No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 734: Last Four European Ryder Cups

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

It's time for another deep dive from Soly and KVV - this time we look back at the last four Ryder Cups on European soil. From the blowout win at the K Club in 2006 to Le Golf National in 2018, we examine every detail in each of the home European victories from the most memorable moments to the many shortcomings from the Americans, the controversies, the fashion.... or lack thereof, and a ton more. Settle in for this one! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Sully here. This is not a recap podcast from this past weekend. It is Labor Day weekend.

We have recorded this episode in advance. We record on Friday, right before the weekend. We're releasing it on Sunday night ahead of Labor Day. If you are traveling, hopefully you'll enjoy this list in Kevin Van Volkumberg and I dove into the last four European Ryder cups and laughed a lot at the hilarious fails by the United States team and dove into all kinds of stuff. Then we do a lot of these if you're new to this, we do a series of major championship look backs and we're getting ready to publish our 1996 majors. And we said, wait a second here, this Ryder Cup thing might be a little bit more topical.

A lot of Ryder Cup stuff to react to. We're going to record an episode with the Ryder Cup four. As many people are calling us on Tuesday, get TC's full download, of course, on his triumphant day. I think that one's going to be must listen stuff. I haven't feeling that one. That one might pop off a little bit. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Titleist.

The number one ball and golf, and I have to read this. I, you, you do quote, got to hand it to him. The choice of vision fund extraordinaire, Ludwig Aberg, which I also have been saying Aberg wrong, which we might, that might be on TC. We might need to hold him to the fire on that, if that is wrong. Ludwig gained more than 15 shots, T-degree in this week

to win the Omega European Masters. I'm just going to go ahead and say that he's going to be a Ryder Cup pick as I record this on Sunday evening. That is not reporting it as news, but I would be absolutely stunned if that was not the case. While TC plays the Pro V1, I really thought he admired Ludwig more than this, but TC plays the Pro V1. Ludwig plays the Pro V1 X. He likes to put spin on the ball, prefers the higher flight of the X coming into firm greens, you know, that they face out on the pro tours that we don't necessarily face. He loves the extra spin, the Pro V1 X gives them

around the greens. If you're not fit for a golf ball, if you've never consulted with anybody about what kind of golf ball you should be playing, you are losing shots. I can promise you that. My favorite story to tell is Casey, our resident higher handicap,

not for very long, she's on her way down. Kind of had the feeling that she shouldn't be playing ProV1 just because she was a 20 plus handicap. She learned about the ProV1 X has learned has been able to hold greens now has able to get more loft into the greens and able to hold more greens thanks to the ProV1 X golf ball choosing the right golf balls all about flight spin and field. Titles has a choice for every player looking to play their best had a to titleist.com to find out which ball is right for your game. Let's get to the pod. The Homer, Jingoistic Americans are here to regale the tales of triumphs from the United States side.

In the Ryder Cup, we are going to recap the last four times the United States has crossed the Atlantic Ocean to do battle with our European counterparts. Surely it went really well, and there's not any trends that we'll see over these four. My name is Sally, joining me as always on these recaps, doing a little break up from our major championship ones to do a Ryder Cup one, as we descend on Rome here in the coming weeks. Kevin Van Balkenberg, hello KBV, how are you?

So I am doing great. I have a rain suit here with me that is totally permeable. I wanted to make sure I got the full experience. And so the water is going to run right through it. And sink into my skin. I, we kind of came up with this idea a little bit on a win this past week. And I cannot believe we haven't thought to do this before. I know we did an oral history of the Ryder Cup back in 2018 that covers some of this, but I think we've got a little bit better at mining information and digging stuff up and reliving it. And if you remember everything from five years ago and want to turn

this off, that's totally fine. But also we need to look back at 2018, which was not included in that one. And that's going to be one that you're covering. But oh, man, is it even worse than I remember. I lived through this. I mean, I literally covered, this is the first one of these kind of recaps that I covered the event. And I was just like an awe of how much I had forgotten already, how much sort of fun had unspooled. Someone at some point said in the 2018 one,

we really need like a 30 for 30 about this. And I totally agree, like, you could make a great, like real documentary about what a disaster the 2018 Ryder Cup was. I don't think you needed to clarify the year in that, right? Because 2014, you can make a documentary about that one. I'm sure there probably will be what at some point. And, yeah, gosh, we're going to start. So yeah, to recap, we're going to do 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 Ryder Cup. So we're going to alternate on them yeah, to recap, we're going to do 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 Ryder Cup. So we're going to alternate on them. We could have gone farther back. Could have done

97. Could have done 2002. Those were also US losing efforts. But I don't, maybe that's the reason we should have done it. I don't have a ton of memories from that. I don't think those were as spectacular disasters as what has happened the last four times, which I think the closest the US has been, I mean, obviously Celtic Manor was very close. I guess I was about to speak out of my ass there, but otherwise the closest was 16 and a half, 11 and a half in 2014, which is stark. It's, it's, it's amazing. Celtic Manor and Medina, of course, were the last two close rider cups, but I don't any macro takeaways before we dive into 2006. Yeah, it's, I don't know.

It's funny to think about this stuff. And it was actually really educational for me, just because of the conversations that we were having this week about chemistry and match play and whether there's a body system and all that stuff. And you can see it seemed like going into 18 that they had sort of eliminated some of the mistakes that had previously built up to that. And I think even the coverage of some of the predictions that I'll enjoyably get into.

Or like, oh, yeah, the US has got this figured out. Like I'm confident that they've got this figured out. And it is clear like they did not have it figured out. And so it's a good lesson, I think, because we think about Italy, about whether the Americans really do have a better plan this time. I think they do. And I think that learning from the mistakes of the past is always helpful, whether it's history or whether it sports.

But I'm, I don't know. I mean, you can see some of the things sort of slowly unfolding and always in retrospect, it seems like, oh no kidding, of course like Phil Mikkelson was a bad fit for this. But so many things kind of, you know, happened in the lead up to that that it would made it impossible to almost say like, oh yeah, of course, like even you and I did not predict as much as three or sort of Phil skeptics when it comes to the Ryder Cup did not predict that it would be as a mess as it was. And I don't know, it is also fun for me to look back at some of the people who defended

Phil and now hate his guts from the Livestow. And I can sort of see, you can see just the way that his reputation was still beloved back then and how polarizing it is now. So that's one of the things that I took away from. I think I did. I think there's going to be a lot of fill was right in this and not sarcastically. I mean, I, I, as much as I think a lot of what Phil has said in recent years as bullshit, a lot of what he said around the writer cup, I find myself nodding with.

And I got some quotes from some interviews we've done over the years that we're going to sprinkle in. If people are tuning into this right now and looking for a little bit of insight into how, you know, maybe we can start with some of the Italy stuff as we go into that to say, the US process has evolved. And I think hopefully we can lay a little bit of that out as we go from 2014. We're not going to cover 2016 in this, but into 2018. It has definitely evolved before that. I don't know if you can point any one thing in 2018 that's like, here's what went wrong here. I imagine it's a combination of a lot of things. I think mostly lack of preparation for that golf course.

It's really interesting here. What I think, as we sit here now, people were asking for some reaction from us from a couple of people who were for the captain's picks. And I was kind of out of the opinion, like, hey, man, I think we gotta cover the captain's picks on the US side pretty adequately over the coming weeks. Recent weeks, Sam Burns was kind of out of the opinion, like, hey, man, I think we got to cover the captain's picks on the US side. Pretty adequately over the coming weeks, recent weeks, Sam Burns was a little bit of a surprise, I think, for a lot of us mainly because we put a lot of

weight in Cam Young or the Fred Couples Cam Young statement from July, which I know I personally did. I kind of just said, all right, well, that he must obviously know something. But that was a bit of a surprise. But I think I've been a little surprised at how stark the backlash is for these captains picks from alleged US fans. Like, I'm a US fan, I root for the US team. US fans on social media make me not want to root for this team. I mean, I get it. There's a lot of fed up and pent up energy after losing six of these in Europe and a row. But man, it seems like a really, really, really short memory for how dominant that team was in 2021 and how this, well, roughly the same group of guys has taken it upon

themselves to change the culture, changed the way they've done things and have been successful so far in a small sample size. And this is the first time this team without fill without tiger is crossing over the Atlantic. Only four of these guys, I think, have played maybe five. I forget, have played in a European writer cup before. And it just seems like American golf fans have absolutely no patients or trust in how they're putting this together. They know no weight in like the fact that hey, maybe since 2014, things have evolved in this. And I think 2018 has a lot to do with that. I think my big takeaway too is that no matter how many times you try to sort of say,

Hey, Matchplay is just different. Like, you know, a lot of the reason why Justin Thomas is not playing right now is well right now is because he's making a bunch of dumb like doubles and mistakes. And so like that doesn't matter as much in match play. And you have to take on risks that you might not otherwise take on in stroke play. And it's just the emotion of it is extremely different. And I think over and over and over again, as you look at these next four, like these four Ryder cups that we're going to look at, that's the biggest takeaway for me. It's like match play just a different beast.

