory of mine is where it is. I almost feel like the who as a captain on either team is kind of irrelevant at the moment, but for two very different

reasons. I think whoever's the captain of the European team can walk into that job and they have everything they need in place around them to be successful because they know who the vice captains to be because it's a process like Justin Rose might step in next time and you know Thomas Björn may step. I don't know. But there's always continuity. They're not going to go right. You four out the door. Who am I for what I want to bring in? That won't be allowed to happen. So whoever is the rider captain of Europe, it's not irrelevant, but they're going to walk into a system whereby it's not reliant on the captain it's reliant on the infrastructure in place for him to do his job it feels like the captain of the

American team is kind of a little bit irrelevant because whoever walks in is got the complete opposite of that where it's like there you go oh do you start what you want to do yeah who's your vice captains okay no problem who do you want to do stats I'm not doing that who's who's just like oh and that kind of me feels like It's the same thing, but totally different. And I think the Europeans have got themselves into... And this is what I was thinking, this over the weekend, and you always see that, oh, the European social media team are so good.

They're so good. That's not by coincidence. That's because they want the best people to do the best job to make the players feel great and to tell the story. So everything around the whole background team is geared towards everyone being successful. I do think there's some cultural things that help European and that's difficult to overcome. I just think there is stuff like that.

But having been in the team room three times, it is genuinely egos don't come in the door. Everyone wants the same thing. I was on a WhatsApp group in 2016 when Aaron Clark did it, and he asked the players amazingly. Well, he asked them individually, then he shared it with that, actually. Who would you do and don't want to play with?

Which I'm not sure was a great exercise personally. Some captains do it, some don't. I'm not sure there's great value in it. Because if the data then suggests you've got to play with someone or it's overwhelmingly obvious, you should play with someone that you said you didn't want to, it becomes an issue. But anyway,

Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia, the first two to reply, Henry Stenson, I'm not marrying them, I'm playing golf with them, I don't care who I play with. Sergio Garcia, I will play with anyone.

Rory, I will play with anyone. And it's just, it's like, it's not a question. Right. But I think that for me is the place at the moment, is the European system and the structure is so good

that anyone can walk in the door of the captain and probably do a very good job because it's all in place. And I think the American system, whoever walks in through the captaincy door has got a lot to sort out. And it kind of feels like, I mean, in the UK we have a golf club,

they have a different captain every couple of years and they come in and dig up a bunker, stick a tree in and change the course and the next one comes in, he wants to do something different. It kind of feels like the American's a bit like that at the moment. It's a bit like everyone, the Keegan thing.

So vice captains for me, I think they need to buy into the process as well, which is what Europe have got, right? Everyone's on the same page. To interrupt it, this was the whole point of the task force was to do this, have the continuity in place and have the role

be replaceable and roll through. And like, I feel like they overreacted to 2023 and through that gameplay and out the window. I mean, I know that one was a disaster, but like they started over from scratch really with the Keegan thing and I there is a bit really on both sides there does seem to be a lack of obvious captain to step up um but I also people associate a big name with a great captain as well right like I don't Steve Stricker goes in the history books as a great captain

he was great presidents cup captain great US captain and he was the least demonstrative of any of them right he would have been the quietest leader but he went about I don't know the details of what he did well but he obviously did something well and put that team in a position as then he should have then taken the team to Rome, right? Sure. Yeah. And that's the difference. He's like, well, here.

But now, right, let's plan for Rome. How do we go and win on the way, Rider Cup? Yeah. Rather than go in, right, he's done, one and done. Not a vice captain anymore. Out the door. See you later. Whereas Thomas Bjorn, Rider Cup winning captain.

Paul McGinley, Rider Cup winning captain, both involved in the system of what's going on. But not overbearing at the front and center. They're doing their jobs and helping Luke. be successful. Well, that's where we're seeing the benefit, you know, again, people can, you can roll your eyes at this if you want to, but like the benefits of, it all goes back to Sevy.

You pull the string on it really does end up back at Sevy, but like the 90s and 2000s dominance of Team Europe has spawned all of these captains. They lost like four or five potential captains to live and they still keep the system in place. And then it's like, all right, Jim Furek is heavily involved on the U.S. side. he's been a part of how many losing teams on his own and how many, you know, that he played on a captain to losing team and has now been an assistant captain on multiple losing teams. That's not to say it's his fault, but like they don't have that guy to lean on to say like, hey, here's the system that has worked, you know. So with vice captains, I've got a couple, I have like two different opinions.

I've seen, I've seen it whereby someone spent two years of their life working on a captaincy and then vice captains come in who are strong characters, very, when you've got. four strong characters coming in and a captain, they can influence a captain deviant from the plan because he doesn't want to upset his peers, doesn't want to, he's like, well, okay,

right, and it becomes, it becomes too many voices in the room when a captain, I've seen that happen. But I've also seen it where you've got captains who are strong enough to ask the right questions. Luke Donald was a vice captain in our captain's WhatsApp group.

He was probably the quietest in the group, but the most thoughtful and asked, of us as stats guys the most challenging questions what's an example of the challenging question like what what do you mean about just like about he would he would like on a day when you haven't there's not been like loads of chat like almost like

I've been looking at the putting stats and you know what's the grain going to be like in Paris and how are we going to factor in who's good at putting up grain and down little things like and you think he's thinking about this he's on this like and just it just made you at the time when I I think I was out shopping with the wife and you just go, oh, wow, okay, right. And it challenges you.