Man, if you think that stroke play, it does not matter how many, I feel like we do this every two years, or someone's like, oh, we gotta take this guy, he just won the Northern Trust, he just won the Genese, he just won this. No, man, that really doesn't matter that much. Like, it just doesn't.

And I think that education, it drives people crazy, but I think we're still gonna keep making those points because I think that we believe in it, you know? And I think what I have a lot of pent up angst about, a lot of this, and I think the thing I'm most angst about is the really disingenuous stuff I read about. So I like, what is your thing about how you would put a guy on the team?

Is it stats, no, or is it gut? What is it? It's like, no one would be that black and white about all of this. It's an extremely gray process. There's pers, like, I don't know. Wait, the percentages of how you would want to do it, but team chemistry factors into this fit for the golf course factors into it. Chemistry, like not only like do these two guys like each other and get along and provide good energy together, do their games compliment each other in a partner format? Or, hey, do they tend to birdie the same holes? If that's the case,

then they're probably not gonna play together in four ball. Or, hey, if blah, blah, blah's distance and accuracy off the tee is gonna play well on these odd holes, and so and so's putting is gonna play into that blah, blah, blah. I don't know how to match all that stuff up. I don't have the answers to so much of that, but what I do have is a trust in the

US's process way more than I have in the past. I've dug in a lot of into how it actually comes together, how they involve consultants and statistics and how they do scenario planning and all kinds of stuff to say like, Hey, I can't sit here and like scream that Keegan Bradley should be on this team or that Cameron Young got screwed over or that JT shouldn't like they're looking at a different set of information than we are. They've come up with they have, you know, I'm looking at 1% of what they have. And I think Ben Coley or Ben Coley, I don't know how to say it. Sorry about he said it on Twitter of like, it only like makes sense, you know, to like scream about the JT pick. If you ignore all the positives that would come

from with Justin Thomas, only focus on the negatives. And whoever the backup quarterback is here, ignore all the negatives that would come with that person and look only at the positives. And that was a light bulb moment for me of like, I think a lot of US fans have a ton of backup quarterback syndrome right now and are are are preemptively ready to say like whoever was going to get cut off. Maybe if if Keegan made it and and Sam Burns didn't to look at it and say, like, oh, they're screwed because they left this guy off. I think American fans are conditioned to think that way at this point. I think one thing that I took away from covering football,

I used to have conversations with the Ravens coach John Harbaugh about, about Harbaugh about this is that I would always say, look, like, this is what I think I see, but I also need to acknowledge that I cannot possibly pretend like I know as much about this as you. And I think that there's, I hope that that sort of attitude

generally brings credibility, because I'm literally not gonna sit and watch like 30 hours of film. I'm not gonna have access to 10,000 data points and all different kinds of things that can show me like, all right, like, Simburns would be a better fit than King Bradley on this. Like I, publicly, as I sort of advocated for, I wish King had gotten a look. I think he brings a motion to, you know, the writer cup, I sent him out of the way, we would love to see him

get another shot. But in the end, he didn't play well enough to merit it. And probably if Ryan Harman hadn't won the British Open, I think he can is more likely to get that last spot. And they would have figured out a way to use him. But that's how it works. That's what happens when you have guys with two guys win majors who otherwise probably are not on the team in Windom and Harman.

I think Windom will be a good player there. I don't know about Harmon, but I think that's probably the most realistic understanding of why Keegan isn't on this team is because some surprise guys won Mators, and I think Kyle made this point. The payout for the Mators is so weighted now this year. All of them, you know, so fucked. He's points. I'm not sure the system is quite able to handle that sort of huge

influx of points that came with all the increased, you know, per sizes this year. And that was something that was kind of an unknown that popped in and hopefully it will work for the US's benefit. But, you know, if they doesn't, then they're going to have to think about that for, you know, a dare or for bet page. And again, my thinking on this has evolved over the years. I don't know how much yours has yours has as well, but I will play. I'm going to play in the course of this interview, of course, of this podcast,

a five minute interview clip from Paul McGinley that transformed my thinking on the Ryder Cup forever. Like I used to think, I just get the 12 best talented guys and go play. Like, and I'm like, yeah, I think the US has tried that one. How's that worked out? And we're going to go into how cap and C has played a difference in a lot of this stuff. And I think the US does have to own like playing shitty golf at a lot of points. But like, look at how Paul McGinley handled Graham McDowell and Victor Dubuisson. And I've referenced this a million times because it's like, yeah, maybe it's a little revisionist history.

And I love Paul McGinley, but is he maybe pat himself a little bit on the back for how it all played out? Sure. But like, look at this plan for how he was going to come up with one of these pairings and then we're going to get to how Tom Watson did it. And like, if you were looking for a mystery as to how it's gotten to this point and how it's gone, this is the answer right here. Like, this is a glimpse into it right now. Paul McGinley had a plan for Victor Dubeson and Graham McDowell and Tom Watson couldn't remember on Saturday afternoon who he or on Friday afternoon, who he sent out in the forcems.

He was asked about like who he subbed in for speed and, and read, and he couldn't name the pairing. Like that was the start that like you couldn't get more polar opposites as to how it was handled. And I know a lot of people scream about, you know, it's a small sample size and none of this stuff matters and all that. But like, man, I really do feel transformed. Maybe a lot of people are going to hear this and say,

oh, you're just advocating for the boys club because blah, blah, blah. I don't even know. I can't even like fathom the reasons of it. But like, man, I could say with extreme, extreme confidence after digging into how they've done this, like it's way more complicated than what people are making out to be on social media.

I could promise you that. I see from people I respect, I'm seeing a lot of stuff about just like a boys club and it's like, man, I promise you, there's more to it than that. I don't know what else I could say other than like, I promise you they didn't get in a room and we're like, I'm friends with San Bernard and Scotty. Scotty stuff, I'm friends with San Bernard and I want to play with him. Put him on the team. I promise more winning to it than that. I'm mostly on your side on this. I still think you have to make some exception for like,

all right, like Justin Thomas is, he's of the kind of guys who helped change the rider cup for us, who helped change our fortunes. He gets a pass in a way that Sergio got a pass. I'll talk about in 18, like he wasn't playing well. And Sergio was actually playing a little better than JT and he got named to the team. It was sort of minorly controversial, but not truly in the way that JT has been.

And I think, but that's okay. Like, ultimately, we empower a captain to make decisions, right? To put together a team. It's funny I was talking to my wife about this and she doesn't really follow sports that much, but she's been in management leadership stuff and she was like, of course, you put together a team. Why would you just put together a bunch of talented people? That's two of the laymen,

I think it's easier to understand in some ways. It's like, yeah, you want people who work well together, right? Not just be sullen and hit the ball. And Tigers is the biggest example of that over the last 20 years. It just hasn't worked. And the sample size for Tiger is big enough

that it actually is, I feel like, pretty definitive that you can't just be like super duper talented and think that it's gonna work out every time. Who is widely known as one of the great U.S. captains over the past 30, 40 years? Who comes to mind? Aizinger. What, how did he fill out his pods?

What did he, what did he do with his pods? Put like-minded people together so that they could sort of, you know, feed off of each other's energy. And how did they fill out the captain's picks? What was his process for that? I believe he asked the, like, the sort of best guy in each pod, like, who do you want to play with who would fit in with your crew?

Why is that not a buddy's, a boy's system or a boy's club or a buddy's system? Yeah. Help me with that logic, right? Like he's, again, that's the part where you're looking in hindsight. Like, oh, they won. Like, that was a great idea, right?

And it's like, man, I think they're not really following that method per se, but that's where I don't understand the criticism of the boys club. It's like, hey, the best team chemistry we've had on any team or the team, like pulled off an upset, blah, blah, blah, and it is widely lauded as azinger for this format. And yet, even if they were running that back,

people would still be mad about it. I don't know. Well, and the boys club has certainly worked out well for Europe. Like, you know, they absolutely pick guys who are like, hey, who do you want to play with? And the only time they get into trouble is when someone they don't really want to be on the team qualifies like Victor, and then they figure out

a way to make it work. And that's how I view the read stuff, too, is if you look at 2014, like, Speed, babysitting him, 2016, Speed, Baby, setting him in as soon as you broke up, read, and speed. Like your problem child acted out. Tiger Woods wasn't like a big enough name for read to play with. He wanted to play with Speed, and as soon as it went wrong, it went really wrong. Like

they just did not have, I don't even know if you can come up with a plan for Reed, but I think that that speaks to that. I don't know. It's, it's an inexact science. Again, I do not know what's going to happen in Italy. I'll say this 25 times leading up to it. I, I, I don't know if they're going to win, but I, I feel as confident in how they've gone about it as I have in a long time, was I'm sure you're gonna bring up some quotes for me leading into 2018, where I also felt very confident and that didn't work out great.

I don't have a leg to stand on in this other than to say, like, I'm willing to give this group a shot. I don't wanna pin the tiger fill era of rider cups on this group of guys. I just think that that's a little unfair way. I'm sure they're gonna feel it, but I think that that American fans have, yeah, it's just, it's wild.

It's been really, I don't even know if American fans are rooting for you. I think they want the US to lose so we can laugh at them again. As we're about to do over these last four. I mean, I think we need to remember too. It's the sample size of this is like people who are on Twitter, who are, you know, antagonistic in a lot of ways because of the literally online. Yeah. They want to see Justin Thomas and Max

Homa fail. Somehow they both want Rory to fail and JT to fail, which seems like a compromised position to be on both that because of the the live. And I don't know how you square that in your mind. I had somebody like at me like to the other day, saying, you know, the only reason that Max home is on the team is because he's good at like asking him politics. I was like, he fucking qualified, automatic qualifier. So I'm not sure how that quite squares with your theory, but keep working on it. And we'll see. So I'm excited to find out, man.

It's, I, I would be surprised the more I've dug into this. I'd be surprised if it was a blow out either way. I would be surprised on either one of those. If the US gets trounced, I would be shocked. And if the US trounced them, I would be shocked. I think we are truly due for a close rider cup. But will there even be fairways at Marcus Momenthal? Well, they just, they just grow it all out.

So it's all rough. And this is like a you know random Like if you can find your ball you win the hole or not Hopefully people have gotten a chance to watch our film room on it. My favorite comments I've been reading in there is like this is what you guys have been asking for for a golf course and now you hate it Let me be very clear what not once if I ever ask for anything and remotely close to what we're gonna see at Marcus Simone Really crazy weird dog legs

that narrowed like 12 yards of the dog legs and waist high rough shortly off the fairway. Like four or five really fun match playholes, I think, but mostly a disaster of a golf course. And I hope it doesn't play as big of a story as I think it will. I might be clouded by the fact that I am not an accurate driver and had a horrible time there and it's a horrible course for amateurs and the pros might make it look very, very different. There's like there's plenty of scoreable holes that the underpar score doesn't really, it's not like, you know, I know it's match play but it's not like guys are going to shoot 10 over out there but I don't know if the course is going to play as much of a factor as it did in 2018. I'll say that.

Like I think it's a different different style of golf course in that regard. All right, you ready to get into it? We're gonna do it in order. I have 2006 and 2014. You have blessed me with the Tom Watson year. You have 2010 and 2018. We are going 2006. Do you remember where we go in 2006? Uh, actually the case of the K club. We are at the K Do you remember where we go in 2006? Actually, the case of the K club. We are at the K club. For the first time, a rider cup in Ireland, the captains are Tom Layman versus Ian Wuznum. If you'll remember, Darren Clark had just lost his wife a few months or I think six weeks earlier before the rider cup.

That was a big storyline and a big presence that kind of permeated throughout it is a lot of standing ovation for Darren Clark when he got to tease and a lot of emotion from him very understandably, but that was a big story. Tom Laman brought his team to Ireland at the end of August for two days of practice determined to end nearly two decades of frustration in the Ryder Cup. This was seen as a big deal. They all flew together on a charter, which was seen as a huge deal. Tiger rearranged plans for it. See, like he does care. He cares. He took his first commercial flight since 1998 in order to be there to catch the charter. Mr. Woods, you're in 13. Tiger Woods and Jim Fiorek end up arriving separately to the rider cup after losing in the first round of the HSBC World Match Play Championship the week before at Wentworth.

Wood stayed over in England attending the Chelsea Liverpool soccer game soccer match, I believe on Sunday. Furek came over to the K club to practice earlier. Team got off the plane and all brown, all brown outfits. I don't know why they were so set on these browns. Maybe it was an ode to the docker's man himself, Mr. Tom layman, but they're fits this week. We're a total disgrace. And they set the tone right from the beginning, getting off of the plane in all brown. The euros were still not ready. Seven years later, not ready to let 1999 go. They have won 2002 and 2004. And they're still unhappy

about 99. They're not happy about the fact that the captain of the US team is none other than the swashbuckling docker's wearing instigator that is Tom Layman. It's credit to the guardian here. Paul Casey said, I stand by my words, his appointment could affect the atmosphere of the match. I don't think people on this side of the Atlantic want to see him as captain. We've had a very, very good rival. Recently 99 and I think people are afraid that it might bring up Brookline as a Brookline type situation at the K club. Tom's name will be forever.

We'll be one of those mentioned when you talk to players who were at Brookline and they thought the spirit there wasn't right. Doug, in a little bit about what, you know what they're referring to. I don't. I mean, I remember Laman being sort of like overly political a little bit and kind of, you know, be jingoistic, but I don't remember raising why he would have drawn the iron of the euros in 99. He led the spectators in a God bless America cheer on the first T. That was one thing. And he was like the fifth

or six player to run onto the 17th green after Leonard's putt. Sam Torrance said. Six or six. Yeah. Sam Torrance said. And he calls himself a man of God. Oh, that's right. I do remember that quote. What? That's it. Like the non Christian thing to do. It would have been to run onto the green and the more Christian. Oh, gentlemen, because of the man of God, Luke Donald, who's Casey's play partner, supported Casey's stance, Donald, who has a home in Chicago after spending four years in university there, said, I think people who are not Americans can get upset with Americans quite easily. They do seem to be very insular. They make rash comments. It can be quite upsetting at times.

I heard Ryan Palmer, a US amateur champion, said the nationwide tour, the second tour in the US is the second strongest in the world. And that was days after Europe thrashed the US 18 denied in the rider cup. Those kind of comments force people like Paul to say what he says. Scoverplex said of Paul Casey. I didn't know he was a member of our tour, but if he's really that uncomfortable or annoyed or anything, I don't think anyone would miss him if he went back to England. Kind of all over, kind of all over the place, quote, I don't really know what we're getting at with that would be Mr. Verplake, but I'm sure that is one of the comments that

Luke God was referring to. So Tom layman would say without question, we will go to Ireland as the underdogs. Yet you think Tom, because we're going to read off the list of your team. You have zero players in your 20s. Your youngest player on the team is Tiger Woods. You have the one and two and three players in the world. Tiger, Phil and Jim Furek. The rest of the team is made up of Chad Campbell, David, Tom's, Christa Marco, Vaughan Taylor, JJ Henry, Brett Wetterick, Zach Johnson, and then the captain's picks are Stuart Sink and Scott Verplank. Tigers results going into this event. T2 with the Western Open. That was the worst one. He won the Open Championship.

That's right. One the Buick Open. He won the PGA Championship. He won the Bridge Stone. He won the open championship. That's right. One the Buick open. He won the PGA championship. He won the bridge stone. He won the Deutsche Bank. Torch championship was after the rider cup. He skipped it. But that was his record leading up into the 2006 rider cup. I think he started the next year, winning a bunch of events as well. Like the only event he lost for like a seven month span was the 2006 rider Cup. Sorry, I just boil the result of this one. Of course, Von Taylor, JJ Henry and Brett Wetterak made the team on points. JJ Henry won the Buick Championship, had five top tens. Von Taylor's best finish was a T-3.

He had six top tens. Brett Wetterak won the Byron Nelson and finished T-2 at the memorial. I believe he was the first person to go from Q school to the rider cup in the same year. I think a lot of this speaks to a, at least a reason why the US has really struggled in rider cups. There was just a total talent gap for a significant period of time, period of time that Tiger dominated of like, dude, there was just no American players. There was none. Like Davis love was the biggest snub on this team.

And even he was, you know, in his 30s and a little bit past his prime, I think. It speaks to that like Andy Johnson theory about that, these, you know, Phil tiger, Fierrick, those guys grew up playing persimmons and then had to learn how to play metalwoods. But it's like the generation between Tiger and Dustin Johnson like struggled to figure out that transition, right?

They just, they were not, the talent gap wasn't there, obviously, but like they couldn't handle the difference in ball changes, the difference in club changes, whatever. And it took a whole, another, like a whole gap of guys to figure out like they grew up playing a different set of clubs. And then they figured it out.

But that, I mean, that speaks to that makes more sense to me now when you lay it out like that. Like when Brent retric and like for playing are two of your best guys of that. It's Brett wetterick but I love that. I don't know if you've been probably better at golf than I've ever been at anything in my life. But for our audience we'll be Brent Wee Trick that's for sure. I don't remember this one but on the European European side, this is, I believe, from the Guardian, he says, the small band of critics who believe Ian Wuzdom is not up to the job of captaining Europe's Ryder Cup team lost their outspoken leader, yesterday, when Thomas

Bjorn, who on Sunday, described the Welshman as pathetic and barmy, issued a groveling public apology. It cut little ice with the European tour who find the day in a five figure sum for his unacceptable outburst. The unacceptable outburst was the man is barmy and to be captain and not communicate with a team or those in contention at all. I haven't spoken to him for six months and I found out that I'm not in the team by watching it on television. He's not burdened by too many leadership qualities. My relationship with him is completely dead and will remain so. Wow.

I love that. Bjorn would come back and say, having had a day to reflect on my comments, I realize I've made a mistake and as such have unreservedly apologized to Ian for my comments, which were made in the heat of the moment following the disappointment of not making it on the European team. His comments came shortly after discovering he'd been passed over in favor of Darren Clark and Lee Westwood for the two captains picks on the European team to face the U.S. Puyron also said he's the most pathetic captain I've ever known.