And that's what you want. I think as a stats, but going back to like the analytics and stats, I think you need to be able to have a voice and challenge and be challenged. And I think that's how it has to work. If you're not being listened to, the worst thing that can happen, which is a little bit that might be happening this time. And I don't know the answer to this is you don't have a voice in the room. You're not listened to, but you get a little bit.

the blame. Or you are being listened to and you probably should get the way. That's the opposite. Last one. You worked with the President's Cup team, international Presidents' Cup team in 2024 in Montreal. Can you just walk us through the exercise of, all right, here is our team.

What does that look like on paper against the U.S. team? And how can we set up the golf course to tilt? Ultimately, the U.S. obviously ended up winning that one. But how did you go about trying to tilt the advantage in your favor any way you could? yeah i mean yeah so we we had a site visit a year out from the from montreal with um me and the stats guys um mike weir the course people and we spent two days we played the course on the

first day just to get a feel of the course and then we walked pretty much the second day with whole maps everything dillon the other guy that does the president's cope with me he'd done a lot of work on sort of the golf course side of things and we'd come to the idea that and we'd found some analytics that we, the international team, were better out of the rough at certain distances than the American team was. So rather than just cutting the rough all at certain distance, I think it was off top of my head like one to 125, 135, 130 out. We were fairly decent from that length of a bit longer rough. So the rough wasn't exactly the same length, all over the hole. So it got a bit longer as you got near of the holes and made it a bit tougher. We looked

at runoff areas. And what we tried to do with the present scope is a little bit of a different animal because you there is a difference there is a difference in in the teams right so you've got to try and it's it's i would argue that winning in a way president's cup is probably the hardest thing of anyway but um i think we tried to because we were underdogs our theory was if you make the things as random as possible and as different as possible and as uncomfortable as possible then you start to level the playing for a little bit so we were talking about bunkers and the grand scuff, what do we want, we want it as coarse as possible, as different as possible do they normally get, rates differently. Chains of, you know, some holes run off, some holes rough,

so it's just different and it makes them think more, try and take a wedge out of the hand to make some of the parfalls drivable a bit shorter. We knew that they were better on a certain level of approach shots. So the 17th of Montreal, there was a T, a T-box that, I don't know if I'm giving way the T-C-to-sey, but anyway, the T-box that was a certain distance that would be perfect for the Americans so we were saying to Mike make sure that there's a camera there or a thing so that the people that set the course up who are neutral cannot put a tea there just grow that rough grow that rough do not allow a tea to be there and for power fives we know we there was a certain second shot distance that we were much better

than the Americans at we were same sort of thing like that tea box there that can't be allowed to be used we need to make sure all the second shots are coming from between 190 and 210 we have to have that happen so that's how you kind of set a golf course up you're not it's not it's just helping you get advantage because you need to do it and i think with the president's cup as well there's a there's a totally different dynamic with that in terms of the pairing strategy is just a whole new world of mind games and and things like that with the with the head-to-head pairings it's that's a lot of time goes into that yeah gosh that'd be fun uh i would say we might have to have you back on around that.

Yeah, you're not going to give away anything around that right now. So, oh, Duncan, well, I really appreciate your time. We're definitely going to be using user resource in these things in the future as well because it's been really, really informative. And thanks for sharing it with the world. And best luck to you. Cheers. Thank you.

Thanks again to Duncan. And thanks to our friends at the stack. You can learn more about the stack system at the stack system. Dot com slash NLU code no laying up will get you 10% off your offerings. It is a fantastic tool if you want to add speed to your golf game. It is, I know, I know we've talked about this a lot, but it's hard to express how fun it is. One, I greatly look forward to doing my workouts. It has made me more limber.

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just got to do this workout's really like 30 minutes a day twice a week If you can't find an hour to get a little bit better at golf, you don't really want to get better at golf. I'm sorry. StackSystem.com slash NLU. Code no laying up. Here's Jamie Kennedy. All right.

He refused to come on after the 2016 Rider Cup. He refused to come on after the 2021 Rider Cup. But all of a sudden he was super. I'm making that up completely. Jamie Kennedy, you're here. You can gloat. You can do whatever you'd like. Congratulations to Team Europe.

Very well played. Very well deserved. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for the platform. Thank you for the congratulations. I'm just looking forward to hearing the excuses. But, yeah, basking, basking in another win.

I'm proud of the lack of excuses I've given so far. Nothing but tip my cap here. I didn't come into this one, braggadocious. This is the least regretful I've been after a humiliating American defeat in quite some time, which isn't really saying much, but still. But for those that aren't familiar as much with your background, can you give us the listeners an idea? You've been a guest on this podcast before, probably in a different capacity that you're in now.