Nobody apologized for it. And they people think that like Americans knife their captains. I mean, come on. We'll get to that in 2014. Two, there's some drama at 2014 too, but Doug Ferguson's preview said, never mind that the Americans counter with a one two three punch of wood sphere can Mikkelsen, the

top three players in the world ranking or that Americans have captured 20 of the last 28 major championships since their last Radica victory in 99 raised the flags, played the national anthems in Europe turns into a world beater. Europe long has rallied around the perceptions that his players are in

fear year that it's tore is like a second class citizen. They have played the underdog card for so long and so effectively that they are now trying to convince everyone they have no chance. Can you off the top of your head as fast as you can answer? When was the last time a European had won a major as of the 2006 writer kept? When was the most recent one? This shocked me. I didn't double check it. I think it's true. I mean, I would just said Patrick, but that I think that came later. That was that was of seven, no eight. Yeah. I don't. God. Is it foul do? Paul Laurie in 99. It had been seven years since a European had won a major. And I know I said the Americans have captured 20 of the last

28. And I said there was a talent gap in the US. Think about how many of those were Tiger and Phil because they were it was it was a fair amount. I think Tiger had one seven or eight. I'll wait. Those are telling that though together. I know if you're one one in there, Nicholson won two of those six. It would have been he won.

Right. He won three of them. One and four and then two of them in six. He won. He won five PGA and then oh, it's masters. So he had won three majors to that point. So yeah, but, um, practice rounds, whether it was so bad on Wednesday, trees fell down the course. Everyone was pulled off the course for hours when the US team did return to the course. It was blowing so hard. They were only practicing short shots. Uh, the European fans booed them for that, forcing laymen to apologize for not putting on a show for

the fans, which very fun. We get to Friday morning, four ball. Guess who's there to do the opening T-shirt announcing? I don't really remember this with writer cups, but... 2006. With this event, like David Beckham. Our old friend, Ivor Robson, is there to do the opening T shot. I'm going to say Jim Jack. Jim Furek and Tiger Woods go up gets Colin Montgomery and Patrick Harrington. This whole match is on YouTube. Again, disgrace, PJ America and European tour. I'm going to put you guys on blast for this one too. Like we need some old Ryder Cup stuff on YouTube. We need it badly. It's really disjointed, but this one is all on there. I watch most of it. I kind of on a speed watch

But Europeans are wearing some sharp green iris sweaters It's wild. How much the first tea atmosphere has changed. I mean, it's packed. There's an atmosphere there But I mean the grandstands 15 rows or something like that and wait until people see what it's gonna be in Italy like it is a It's a coliseum. It's enormous. I think there's going to be 5,000 fans packed around the first tee in bleachers. Tiger hits fairway wood hooks it in the water immediately. Furek makes birdie the US with the whole tiger is very stinky early on. But I'm not going to bore you with the details of the of the whole match. Jim Furek is clutch on the 18th hole, hits it the par five and two right after Monti does. were one up Tiger had missed the fairway. Uh, fjrk two puts in the US wins the match.

That is the only match on this day. If the United States team will win seven of the eight matches go down to the last hole in the US fucked up almost all of them, uh, other than the Tiger and fjrk one Paul Casey and Robert Carlson have their match with, uh, Stuart Sink and JJ Henry, the purple mamba, Sergio and Jose Maria, be David Thompson, Brett Wetterick or Brent Whiterick, three and two. Derek Clark, Lee Westwood, beat Phil Mickelson and Chris DeMarco, won up. It's amazing how much the Americans had a habit of like losing the 18th hole. Oh, it's like it just you see it in Ryder cups.

Literally, you go back and we were looking at something like the 86 Ryder cups and like the one in Mirafield Village where they just, they kept losing the 18th hole. They had these matches that were winnable and they just pissed it away and that was a huge difference. It looks like some of them, you know, like we're wider margins, but like you flip those,

like you split those 18th hole matches and all of a sudden it's like that rider cup is extremely close. But Dina, go back and, I think I, if I remember right, the five matches that flipped the Europeans won 17 and 18. I think like Dina out of 10 times or something like that. I mean, it's, it's, they needed that they just split the 17 and the 18 holes. US would want to die in it easily, easily. Afternoon for some, Pajor Carrington and Paul McGinley have with, with Campbell and ZJ, Howl and Stenson have their match with Sink and Tom's Westwood and Montgomery have their match with Mikkelsen

and Demarco and Donald and Garcia beat Tiger and Furek to up. Europe ends day one leading five to three. Align it in the Chicago Tribune that says it all says the only American that really shine Friday was JJ Henry. Love that. You probably get an extension to his like, you know, his card for that now these days. He's just right. Got an exemption to name the Chicago, the Chicago Tribune exemption. Saturday, both teams arrived wearing dark slacks and blue shirts unplanned. The Americans had to put on black sweater so you can tell the teams apart. The Europeans changed into lavender tops of the afternoon. Paul Casey and Robert Carlson have with Stuart Sink and JJ Henry.

Sergio and Jose Maria beat Michelson and Demarco three and two. Clark and Westwood beat Woods and Fiorek three and two for Plank and ZJ. Beat Stenson and Harrington two and one. Europe leads seven and a half to four and a half. Sergio and Luke Donald beat Phil and Tom's two and one in the afternoon. Montgomery and Westwood had with Campbell and Taylor, Casey and how beat down sink and ZJ five and four and Tigran Fiorec beat McGinley and Harrington three and two. For plank caused a little bit of a stink and only playing

one match. I mean, it was not very pleased with that. Tiger and Fierrick played all four together. They went two and two as the number one and number three players in the world. Only two matches were won by the US. Those are the only two are sorry. The only one that was one outside of the Tiger and Fierrick pairing was for plank and ZJ against Stenson and Harrington. If you thought we were going to get through this rider cup with no references to Ian Wusdom's height, you have not been here long enough. Sergio settled Saturday. He may be a short man, but he's got a huge heart. Monty interrupted him and said he is a short man.

Just just to be clear, just just to be clear. There's a washroom. It's a writer cup officials made NBC's raw feed available in the US team room, which included chatter during commercial breaks. Johnny Miller was going off on Tiger's sloppy game. It's Scott for playing need to wake up because DJ was making all the birdies. Then it magically went away.

The raw feed magically went away after it was noted that that Johnny's off mic comments were getting beamed into the USD room. So US trails 10 to 6 going into Sunday singles, but fear not with listen, we were down 10 to 6 at Brookline guys. We totally got this narrator. They don't got this. It all time beat down in suit on that Sunday. Things did not go the US's way. A few fun things. Monty hit a shot into 11 that struck a rock inside of a pond. And instead of going in the water, it went on the green.

Steve Williams lost Tiger's nine iron when he slipped while cleaning the blade and accidentally dropped the club into the water on the seventh hole. They had to send a diver in to go get his nine iron and return it to him later. Oh my God. I'd never heard that until this. I've even done a deep dive and I remember something about that, but I didn't know that I figured they just got it out of the pond. I remember they dropped it in there, but I don't think I didn't never heard they had a

diver go down. Yes. Who was the diver on hand? Who was there with like, I guess, I guess. I was like, get to the bottom of this pond and go get tigers nine hired. Well, Cory Pave in such a military guy that, you know, he probably had a diver on hand for his squad in 2010, which we'll get to. Paul the Gildey conceded a 25 foot putt to JJ Henry on the 18th hole or Europe may have

broken its own scoring record that it set it to previous Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills. I believe it was done because of the streaker that ran across the green and it was the sporting thing to do after a a male striker ran across. There were 28 matches this week. The US one, guess how many matches they won out of 28? Oh my God. Probably how many they won? How many they won? 10, six. That seven were halved in Europe won the other 15. Between 2004 and 2006, three US players had winning records in individual cups. One in 2004, that was DeMarco and two in 2006, which was Tiger. And for playing Tiger went three and two. Phil went, oh, four and one got absolutely roasted.

Can you read some of the articles that's like, dude, you're like going to play in these events, going forward. Can he easy to tired by the end of the year? This was again at a time when Phil's weight and conditioning, I think, was a pretty hot topic of conversation. And it was basically like, dude, he's too tired after a year of playing and he can't play in this event anymore. There, he would be playing 12 years later this. Did the media in the 2000s bully Phil and it fell into his current state of fitness? That's because I feel like there's so many references to like, you know, chubby fill that I feel like

that sort of sunk in over the years and fell was finally just like, you know what, fuck you all, I'm the, you know, I'm a Zempick, I'm gonna just work, I'm gonna get on the treadmill every day and you, you know, he basically, I remember I asked him at the master's this year like,

why are you so skinny? He's like, well, I just stopped eating. So thanks. That's our geratical in 2006 Kevin that called me that. Patrick Harrington went all five matches. He went 0 4 and 1 on a team that won 18 and a half to 9 and a half. That's hard to do. That's seriously hard to do. There was a huge celebration on the 16th green for Darren Clark, Tom Layman hugged him as he won his match as did the big cat. This was also 2006 was the same year that Tiger had lost his dad.