But give the listeners a bit of an idea on your background. Sure, yeah. So I'm with Golf Digest now, I'm ahead of content there. My relationship to the Ryder Cup goes quite far back. So obviously growing up as a massive golf fan in Scotland and then worked to the European Tour, which is DP World Tour, which owns half the Ryder Cup. So my role very quickly moved to helping deliver the Ryder Cup Europe content that you, you saw. I worked 2014, 2016, 2018, and then I jumped over. I actually didn't get to go to

21 COVID year. And then in 2023 in Rome, I could have been there with work, but I actually decided that while I was young, I wanted to see what everyone was talking about. So I went to Rome as a fan. I got tickets. I used all the connections, got in places I probably didn't deserve to be in, but I wanted to go in like for years, I had told everyone how great this event was, but I was working behind the scenes that I didn't get to see shots I didn't get to have a beer I didn't get to and so in 23 in Rome I went as a fan and it the first you know the Thursday Friday there just just blew me away to see what it was like to have to get on the 4 a.m shuttle to get to the first tea and all this so so I feel like now coming back to Beth page and getting to work at the

event and see behind the scenes I feel like I've got like these three or four different lenses into what the writer cup is and what makes it great and yeah another pretty special week well that's what i'm uh you mentioned you didn't make it the 2021 but actually that's what i brought you in to talk about i'd like to break down with it whistling straits a little bit longer you know kind of that uh that yeah before your anniversary let's go well i you know a lot of of what goes into the european process in the european culture right can you give give us an idea and again i we're we're probably not done with post mortems but i i'm i've been hard on kegan but i almost this past week or so, I've been like, he shouldn't have been putting that spot.

And then it goes up the ladder to say, all right, well, who's making these decisions? What's going wrong on the American side? Ignoring that for a second to say, what's going right on the European side? What is the infrastructure that's in place? We refer to this system. We refer to this culture that exists on Team Europe. I talked about it a little bit on Sunday, but you'd be better off explaining what the infrastructure and setup looks like that puts these guys in a position to succeed from the DP World Tour

perspective. Yeah, it's probably not. the most exciting part of the Ryder Cup to talk about the connection, but I think to your point, it is so valid that the infrastructure that leads Team Europe is the infrastructure that leads the DP World Tour. So that's everything from our role on the content side to the media side, to the physios, to the doctors, to everyone's, you know, it's, we have these meetings and catch-ups and meet and greets with players throughout the whole year. We're not in the PGA of America's position where we're trying to all of a sudden last minute ask for

access or this is how we might do things. You know, a lot of the stuff that you see at the Ryder Cup from the European side is tested at a European Tour event or at the Sevi Cup or the Team Cup that it's now called, you know, captaincy, meetings, dinners, socials, team room atmosphere, you know, the doctors, the analytics, whatever it is, you know, it's not just the week of. It's very much the end of like a two-year process. And I still remember, so 2018 was the writer cup I probably worked on the most behind the scenes. And Donald was, Luke Donald was brought in there as a sort of assistant to come in.

And I met Luke then, and I remember how seriously he took it then. And you could tell that as the Americans had for a while, and they've gone away with it, gone away from it. There was this, you know, you pay your rights to help the team here. And then you're an assistant there. And then potentially you're in that pool that might be captains. It's funny now to look back and think how he wasn't meant to be captain, what, three years ago, and then all of a sudden turns into what Keegan says is the greatest Rotter Cup captain ever. But yeah, it's a huge machine, and genuinely, I'm not, everyone talks about the secret sauce of Team Europe.

That is certainly a huge aspect of it. There's all these different ways you can look at it, but the comfortability that these players have in the team room with the people that they're traveling with, the people that are telling them to do things plays a huge role. And it means that, you know, Luke talked about it a lot. I just want my players to play the best when they get there. And you can debate how that's possible. But as anybody knows, it plays golf, you just want to be comfortable. So all these little things that they do to help the players feel comfortable.

It's hard to put in strokes gained or wins and losses, but I think it's a factor. It's 100%. I mean, there's a reason why I think Rory shows up from the first T Friday morning, just ready to perform. And Tommy Fleetwood, as great of a player he is, turns into an even better version of himself in these scenarios. And it's a, it's a, you've given a bunch of examples. You're a great follow on social media on the everything app, one of the few last good follows there is out there on that app. I can't dedicate time to it anymore, man.

I respect how you're able to do it. But you gave a bunch of just examples of small details this week that Team Europe got right. But I want to go back to 2018, if we can. and I don't remember if this story originates from you or if Tommy was the one that told this on the podcast but Tommy's getting ready to play his first Rider Cup and when he goes that week of and is hitting the first tee shot on the first hole

that's not the first time he's been there I'm not talking about playing the French Open set the scene for that example I think you're nodding as in you know what I'm talking about of example of team you're willing to go the extra level again we're in the team with them we're trying to think of ideas of what we can do to tell the story, and we'd found this photo of Tommy and Finno at Glen Eagles. They'd taken a selfie on the first T as fans, and we thought

it's a nice thing. Four years later, they're now in the Ryder Cup together. Let's go and take the selfie. But beyond that, let's film them. So we went in at 6 a.m. on the Wednesday, or the Thursday maybe even, so the day before the first day of the Ryder Cup. And we said to them, you go into the grandstand. It's completely empty. We're going to video you from afar, but we're going to pick up your conversation. Just go and soak up the moment, take the selfie. That was all we're asking. It was a nice little piece and it was fine. Then I'm waiting at the stairs. Finno comes out. And I said, where's Tommy? And he said, oh, he's got a meeting. And I said, you know, he's got a meeting on the first T. It was like at 6 a.m. There's nobody here. And he said, yeah, he's meeting his mental

coach. And so I went around and looked up. And they were at the very top of the grandstand. And when they came back down, they were going to do their team photos and I think a couple more press conferences and things. But I caught the mental coach, and he wasn't going to tell me everything that they were talking about. But he said he wanted Tommy and Tommy wanted to go through the emotions. He was going to feel walking onto this first tee, which was the biggest ever. He knew he was going to be in one of the early pairings. And he knew that the emotions would be high. He hadn't played a writer cut before.

They talked about his fears. They talked about the emotions. They talked about what he might be able to do to focus on. And then, I mean, hindsight is 2020, but he goes out and wins his first four matches with Francesco and builds a legacy that now makes them statistically the greatest Rider Cup player. But that was happening the day before his very first Ryder Cup shot. And I was struck. I still think about it to this day, especially when you see the first tee even at Bethpage and just the mayhem that goes on to how you could channel everything to then hit a good golf shot. and then have a good week.

And that was just kind of a small example of what he felt was important the night before. Well, as much as we are going to, you know, praise a deserved team Europe here, it's not like they win this every time. And you were, you know, involved in the European tour between 2016 and 2018. They got beat pretty handily. I'm willing to throw 2021 out in this. The COVID year was just a weird year. And that was obviously Europe was up against a tall task there.

But something happened, it seems like, after 20, that set Europe on an even better path. I'm wondering if you can speak to any of that, whether it's more connectivity in the statistical side of it or, you know, what did Thomas Bjorn learn from Darren Clark's captain see to make sure that Europe was going to improve from there? Yeah, it's funny when you see the captains, Team Europe is such a strong bond and all the, everything you hear,

but there is this funny aspect where every captain that comes in wants their legacy to be different and it's funny you come in and you think but we've just done really well like that worked really well but they come in and they just don't want to be given a like you know somebody else's playbook and say oh just run their plays because that worked they just they they the reason they're alphas you know all these guys have main character vibes and they want to sort of impose their own thing the one thing i'll say to that era of the writer Cup was kind of the embracing of Eduardo Molinari so you know that just coincided with that exact time the core set up stuff at um la golf national which i know you've you've talked about before

and and we did we've done videos on before but the level of detail there with position of grandstands corners of fairways green speeds pin locations but to give you an example going into 2018 i was talking to this at dinner with some of the guys the other day they have a captain's app that has all the data that you can imagine you know it has it has a really cool trigger that is when a player gets within one shot of a lead how do they perform on the next three or four holes so it's hard to replicate rider cut pressure but their metric was we want to see when a guy sees himself on the leaderboard do they just string out pars do they put the foot down do they crumble whatever it is so they that was called like a pressure monitor so they're able to see that but one of the

other things was they had strokes gained approach broken down by distance and green shape so i remember and if you think of la golf national has got very distinct sort of pear-shaped greens that go different ways so they're able to say you know from 175 to 200 with a green that goes from front left to back right martin keimer is is half a shot better than player x and we're going to suit so if we can fiddle the foursum's pairings or even in four ball tell him that and if he positions himself there and listen i think everyone could appreciate you can get bogged down in that but what i think that dodo is is very good at and what luke especially is very good at is they take in all the information and they just deliver to the players what they kind of need to know and

they'll you know all these players are doing their own different things but when it comes down to it's just giving them the confidence that if they're pulling driver on, I don't know, the ninth hole at Bethpage, that it's the right decision and, like, you know, data suggests, yeah, a tick. Now go and do your thing. But yeah, I would certainly say that Dodo's influence can't be, can't be overlooked from exactly that era of 2018 and onwards. So compare that to, you know, Ted Scott, identifying that, that Scotty and Russell Henley needed to switch. I was going to ask, is Ted Scott the new Dodo on the American team. Is he going to start crunching some numbers and maybe fighting some people,

you know, in Adair? Who knows? That's funny. Dodo, in terms of like the European version of that is a compliment. You would also use the term Dodo to like denigrate somebody as well. Like you would call them a Dodo and then it's somebody that's not so bright. So it's so funny how that, you know, gets used now. But if, all right, I'm going to propose a hypothetical situation to you here. I'm going to put a big, and you're wearing a Europe flag around your neck. You're dressed in blue and gold today. You are a European through and through. You got the, oh, you wore the, he's got a big letter hat on that you were hiding from me. I'm going to take it off because I only ever bought this to just wear, like, put next to my laptop

in the media center just to mark my colors. But yeah. There's no cheering in the press room. Come on. You guys are bad betrayals of that. Anyways, we, you are offered $10 million to be the United States Rider Cup. captain, but you have to win the Ryder Cup in Ireland. Let's say you're again, you're incentivized to flip, all right? You're going to, you're flipping over to the American side. How would you go about setting up the infrastructure you're talking about on Team that's necessary to beat an opponent like Europe?

And I'm phrasing that intentionally to say, like, you don't just need to win a golf event. You have to go up against a team that is willing to spend an incredible amount of time and effort, including the players, being so dedicated to this event. That's different than just facing a neutral team. I think that's important. How would you go about setting up that infrastructure? It's a great question. It's a great question.