So I think there was some equal sympathies there shared between the two of them. Layman of course said, I don't know in the history of the Ryder Cup. Any European team that has played better than you guys, the Detroit free press said the Ryder Cup doesn't play towards strength of American pros. And it likely never will, which I found to be a very definitive statement that would ring quite true for the next 12 years. This is what the good news is that the US Captain Tom

Leman did just about everything right for this year's writer cup. The bad news is it just didn't matter. It never will. And where's here's the reason why you can't change a tiger's stripes. And the tiger there is capitalized. As in again, this was a big time period of just like blaming tiger for all of the problems on the US team and how his as Ryder Cup record did not it didn't, but it did not live up to what was expected. A few aftermath thoughts, Tiger and Eland won damages against an Irish newspaper that

published fake new photos of E Elon during the Ryder Cup. They won 250,000 euros for that, which, yeah, that sure that made of was a sure that was the part of the divorce settlement. I don't know. I didn't have a line for that. The the Euro press was so shitty during the 2000s, like just unrepentant, like, taking shots at American players wives, calling bimbo's, you know, this like really obsessed with the idea that they were all just like blonde stepford wives and that made them like fair game to just be just a little open season on them. Which really fired up the American teams and really changed how they played when they across the ocean. They really wanted to take it out of the the unfair bridge.

Yeah. They're wide integrity. This is it's stay quit. I've got to tell you it's all my wife. I'm going to go out and lose four and three. Show you how upset I am. Woods after the events that they have a younger crop of players that are playing well when our youngest player is 30 years old. That's not a positive thing. They have luke donald and Sergio and Paul Casey all in their 20s. We don't have anybody in their 20s on the team. And all three guys just mentioned have one numerous tournaments around the world. Most of our guys in our 20s haven't won tournaments yet.

Former British hope. I dug into this. I think former British open champion Ben Curtis, the 29 year old, is the only American player currently under the age of 30 at this time that is one a tournament on the PGA tour. Think about how stark that difference is to right now. Wow, this idea that golf was a young man's game or was a young man's game really didn't emerge until like 2010, like this is very much as the weird time. If not for the Brookline comeback, the Europe would have won six rider cups in a row. Ian Wusman called it the pinnacle of his life. This disaster in the third loss in a row would lead

to an overhaul of the US process that lasted exactly one rider cup, of course, the Paul Azinger year. So that is one of my favorite all-time rider cups, just the pictures of that team and just like imagine trying to get ready to go to battle, dressed in all brown like that with Scott Verplank and Stuart Sink and Vaughn Taylor are like and just going and get your ass whooped just so spectacularly 18 and a half, nine and a half. I don't know. It's what about all type favorites for just a snapshot into we have a poster in the killhouse during the bathroom.

Yeah. You look at while you take a piss of the 2006 Ryder Cup. Any anyone out there that has 2006 rider cup memorabilia? Please send it to me. I want all of it. I want it all over every aspect of my house. It's probably in a suitcase somewhere in Tiger's garage. Or key kids, that's who case to take out that brown stuff until he wins a rider cup in Europe. A quick break into checking with our friends at rowback.

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through the end of this week. That's rhoback.com, 20% off polo's QZips. Hoodies and more with code NLU summer is calling. Let's make sure to check them out now. Back to the pod. All right. So if you enjoyed getting your ass kicked in brown, you're going to enjoy getting a kicked in lavender, because that brings us to 2010, the first ever Ryder Cup held in Wales. Yeah, you're nay on the lavender. Like not the worst thing they've done. I know it gets.

Okay, there's some reviews here, I think. Okay. You know, we'll see. So Celtic Manor, which they spent about $25 million building, 2010 was the first time ever that the Ryder Cup was held in October. Do you know why this was? Was there a major European sporting event? I don't know.

I do not know. The PJ tour began to flex its muscle and basically say we want to hold the FedEx Cup playoffs ahead of the Ryder Cup and you have to push the Ryder Cup back further and further. We're not going to take a break for it. And so a lot of European media called this sort of a symbol of greed because who in their right mind would hold a Ryder Cup in October in Wales where it fucking reigns all in October. And essentially, the PJ Tours cash grab of pushing it back cause all kinds of problems for not only for the event,

but sort of like some for the history of the event too, which we'll touch on in a sec. I can't, I just say like my favorite event by far is the Ryder Cup and like the PGA, anything the PGA tour touches, like they've tried to ruin the fact that they tried to ruin my favorite event. Just it's perfect. It's amazing. I wish I do that. I did not know that until just. Yeah. So the captains in this era are Corey Pavan and Colin Montcumrey. What a bummer that Colin was not a captain in Scotland. I was just thinking that. You know, he is sort of, you know, he's Mr. Scotland. Everything about him is sort of Scottish. The US Vice captains Paul Goidos,

you know, seen frequently recently just five putting a grain to the tournament. Tom Layman, Davis Love and Jeff Sloomin would have surprised you know what I was come up recently, it was sort of surprised me and I think I anxious in the mailbag is like, how was like Justin Leonard never considered for a Ryder Cup cap and see a really even like I think he was a like a vice captain at one point. But here's a guy with like an iconic Ryder Cup moment who never I want a major never ever gets mentioned in it just sort of Surprise me. I think that moment covers up a really spotty Ryder Cup career And including that Ryder Cup

It was Oh, four and one or something in that or O3 and one it was I mean He was horrible in that match too and just like stages come back and made that miraculous putt that covered up I don't know. It's it's one of those things that like I feel like you people cite Ryder Cup records way too frequently where it's like dude I don't I don't know I just did but I don't know. It's one of those things that like I feel like you people cite writer cup records way too frequently where it's like, dude, I don't, I don't know. I just did, but I don't know exactly like how you end up nominated for one of these things and how you don't, but I don't, it's, yeah, I don't know. I don't have an answer for that. So there was some controversy in 2010 involving one Tiger Woods, who had just come off an enormous scandal.

2010 is one of the rare years during tiger's prime that he did not win a tournament. Finished, if you remember, I think second or third in the masters that year and then I think fourth at the US Open. So it's not like he wasn't playing good golf. It's probably his best winless year. But there was some kind of reason for some reason reason about whether or not Tiger Woods would be named to the Ryder Cup team, and whether the US was feeling pressure to add Tiger Woods to help boost ticket sales.

These are like legitimate things that were pointed out in the media at the time, which seems fucking crazy to me because you're the number one player in the world. Like why in the world would you leave Tiger Woods at home, especially this era when we don't know, like I get it maybe in two at 2018 or 2021 or whatever, but the idea that like you wouldn't take Tiger Woods

that you were actually going to pass him over if he didn't qualify in points seemed insane to me, but it was a huge point of contention because Jim Gray famously of the decision and Pete Rose did you bet on baseball thing, he and Corey Pavan got into a spat. So at the PGA championship that year, because Jim Gray reported that Corey Pavan had told Tiger or had essentially said, I'm going to pick him obviously he's the best player in the world. This really pissed Pavan off that this Jim Gary report.

So from a story on Wednesday morning, Pavan said on Twitter that he was misquoted. And then the press conference that Gray's report was incorrect. After Pavan finished taking questions Wednesday afternoon, the PJ championship, he and Gray confronted each other in the Whistling Straits media center, standing nose to nose with Pavan. Gray called him a liar and said, you're going down. Pavan responded, you're full of it. The confrontation took place in front of media members assembled for Pavan's press conference

with his and with his counterpart in the European team, Colin Montgomery. At one point in the exchange, Gray started to walk away prompting Pavan to say, you're just gonna walk off? Gray then returned to face Pavan and the men continued jawing at each other and raised voices. Pave and his wife Lisa also joined the fray. Pave and said later, let's straighten this out right now. I had a conversation with Jim Gray just outside the locker room near where we were registered and he asked me a few questions and his interpretation of what I said is incorrect. There's nobody who's promised any picks.

It would be disrespectful of anybody who's trying to make this team. I said, you're full of something, and I'm not gonna let that happen. He got upset. His eyes were a little odd. He was just a little crazy. Even's wife was extremely agitated about the exchange and ripped gray

for not broaching the issue with more reporters in the room. She was overheard complaining to a PG-Tore of America official that gray was a whoosh. What, what does your going down mean? What does that threat mean? I, I know, no. Is he physically threatening him or is he saying you're gonna lose the rider cup?

I, I have to think that it's something to say like, you know, your, your reputation's gonna be sort of torn apart if you're gonna sit here and lie about me like this. I mean, this, this was an era where I where I think as speaking of a big J journalist here, the media probably thought that their power was a little bit larger than it was. No journalist within that situation in 2023 would think that they could somehow like sully the reputation of the Ryder Cup captain. There's nobody that would choose the side of the journalist. But back in 2006, like there was still enough kind of, you know, left over gravitas and

the media that people were sort of prone to think like, oh, maybe I'll trust Jim Gray on this over Corey Pave and either way, like what a stupid controversy that Corey Pave and was like, I will not guarantee Tiger Woods a pick. He'll have to earn his way on the team like anybody else. But if I can guess as to how this played out, Corey Pave and absolutely said this, Jim Gray probably reported it right and Pave and freaked out about like, well, I can't like preemptively give one person a pick. We need to build the, you know, whatever. I would think that to be the case. And and Gray was probably right in this. Wasn't there something with Lisa Pave and like with like a recorded phone call or something in this?