$10 million is a lot money to do it. But yeah, one of the, it's hard when you say, I've just talked about how the infrastructure, the machine of the DP World Tour is just a constant to the next cycle. Whereas, you know, the PGA Tour are. aren't, you know, invested in helping these guys necessarily. They get, obviously, they're a little payment and a good writer cup is good for the PJ tour, don't get me wrong, but there's not that consistency that goes throughout it. And Keegan can have all these meetups that they want and they can try things out at

the President's Cup, but I genuinely think you need to sit down the core now and sort of try and get them to be the leaders. I have this feeling, and you tell me if I'm wrong, I'll put a question. to you, do you think Scotty would have given up the claret jug this year to win the Ryder Cup? No. Do you think Rory would have given up the green jacket to win an away Ryder Cup? No.

Okay. So I actually, I think he might have, because he thinks he'll get another shot at the Masters. But I genuinely think the- I think the Masters is different for Roan. I think you could say, you could say, like, if he'd won the PGA this year, would he give that up to win the Ryder Cup? I think you could convince me on that. Yeah, I just, and that's not to say, again,

who knows how much that plays out and trying to hole a 10-foot pot on Sunday on the 13th hole of Reuter Cup. But you do get the feeling that the Americans, from the setup, from their childhood, from the way they grow up, from the way they get on the PJA tour, are very insular, they're very individual teams,

whereas this idea that the Europeans are just connected throughout the year. And not because of a bond, not because they're necessarily best mate. but because they're coinciding with this team that is, you know, when I think of Team Europe, people mention Team Europe. I used to feel a part of it at one point, and I felt it was 60, 80 people deep. It wasn't, you know, the 12 or the core six or whoever it was.

So to me, it kind of starts with getting the players invested. And listen, me and you've had conversations in the past. You can give players way too much power and they suddenly go off into weird directions. And me and you had a conversation on the golf course. course last week about about the doctors at the European side and the doctors were saying like they do a lot of research to try and figure out the best ways for recovery, whatever it is, but they say they take a lot of ideas from the players and he was he was open to it. He's like some of the ideas the players come up with are ludicrous but we take it like that's not going to help anyone but we take

it on board and we tell them why or why not whereas on the American side the players are so powerful like the you know player power over there is you know if they wanted a certain captain or you've seen it in the past if they want a pick you know the pick is going to go kind of to who the players won and and maybe the pairings that way so i don't know i kind of feel like a lot of it starts with the players i haven't heard a lot of the american players say the things that you expect them to say and i know jordan a few years ago said we need to go over there and win one and it didn't happen but even in the press conference there i know kegan was falling on the sword a lot and the guys were saying we just got outplayed but it didn't seem like there

was quite the quite that i don't know the anger the upset the frustration that what can we do like this is on us to try and figure this out to get next time around that we can you know win over there so it's a long-winded way of saying it's a very difficult question to ask but i do think to your point i do think it is more of what you do away from rider cups and away from the the month around it that sort of pays dividends. Well, I'm laughing here, too, because this just happened a few minutes ago. You sent out a tweet earlier detailing, you know, kind of some of the details that, you know, have kind of been leaked and reported and things that Teen Europe was paying attention to.

The doctor thing, the blah, blah, blah. And Kevin Kisner, one of the assistant captains, I don't know if you've even seen this yet. Kevin Kisner, one of the assistant captains, replied to your tweet and said something along the lines. I'll get it word for word to make sure I quote it properly. He said, weird. We did all the same things. but don't go advertising.

And part of me is just like, want to be like, okay, hey, man, I don't want you obsessed with the shampoo in the hotel and blocking out light at the doors if you can't set up the golf course properly. Like if you can't, this is about Europe being so far along in the process of having all the important things locked down that they are able to pay attention to the small details that might make a fraction of a difference come blah, blah, blah day versus, you know, you're talking about team doctors on the European side that said, you've got to get here.

We're going to be here in the Eastern Time Zone two weeks. We're going to be here. Nobody's leaving Eastern Time Zone during any of this time. And the U.S. showed up in Rome and complained about jet lag, as if the dates of that event weren't set 10 years prior. Like, we knew when this was going to happen. And I just, that's such a wide gap to try to close. And I do think, like, there's going to be times when the U.S. is more talented than Europe

and wins the Ryder Cup. I do not think Europe's going to win the next seven of these. But I think this Ryder Cup could have been won and should have been won by the U.S. on home soil with a proper process. I have so much respect for what Europe does. That is in no way meant to diminish their talent level or their ability. But if you just got to a somewhat, hey, I'm not costing my team through messing up some of these details, their talent should have won out on home soil.

Would I have taken this U.S. team on the road at a dare man. These two teams played at Adair Manor. Like last week, what I have taken the U.S., I absolutely would not have. I think they really need to change things to be able to win on the road. But there's just no excuse for blowing a home one man. You've seen up front, the details that you're in control of the home course, there's no possible ways you'd ever punt on that advantage. Yeah, I mean, I'll have to check in with Kisner and slide in and have a conversation.

But one of the things I've thought about, and I spoke with you and some others last week, about is not necessarily the number and the minutia of what all those decisions are, but sometimes it's just the quality of those decisions. And one thing that I noticed, and I don't know if you picked up on it, was the Americans on Friday walked out with the flag, the pairings like grab or given a flag and walk out with the flag. And from what I could tell, I don't think they knew they were going to be doing that. And so Bryson and J.T. come out and it's draped over them and it's a cool patriotic moment as they walk out. And then Scotty and Russell kind of each hold it and it's not really working.

They can't walk together. So Scotty takes it and then he's holding it. He realizes he's about to sort of drop. He hands it to an assistant captain. And then the next day, they don't do that. And it's changed and that's a tiny little thing. But I'm just like, you know, they're about to go and hit the first shot of the Ryder Cup. And they, that sprung upon them and they don't know what they're doing.

Whereas, you know, I guarantee that Luke Donald told them, exactly how many seconds to wait until you can walk out after or try and walk quickly so the booze can overtake the cheers whatever it is but you know it's just yeah it's a thousand different decisions and yeah you can try and make the shampoo smell better or whatever it is but the quality of each decision and the reason you're doing it is is kind of is what can pay off and again it's just these are tiny things probably 95% of them make no difference but what donald wants and what Keegan probably wants with it all is that the players can just sort of co-so they're not having

these decisions stop points on the way. They're not having a conversation on Friday night saying, I think we may be teed off on the wrong holes today. What do you think of what tomorrow? I felt like I was hitting a lot of long shots in. I thought, you know, they don't have to, like the Europeans are just going off to their little ice bath and their little snooze pod in the team room.

and yeah there's just resting without having to make decisions but yeah oh man what was what was we haven't really talked about about sunday what was sunday like for you i'm not going to lie it sprung on me way later than it should have that this was a thing that this was not over uh you i don't know did you hear justin rose say this quote that you that you've tweeted out or where did you get this this lie tell me about that so i i started sunday like everyone did this is a this is relatively over and all the conversations about where is the winning point going to go oh they put rory out four they think you know they're going to get the two and a half points there and i sort i sort of thought it would be sort of six six i just assumed it would it would sort of level itself

out and be even so i'll take you through my process was i i thought i would follow justin rose for most of the back nine hopefully he gets his win and he rides off potentially in his last rider cup five and no he's going to get a phone call in two months asking him to to be captain, whether he wants to accept it, maybe winning three years, sorry, sorry, undefeated, sorry, yeah, he would finish undefeated and he would get this phone call and he probably doesn't take it because he thinks he's playing too well. But regardless, it could be his last Ryder Cup. He put so much into trying to be ready. And so long story short, I notice he's down and I think, I'll take in a couple of other matches. Then I'm like,

nah, this is my, this is my angle. I'm going to go and follow. So I walk up the last six or seven holes with him, obviously the first group that comes in. They both have the pot. I've got my phone out ready to record you, so I've got a little memory of Rose last pot, and he's going to do his, he's going to point in me. This time, it's going to be me. You, Jamie, you. It was you. 2018. But he misses and Cam makes it. And suddenly there, you could feel a tiny shift. They're like, ah, this hasn't really happened this week where they spun it at the end, or the back nine didn't go their way. We didn't see a whole lot of change on back.

nine's and so yeah rose comes over and funnily enough he was standing next to uh francesco mullinari and luke donald the three of them were stood right in front of me looking over a green and i nudged somebody i knew from the team europe and said which one of those you think's going to be captain in 27 but at that point rose looked at the leaderboard huge big leaderboard at the first saw at one point there was six blue now there's only one and he it was an american backroom it was one of the caddies from the American team that is driving and Puggy. He just went over and nudged him and just looked him in the eye and went

squeaky bum time. And this is after one match. So you think, oh, oh, surely. And he was saying it probably a tiny bit. I don't think he fully believed it at that point. But then I hovered on 18 and watched another group come through

and Bryson holds a pot. And then I watched another group come through and J.T. holds a pot. And all of a sudden you're like, you're just kind of running out And then there wasn't going to be somebody coming to 18 for a while and you sort of look back and go, oh, well, if all those halves work out, yeah, I mean, we're still, you'll laugh. I was like, my like therapist on Sunday was the data golf probability. So I was like, oh, we're still 78%. I need to calm the F down. Like, what the hell? And then you just look around and it was just one by one you're running out of bullets. Like, oh, that's not going great. Shane Larry's two down with four to play. You know, Tyrol's just gone one down. Bob's like struggling. Bob's four-putting. And so, yeah, it got beyond real with probably the last hour that everyone would have watched. And you could completely sense it.

One of the interesting things to watch at Ryder Cup is where the team, the assistant captains are. Because you've got 12 matches. You only have maybe a captain and four assistants. So quite often you see, oh, they're with somebody in their pod or they're with the guy that's maybe needing the help. and they were they were sort of like darting around i don't know which way to go i don't know i think to beginning the day they're probably where am i going to go and spray champagne on the green like am i going to be on 16 then it suddenly became i need to make sure that shane's like in a good frame of mind to to get this over the line but even when Shane was over that pot i was

just yeah just not in a comfortable point of view i'm glad i'm not a whoop subscriber so i didn't couldn't loot back and see that I was having a cardiac arrest for the last hour. But it, it, having been on that side of it of, you know, the long odds, it can't possibly flip,

can't possibly flip. And then when it gets late and you just realize how much things are going to change with one pot, like Shane's putt was massive, man. I know there were points that settled after that. But if that goes in, I'm sorry,