She claimed that she had recorded the exchange between the two of them, but it never, I couldn't find any evidence that like you could listen to it or that it surfaced or that was like broadcast on golf channel. Some of what's frustrating, I'll say in this research, is that golf channel has either decided to not like archive a lot of their things So like there's a lot of broken links that you go back and whether they're just they don't want to pay the bills for that stuff or whether they're

You know wiping it out in the proff this S-quay to sort of you know cancel some controversy stuff But yeah, you'll find tons and tons of broken links about some of this old stuff that just no longer exists This is why what makes newspapers.com such a resource in this because the web, you know, it just kind of get poofed and disappeared on some of this stuff. So Lisa Pavan, can I pause for once? I get to say, Tron refers to this as the Lisa Pavan writer cup, which is the best. Well, so I'm just about to get to that. Like Lisa Pavein was not a blonde bucsum in the framing of the British tabloids, she was embraced early on as I'm going to read this thing from the Guardian.

She has since become a breath of fresh air to some, and a right-pain to others. I'm very passionate about everything I do, she says. If I chose to do something, I'm going to do it full force. This Ryder Cup is my passion. This is my husband's dream. When your husband has this dream, you are going to do everything you can to make his dream come true. There's no doubting the sincerity of her support, just as there's no denying her efforts on behalf of her husband have turned into her into a bonafide golfing celebrity. She is, for instance, the first Ryder Cup captain's wife to be embroiled in a slanging match for the TV reporter,

forcefully defending her husband as she was accused Jim Gray of golf channel of lying, and he said, she said, argument. She, on another occasion, she abraded a sports illustrated journalist who she had previously had said slighted her husband in the 90s, long before the couple had even met. There is no time limit to Lisa Pavein's iron.

If your husband was in any way being put down, whether it's ambushed, oppressed comments or being talked about badly, you're going to defend him. It's a natural instinct. I'm not going to have my reputation tarnished or my husband's reputation tarnished. The accompanying headline in this piece is Captain S of a term, a nickname that she embraced. And she actually posed nude on the cover of a magazine. Oh, that's right. And sort of as part of the whole deal, which caused even more sort of controversy.

And this last quote here, these people says, when I hear people say it, Router Cups, why are the wives so involved? I think why wouldn't they be? Golf is a very individual sport. So when you come home, your wife is your best friend, your confinon, your lover, your sports psychologist. A wife plays a very big role in a golfers life. I think a wife is as big a part of your team as your caddy.

So when people say the wives are having more important role, well, that's because we should. We played a very integral role in the life of a golfer, and therefore we're going to play a very integral role in the life of a golfer and therefore we're going to play a very integral role in the US team. I think that's right to think that this is the leads the pavement. I love that the the different eras of what the US has tried to do over in Europe and like all right, let's give the wives a turn now. We tried to capture. We need the wives all rolling in one direction, man. Like we haven't had the really the wife support we needed in the past. So that's what we just did the pods thing and it worked, but it's wives time.

I got that's good. That's our ticket to winning in Europe. Oh, so there was we'll get back to Lisa in a second, but Tiger, the very controversial captain's pick had played in 12 events that year had two top 10s, both in majors, seven top 25s and only one missed cut. But he had played really poorly at Firestone right before this. So it was sort of seen. Oh, was that any finish last? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Rory had beat him like by like 18 shots, I believe, which someone had asked Rory right at Firestone, you know, would you be excited to play Tiger Woods? And he said, oh yeah, definitely.

I think something defective like his aura is gone. It's not quite the sort of top dog. And so at the press conference in Wales, reporter asked Tiger about this and said, what was your reaction when you heard Rory McElroy say that he's very much like to play against you in this Ryder Cup? And Woods simply said, yeah, me too. And they said, would you care to elaborate?

And Tiger said, nope. So people thought that Ryder, Tiger was going to Steven Ains, worry that this was like basically the beginning of a rivalry. Rory also got into a little bit of a country. This is his first ever Ryder Cup. The year before at the Irish Open, he had been asked, you know, this year about to make your first Ryder Cup team, like what do you think? And he basically said, I'm using Roy's, I couldn't find the direct quote, but I'm using an interview where Roy talked about it later. Roy said, basically what I said was, I don't really care about the Ryder Cup, it's an exhibition. And so is it at the end of the day you're going to be remembered for what you achieve in an individual sport when I was a kid

I grew up practicing I never had a putt to win the rider cup I always putt to the masters of the US open can I pause you yeah, you literally call me right now Just answer and then say Hey, we're just having me talking about you. We are literally literally on a pod with KVV rehashing your quotes about the 2010 rider cup It's an exhibition, bud. I was an idiot. You should hop on this pod with us, frankly, that's fun. All right, continuing on you were reading before we got rudely interrupted.

I don't dare that man call in in the middle of the thing. Roy, as I said, was calling an exhibition later would call himself an idiot and realize that he had he had aired badly as we'll get to his first T-shirt in a few minutes. He is perspective quickly changed. European team, Westwood, Roy McElroy, Martin Kymher, Graham McDowell, Ian Polter, Ross Fisher, Francisco Mollenari, Miguel Anel-Hamenes, Peter Hanson, and the Captain's Picson were Eduardo Mollenari, Luke Donald and Patrick Harrington. The U.S. team is made up of Phil Michelson, Hunter Mayhan, Bubble Watson, Jim Furik, Steve

Stricker, Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton, Matt Kucher, Zach Johnson, Tiger Woods, Stewart Sink, and Ricky Fowler were captain's picks. Rory was 21 years old. Kymar was also playing in his first rider cup period, one of the PJ Championship, 25. Lee Westwood was number three in the world and soon to be number one. Anyways, we said that Tiger and Rory were sort of, I don't know if sniping at each other was the right phrase, but one other interesting sort of controversy leading up to the thing was the Cory Pavan who had had, as you well know, he loves war, right?

He loves the military. He's a war monger. He's the agency is a war monger. He's the agency is a war monger. So he had caused all kinds of controversy during the war on the shore. A Kiowa, that writer cup by being sort of very militaristic wearing a camo hat. He brought some of that back.

He brought like a special forces guy into the team room to talk about how the military sort of works together. And the European media got a hold of this and was basically like, oh, well, you know, do you think you made a huge error in bringing up the war stuff again? And Payam was like, not at all. Like, I think we're super respectful of the military. So every player that came in, every US player that came into the press conference that week got grilled pretty hard about do you think that you guys are going over the top with the war stuff? Bubba Watson started crying in his presser about this. It said his father of Vietnam vet is dying of cancer and he's dedicating his performance

in Wales to his dad. All right, well, now you're maybe so bad for laughing. Yeah, but this quote is funny. More than likely, I'll never go, I'm never going to be in the military. So this is the chance to be like my dad. Oh my God. Oh, this is why they hate us. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I Charles spoke at the opening ceremony, which is sort of strange, just thinking about,

because, you know, the royals have basically had no other outside of Prince Andrew, have had no interest in golf whatsoever, but Prince Charles gave a very, very classy speech. And so, obviously, I'm unbiased about, which is to vote. Good luck to both teams going forward. So the event begins, but immediately so does the rain. Just heavy rain comes like dumping down. And basically the matches went out, but they didn't get really like more than four or five holes in before the rain was just such a deluge

that they had to call them off of the thing. One of the reasons they decided to call off this because they had to, they were having to squeegee the greens in between groups. And you couldn't see also because of the fog, like up ahead what was going on. And so Patrick Harrington fired an approach shot into the first green while striker and woods

were still standing on the green because it was being squeegee. So you can see how the rain and the fog was going to be a problem. It was delayed for seven hours and they finally decided to sort of go back onto the course, the US staged a minor rally and actually sort of ended up winning that session where it looked like they were

down 3-1 when the rain was called but they didn't really get that far into the thing. This is of course, as we've alluded to in the very opening, the famous rain suit controversy. Oh my God. I want to read to you before this, you know, when you talk about the lavender shirts, golf digest did a review of the You know, when you talk about the lavender shirts, golf digest did a review of the, there's sort of equipment basically before and then said that golf shirts, sweaters and the accessories were developed by Peter Malar, the men's sport coats and tuxedos and trousers were furnished by Hickey Freeman. The rain wear has been provided by Sun Mountain. Players will wear their own shoes and either black or white, given the locale and the,

of the time of the year, the Sun mountain rain gear is going to be quite prevalent. These outfits in particular will be a departure from the classic all black waterproofs that we've seen a Ryder Cup's past. A lot of thought went into selecting the appropriate typeface that will be used on rain gear and team bags. Think the New York Yankees circa 1936, with a prominent USA logo,

the team members' names are embroidered into the back. There will be no confusing the players at Celtic Manor. Every detail has been considered. Even the team logos on the sweaters are placed on felt patches in the spirit of college penance. And this is this is Marty Hackel from golf digest. On a scale of one to ten, I ranked the effort at 10.5. Nothing is perfect.

So that we'll call it a 9.98. This would come back. No one was asking to score the entire going into it. We're talking about one of the great clothing disasters in Ryder Cup history. It was scored. That's amazing. Credit to golf judges for not disappearing this from the internet because it's quite funny to read The the gushing review of all this stuff So as we soon learned the rain was there was so such a deluge down that the American team was completely soaked the rain suits that

They had been provided Did not keep the rain out Tiger was admittedly that's tough. It was tough. Tiger was pissed. Apparently, he was like, why can't I just wear my own individual rain gear and Nike rain gear or whatever, and the sentia saying, no, you're not allowed to do that. We're going to figure this out. The US had to go into the tent, the merchandise tent, and spend 4,000 pounds on rain gear to get new rain gear. Now, Sun Mountain is close to my heart because this... That's really bad.

Sun Mountain is made in Mizzoula, excuse me, is a company founded in Mizzoula on Tana where I grew up. Sun Mountain has always claimed in it and it has sort of been proven out over the years that the rain gear was fine until Lisa Pavan decided to embroider every rain suit with the players' names. And with... I'm not going to lose my favorite music! So no one bothered to check if putting a thousand threads into the back of rain suits would somehow make him no longer waterproof. So the water seeped right through these rain suits and got all the and of course the year was had a delightful time in taunting the US.

I think Rory was tweeting like, all rain suits are doing just fine. Like, we're nice snug and dry in our rain suits. And Monti got interviewed digs of his own. So Ian Polter said, I can see them right now. R is keeping us dry. And that's all I'm going to say. Just like one of the great disasters in terms of like uniforms, I think in history. And you know, my heart again goes out to Sun Mountain because I think in this history. And my heart, again, goes out to Sun Mountain

because I think that they will always be associated with that, even though it's really more of a Lisa Pave issue. But US comes out as soon as they end up actually leading that session two and a half to one and a half. But because the rain continued to fall so much much for the first time in Ryder Cup history, they changed the format in the middle of the event, which I still kind of can't believe happened. Like, can you imagine if there was an NFL game and like it dumped rain and snow

and in the middle of like a half time, not even half time, I get the end of the first quarter, in snow and in the middle of like a half time, not even half time, at the end of the first quarter, they were like, you know what? This is actually gonna be a five quarter game instead of just playing it out like it's supposed to be. Like they were so adamant that they did not want the Ryder Cup to stretch into Monday, which it did anyway, that they were basically like

made an agreement of like, all right. So instead of our normal four sessions, we're gonna have sessions where we play, like everyone is on the course at the same time, and we do four sessions of four balls and two sessions concurrently of alternate shot, which is just bonkers to think about. Like it kind of, imagine putting all of your planning

into Ryder Cup, who's going to play with whom, who's going to sit, who's going to not. And then literally one day in the event and being like, well, walk that like we've got to come up with all new pairings, we've got to come up with like just everybody's going to play and we're going to have to figure it out. Because your benching strategy is out the window, right? Because they did, they did everyone played Forson's All at once, right? All six played Forson's at once. And then the next day, if I remember right, they went for like two more,

so basically they combined the ForSums sessions. They got the four ball session in, the first four ball session in, did all six played ForSums at once. And then the next window was two ForSums matches and the remaining ForBall matches. Yes, okay. So remarkably like they figured out a way to get it all in, but

sorry, they had an agreement that if the things stretched into Monday, and if it, they had a time picked out as sundown on Monday, as I give it 645 or something, any matches that remained on the course at 645 were declared to have at 6.43. So like that was it. Like it was like a ticking time bomb built into the back of Monday's session. Like if the singles got delayed by rain or whatever, it could have basically just been like, they would have stopped with the heroes leading

whatever nine and a half to six and a half, which is again, to like change the results, another results, change the format in the middle of an event still seems like bongers to me. I have to think that if this happened a day like this wouldn't happen. They would just keep pushing it into this, but you know, the rider cup in the last 15 years or whatever, it's 13 years has become such an even bigger monster. But I don't know, it's just like they they needed to everybody want had their plans to leave and they they didn't want to stretch it on to the next day. Maybe they, I don't, maybe there's an outing at the course on Tuesday.

I needed to get in. Couldn't, uh, couldn't handle giving up that lucrative, uh, yeah. So you're telling me that Hunter Mayhands biggest mistake was not the flood chip that we're going to get to. It's that he didn't flood 375 more and just get to sundown. Get the half go 14 14, 14. U.S. retains the cup. Oh my, someone could just could see make how to make I can see these. U.S. would have shipping down.

Who is the cup, but he's going to just, oh, he's chipped into the parking lots. Again, he's refusing to pick up that the time is ticking. This is such a disgrace, but also brilliant strategy. that the time is ticking. This is such a disgrace, but also brilliant strategy. Okay. Anyway, so back to the actual events here. The US ends up sort of winning the first session.

As we said, two and a half to one and a half. Stricker and Woods actually turned out to be a pretty decent pairing in this. They defeated Polter and Ross Fisher. Bubble Watson with a sort of rare win with Jeff, paired with Jeff Overton, Militim Sergeant Watson, getting a good victory there over Luke Donald

and Patrick Harrington. US came out and again, they won the next session for some, what's bonkers about this Ryder Cup is the US ends up winning three out of four sessions and still doesn't win the cup. So Woodson'sricker again, like just whip up on Peter Hansen and Miguel Jimenez for in three, Zach Johnson and Hunter Mayhann win their match. Stuart Sink and Matt Kutcher defeat Rory and

Graham McDowell, but Phil Mikkelson just keeps kind of lay in an egg in these areas matches does not get a win in any of the pairings It basically only goes into singles win list He and DJ gets stomped by Harrison Ross Fisher Harrington Ross Fisher Luke Donald and Indian Polter also up So US gets through that session. They're up six four all right, so they go into This the second session on Saturday US is in lavender sweaters, excuse me, I think lilac is a better option of it. It's still kind of raining that there's the

spare ways are very squishy. There's still squeegeeing things, the bunkers are still have some like puddling in it. It's just it's really kind of crazy. It's so wet. It's so wet. Just mud in the stands too, if I remember right. Yeah. Yeah, completely like just a it's gone. If you may remember, this is the Saturday that one of the most famous sports photos of all time has taken by Mark Payne of the Daily Mail. It's the famous it's Tiger Woods and the famous cigar guy in the background, his name is Rupesh Shingadia, I hope I pronounced that right. Tiger hits a sort of a bladed shot out of the awful mud

and it basically bounces off of the guy's camera. And you can see all of this sort of stands gathered around. But Rupesh is in the background sort of wearing a costume which he says is a tribute to Spanish golfer Miguel Haneal. Amen. I wanted to do something to show my support for the European team and I thought of Miguel. These days sportsmen have become devoid of character, but Miguel does his own thing. And I love the way he walks around the course with a cigar clamped between his teeth.

Just a very hilarious photo that you still see kind of all over. It's like static. It's like static. Woods was apparently quite embarrassed about having bladed into the camera, but did not object to where the cameraman was standing. Didn't think that that was an issue. It was just mostly pissed off at himself for hitting the shot. This is 2010. So like we're just getting into like Twitter has been born in 2009. And it's one of the, I don't know if it's one of the first sports photos to go viral,

but it certainly like does people like end up photoshopping it was face it was face it was totally like enormous photo. Yeah, it's still like if you Google like Tiger Woods cigar guy, you know, hundreds and hundreds of web pages will come up with just cracking jokes on this stuff. So I just pulled the photo up to like another thing like one of the last photos you'll see where no one has phones not everyone has phones pointed at the guy playing and it's just the ball out of focus with Tiger looking right at it.

The cigar guy everyone just intently watching it's amazing. It really is an amazing photo. Lavender sweaters make it to make it sick too. The US does not do particularly well in ForSums to start out that day. Stricker and Woods get stomped by Luke Dawdenly, Westwood, 6 and 5 and 100 Mayn and Zach Johnson fall to Rory and Graham, 3 and 1. This is where Europe really starts to take control. They win the next session of 4 ball three and three and a half

to a half. And this is where the Ryder Cup basically kind of like slipped out of the US's hands. Podrigan, Ross Fisher, Beat DJ and Jim Fierrick, Peter Hanson and Miguel, Beat Tababa and Jeff Overton, the Milanaris Beat, they have with Sink and Coocher and Polter and Martin, Kymre, Beet, Mikkelsen and Ricky. So we go into Sunday signals, Sunday singles kind of unsure. The US needs a big comeback. It's, you know, they're down nine and a half to six and a half, but you know, it's doable. We think like there's a, the US has always done well in singles

and we're thinking like, you know, maybe Steve Sturker comes out and immediately like just beats, excuse me, not immediately, but beats Lee Westwood and gets cuts into two right away. All of these matches are sort of important in this split as we're gonna come down to a very close rider cup. But one in particular that I think you probably remember, a gentleman who is involved in this match just called us a little bit earlier,

is Rory McElroy and Stuart Sink, which a little bit of a match has been kind of forgotten to history in terms of its importance. Stuart Sink, Perennially owes Muffin baskets to Hunter Mayhand for what happens in the back half of this match. Correct. Now, Stuart Sink is sort of, you know, playing a person who will turn out to be one of the great, you know, players of his era, arguably, you know, one of the great players in history and Rory. But Rory's 21 at this point, and this is a match that I would say Stuart probably should have won,

considering the way that he played. There was some opportunities in this that sort of slipped away, that were not exactly, that would have been remembered. Like if this was the last match of the thing, it's like, we always talk about like, your fate kind of decides where you end up being remembered. Everyone thinks about this is like,

oh, Hunter Mayhan, like, you know, totally fucked up this Ryder Cup, whatever. Not really true in a lot of ways. Like, if Stewart sink won this match, or if this match was near the end, Stewart sink would have been the goat. Yeah, a lot of way. Not great at all time, yes.