Hatt and Morcala, and maybe, maybe Morcau would have choked it worse. I don't know. But like, golf plays out differently if you know the Ryder Cup is dependent on these, these incoming shots, really. Ed, Shane may, you can't tell me it didn't affect Russell Henley, who played an unbelievable match and he left two putts. He would just never leave either of those two puts short in a PJ tour event, ever. Neither one, 17 and 18. And he's going to, he's got, he's got, he's got, he's got some plaque for it. But man, you look at it. He played,

he and Shane played the best golf of anyone on the golf course that day. He got a tough draw. And it didn't finish great for him but man that was uh that was an intense sunday and honestly it took until seeing some of the european players next to 17 green a little later in that day that looks on their faces before i was like oh oh oh this is this is actually real like it flipped in like a 30 minute span for me i'm like dude there's there's no possible are they going to get to 20 they can get to 20 still and then oh man that was uh that was intense what what do you do about the envelope rule? It was, I kind of felt Keegan at no point questioned Victor's injury.

I don't know heard anybody on the U.S. side questioning Victor's injury. Some fans are going to do that, but that's natural. Kegan said, look, you know, he didn't make that as an excuse in the press conference, but he said he thinks the rule should change for the next one. Luke was asked about it almost into like hey Keegan said the rule needs to change and he came to the defense like hey

it's benefited the U.S. before the question really wasn't framed didn't set up very well for the context all that to say like I'm racking my brain on what to do here full point if your guy needs to sit out seems harsh but at this

spot when you only needed two and a half points a half point was guaranteeing a half point was critical and it was a unique situation and i didn't think anything of it when it happened because it didn't look like it was going to be close but it was almost close but i don't have a great answer for what should happen do you have any thought on the envelope rule i don't have a i don't have a great answer on it but i will say luke Donald's answer was was like tremendous i don't think people know who he is until he answers questions like that you know the you know what

you think about kegan saying the envelope rule should change he knew years score players, what they injured. He knew everything. So, yeah. Revision's history on some of it. Somebody that did a deep dive into the 91 Rider Cup. Revision is history on how Europe handled that envelope rule in 91. Oh, no, no.

I remember there was, yeah, I wrote in a thread like Montu's was calling it. I think what just, I will get off course with that, but Steve Pig got injured before the Ryder Cup played a match and then pulled out for singles. So it seemed like, oh wait, you're able to play. you went down 17 against Langer and Monty and now you can't play tomorrow. That's whereas Hovlin's injury came on the night of or during that round with Bob or whatever it was. I'll say, I'll say this, that it just almost feels like it just doesn't need to be an issue. I know Joel, who we both know at Digest, suggested that you bring a replacement.

And then I was like, you can't pick a top name and say you're not playing, but you might be there. Part of me thinks it's even, I would probably make it where. just nobody gets the point for that. So it's still even odds, but it's just weird that Harris English gets a half point, and he's at one point, it's got more points than Scotty Schiffler kind of thing. But it's a weird situation to be in.

I will say, and I think you'll have seen it last week, and I don't think fans get a real sort of appreciation for it on TV because you're just cutting to the shots. But when these guys finish on Sunday, they're so drained. It's like you wouldn't believe. Like they walk off. and their whole body language, their existence is just, they're exhausted. And yeah, it's five rounds and three days for some of them.

But it's a lot of effort. It's a lot of prep. It's not a lot of sleep. It's not a lot of rest. And yeah, I kind of, I find it interesting, the Ryder Cup setup that you allow it to get to a point where it's just this, I kind of, I don't know how you find it, but the vibe on Sunday is often quite funny because the players are on their own and they're tired.

So the emotions are kind of not really there to begin with. obviously they ramp up late but kind of feels like some of these guys and they even admit it they're playing on a bit of fumes there on Sunday but yeah the envelope rule I don't think it will change I think it's just one of those things like not a lot changes at the writer cup I always think they should do the president's cup pairings where you know you can go back and forth and like surely that brings in more interest analysis backroom team everything but I've asked about that before and that's not going to change anytime soon so I think get ready to see the envelopes and in a dare here's this if you my only suggestion to it if you are the defending champ

and you and you have the player that gets injured you don't get to retain with a tie that was my only thing of like all right you go right you went outright yeah if even if you're just got to 14 and a half i'd been like all right this this didn't matter and obviously it didn't end up mattering but if it had in 1414 through the envelope and you had to retain that would have they would have i almost feel like as Europe, you wouldn't have been able to celebrate the right way. Like, you wouldn't have felt like you want it, right? And I still think we haven't had a tie in a while. And I think there's just there's still something to looking into like,

do we want one of these things to end in a tie and ended retained? Like, I don't know. That still seems like one we should maybe get ahead of at some point. To your point, not a lot changes in this event. And it's probably unlikely to, but it still just won't ever feel right. I don't think. But anyways, yeah. I think it there's something you could again this is unrealistic but like if you win at home and then go tie on the road I think maybe you should keep it but like if you tie at home I don't think there should be any maybe that's a way to mitigate home field advantage the tie goes to the home team how about that instead of retaining yeah the retaining thing and even I was asking some of the broadcasters and guys from sky sports and stuff which part are you making a big deal of this this Sunday is it going to be the retained part or is it going to be the wind part and they were saying you

Usually they come separate, so it'll be, we'll make a big deal of them returning and then we'll make a big deal. I just thought that doesn't really, shouldn't have to be the case. But as I've got an ex-colleague of mine over here who's messaging me saying, you know, giving me the envelope, asterix, win, chat. And I just went back with the motto of if you abstain, you retain. So that was my motto for the week for Victor. But I felt for him. I thought somebody might ask him the question in the presser because he looked like, he would uh i don't know if anyone picked up on donald saying that that he got emotional having to

make the the hovlin got emotional making when making a decision with luke on on sunday morning and he was getting a bit emotional then again but he's a smiley guy so i can see why you do the zabruder film of him lifting the trophy and saying oh his shoulder looks fine no i'll throw that out like what it's like with his golf swing and the way he plays and you can lift a golf trophy and not be able to swing the club needed to you know to the top level of your ability i again i don't question the injury it was always going to be hard for american fans to see him fistpump the way he did on 17 in his last match and then have him be injured like it's that's a tough thing to marry but i don't think there's any shenanigans especially when you're up that big too like you'd rather be out you're not thinking

it's going to come down to that there's no shenanigans and like making sure you get the half point there's but uh anyways something i one thing i did laugh at and notice and i almost i wish it would have gone the other way here was when Shane made the put every all the European players that were behind 18 green refused to run out in the green in any capacity like they they like we're not going to run out there and I think they should have like it was over at that point right there was no Brookline situation there and like Shane was like running around waiting for somebody to celebrate with them and they ran out you know it when Kimer made it in 2012 which guaranteed the the retain and they they didn't this time and that i feel like we were robbed of

that they should have ran out on the green as an american fan i would have celebrated that there's a mutual friend of ours that's in team europe and if i'll send you the clip afterwards but if you watch he's standing in front of the team and when shane's jumping all over he he's like the uh william wallace and brave arch just holding everyone back but yeah i just uh but Yeah, just let Shane do it on his own. But I was thinking the same thing. I thought, you know, to your point earlier, would you have been satisfied with the retain?

Personally, not really. Like, it would have felt like, oh, the US will still get the headlines here. So I wanted somebody to come. I wanted Tyrell to come birdie. I was obviously pulling from Bob to try and get it. But that to me felt like, right, we still need to. Like, Shane's like put the nightmare situation out, but we still want the good celebration.

So I was a little bit like, is anyone running out on the green? don't run on the road like everyone was taking it to the same spot and it was right in that corner where everyone's standing but yeah funny that they didn't put you on the spot with this who do you think the captains are on both sides for for ireland 2027 so i think yeah i think i think tiger will will pick it up i think i think the idea of an away writer cup for him with his psyche with his going into enemy territory and trying to win it overseas his relationship with JP and what he's played in the proam for so many years and um kind of coming in

as a bit of a savior could do it the European one's tricky because I think Justin Rose should probably be captain but as I just said to you and I said to people he I don't think people quite understand it is two years away but he will have to be asked about it this year and he's just finished runner up at the masters he almost nearly one last year and it's and I was just going to say the kegan thing is not any any indication too like you you can't do both man like you can't do both i'm sorry and he was asked about it at wentworth you know what do you think about being captain and he gave a lot of praise to luke and he said it's a funny one with captains that you either get asked too early or you get asked too late you get asked too early and you think you can still play or you get asked

too late and you've relaxed into your post golf life and then you're suddenly then taking up a full-time job again and you see the way that the donald's on it so i think rose will get a call but i don't think he'll take it. Donald certainly didn't shut it down. He said he's going to enjoy tonight and think about it. And when you go elsewhere, the only other two candidates that I've heard people talk about is, you know, Francesco, if it's just a case of, you know, the team's there and he doesn't maybe, he doesn't have maybe the charisma and the sort of charm of everyone else, but he's done it. He sort of paid his way to it. And then I've heard other people saying, maybe it's another one for podrig he got a kind of an odd one to do being covid being

whistling straits and and just the end of that sort of era of that team and could he come and tiger versus podrig would be would be interesting but i think if you were asking me it would probably be um tiger versus a non-donald i just don't i don't know like luke donald's going to get a knighthood we'll be referencing him as sir luke donald in five one three in a row no one no captain from europe's ever one three in a row he could be the first to do that. Yeah, but yeah, I just don't know that it's additive to the legacy. I don't, I think that's just one of, I said Jamie Kennedy's stat on Twitter.

That's not, that's not something that people necessarily really care about. So I just don't know. But yeah, it would be interesting to see, but I, I'd be surprised if it wasn't Eldrick on the other side. I'd be, I'd be curious what the U.S. is going to do. My understanding from what I'd heard was they had decided prior to this week, they were planning on, I believe it to be Brantznetter. to be the next one.

I don't know if this disaster causes them to change plans and change course. It'll be, I think it was a big enough disaster to warrant that. Granted, I have no idea what Snetiker would be like as a leader. I also am not convinced like just bringing Tiger in as the answer and that paper's over anything. But that's a conversation for a different day.

I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to get to that. But Jamie, always appreciate your contributions to the Ryder Cup discourse. Congratulations. Well deserved. Hope you've enjoyed the celebration. Thanks for spending some time with us as well. And best of luck to you.

Thank you very much. It was good to see you out there last week and we're on to Adair.