He had a chance to put Rory two down through 11. But Rory made this crazy good birdie from 15 feet after having totally hit it wild off the tee and had to lay up on a par five. sink drove the green into, made a fairly easy two-pot birdie, but Rory rolled in like a curling 15 footer, kept it one down. Rory then dunks it in the water on 13 makes double goes back one down.

Does it really tight match all throughout? They come to the 15th. It's a it's a 253 yard par four, which I mean, hey, if there the margol Simone's going to be filled with these kind of holes that are irrelevant. Yeah. Sing hits it. I'm not kidding to maybe about eight feet, just a really good like hybrid. Maybe it's like a five for seven wood somewhere in there.

Roy hit it in the bunker. All stood syncs got to do essentially is, you know, win this hole. It's probably like, he's probably gonna, it's gonna be really hard for Rory to come back. Sturzing three puts. And it's probably three puts. Yeah, it misses a really like, you know, I would not say easy putt,

but like a four footer maybe that essentially lets Rory off the hook. And so they go into 16. It looks like Stewart Sink's gonna win again. And Rory makes like a curling 10 footer, just an unbelievable like stones in your throat kind of put. Rory did some hero shit in this match. So you have to sort of give Rory credit for that. But they come to 17, all right.

And Stewart Sink, Rory hits they come to 17, all right, and Stuart Sink, Roy hits it probably to 30, 40 feet. 17 is a long par three, like a 200-bar three. Sink hits a shot that looks like it's going in the bunker. The announcers, while it's in the air, are like, oh no, he's in trouble. It hits the like the side of the bunker and kicks left and rolls out to four feet. It's what an unbelievable break, like one of the great breaks of all time. If he makes this putt, he's going into 18, one up. You know, all he's got to do is essentially, you know,

make a par or make a birdie. And he's, you know, he's got to make force for him to make a birdie or an eagle on the last. Does it? He hits a putt that doesn't even like touch the hole. Like I, it, I can't describe the putt is definitely shorter than Stewart sink is tall. So it had to be like less than five feet,

but it was incredibly close. Is it shorter? Is it closer than Ian Wusdom is tall? Now that's, that's up in the air. I can't say one way or another. So then on 18, actually, you know, Sir Singh has another chance to he has got a birdie putt. Roy tries to go for the green and two ends up in the bunker and leaves it in the bunker with his second shot can only

make par so Singh has a putt to essentially, you know, I don't know if it won the rider cup, but it would have made a hundred Mayhands match like much less all the pressure was on him. He doesn't make the putt. Rory gets up and down for five. It's a have. It's just a huge break for the Eros, which again, the final score ends up being 14 and a half, 13 and a half. And if Mayhans can muster up, I have in that final match, the US retains the cup. Yep. Someone who does muster up a have is Ricky Fowler. This is really, if you look back at Ricky Fowler's Ryder Cup career, this is the brightest moment of all. One of the few moments where it's like, okay,

you are really like a budding sort of future superstar. He had two fucking do-or-die pututs on 17 and 18, where if he didn't make them, he loses a match and the US essentially loses the rider cup. And it's very clear at this point because he's off fourth the last. And so his, his match is extremely important. He makes a birdie on, he probably made a birdie on 15, but they never put it out because Edward Arden Monari sort of f'ded up coming to the green. So they conceded like a six footer when Mollinari had like a misdipogiput.

So essentially Ricky Birdie's 16, 17, 18 to win. The put on 18 is incredible. I have a memory of this. It was Monday morning, I was at work and we kept going, me and my coworkers kept going from our desk into the break room to watch it. And we watched that like 20 of us in a room watch that put poor in and just erupt out of the conference room.

A truly just a cool moment. Like he, you know, especially, I mean, his putt and it's putt on 17 to like it was probably 15, 20 feet. Mal and Ari had had lagged it up to an inch. So if if Ricky doesn't make it like, it's over. There's no basically like the rest of it is not going to matter. Drain's it, you know, goes again, and then drains it again on 18, like just an awesome performance. If there's a, if you have hope for Ricky, like for 10 or 20 form, right? This is like, because it, this was, I think the 13, like whatever it would have,

if I remember right, there were some either, um, fill out just losses match, right? Or how many matches there were? So it was at this point, it made it 13 and a half to 12 and a half when Ricky won, right? And if it's 14 and, uh, whatever else was out there goes the raw, it was like, if you missed that put the couples lost already. Correct. It felt like. Yes. I mean, almost certainly the couples lost. Like it still like was, I mean, at that point, like Mayhem would have had to win three of the last, you know, four holes or whatever. But so, you know, just to sort of review a quick what happened, like Dustin Johnson finally woke up. It's just absolutely baptized. Marvin Kymar, 64. Dustin Johnson finally woke up. It's just absolutely baptized. Marvin Kimer, 64. Polter kind of adds to his kind of rider cup legend, beats Matt

Kutcher, 4 and 5 and 4. Jeff Overton, Fump and Ross, Fisher, 3 and 2. Miguel Nell-Humenez, unfortunately, honorably discharging Bob Watson, 4 and 3. Tiger finishes up a 3 and 1 rider cup session by beating Francesca Moll and Ari, three and four and three. And Phil finally gets in on the action by beating Peter Hanson, four and two. It's Phil's only positive sort of result of the rider cup went one and three in this rider cup.

So it all comes down to the match of Hunter Mayhans. Excuse me, but one note though, Jim Fierrick probably could have, he was, Fierrick's a second matchoff, or third matchoff. So he loses eventually one up to Luke Donald, but if you're looking for like spreading the blame around a little bit, like Fierrick could have won this match against Luke Donald, like he, or he could have had to have, he came to, Luke Donald played pretty darn well, but Fierreck came to 18, had a wedge from 120 yards and dumped it in the bunker, didn't even give himself a chance

at a birdie. Dull made like a sloppy five. If Fierreck birdies 18, that's a have, and then that helps flip things down the road. So it didn't seem super important in the moment as often these things do with Ryder Cups, but if you're looking to say it wasn't all on Hunter Man, there's another sort of result. I'd say it's a little bit, Hunter Man didn't make a birdie until the 15th hole.

So it wasn't like Graham played lights out that day. Hunter had a short putt on the 11th that he could have made and missed. But what does happen is McDowell makes an unbelievably awesome birdie on 16. Like I was a long par four, like 460 yards. McDowell hit the just ripped a drive right down the middle of fairway, like 315 yards of which for him and that era was a long long drive hits it to 20 feet and then just trickles in this unbelievably deft you know 1520 footer to go two up with two to play. Iconic moment that crowd on that hill on that Monday like everyone knew the rider cup is coming

down to that match. That was one of the most clutch plots in rider cup history. So Hunter needs to win both 17 and 18. So at this point, it's you know, he has to come back and win both these holes. It's the idea that like somehow Hunter may have like choked away the rider cup is a little unfair because this point like Graham has, you know, has basically taken it from him to this point. But the damage is done before we got to that point with Mayhem. Correct. Really. Hunter hits it. He hits his, Graham hits his, he's off, he's off first on 17. He hits it to probably 25, 30 feet beyond the pin

and Hunter comes up short with his putt, with his, with his long iron and has a chip that he has to get close, right? Or he probably thinking like, I might have to make this because, you know, McDowell's got a really good chance at two putting this. So as someone who has had some chipping problems and may still be having them, I got to tell you, this is the kind of chip that gives people like me nightmares uphill against the grain. You have to nip it like super perfectly. If you're trying to use the bounce, you bring in like, you know, blading it, you know,

50 feet past, he hits it, you know, and it doesn't really even reach the surface. So it goes probably, you know, six feet and just is still on the fringe. And he's obviously, Devon say the whole crowd is like, oh, you know, the task was outrageous, enormous and unlikely, but the shot is like the worst you'll ever see a professional hit. Like that's, that's the part that people struggle to marry up. Like I don't think they realize like he needed to hold that probably, but it was a truly horrific shot.

So a little like people always say that, oh, Grammack Dowell made the winning putt at the rider cup. He didn't actually, he hit it to like six feet, where he still like had a chance to like, if Hunter makes the next one, Gram would have had to make this five for six footer to essentially win the rider cup. Hunter gives a really pretty good effort, and it sort of just trickles by the hole and then he walks over and concedes because it is a matter at this point. So the idea that I saw it sell references

to like Graham McDowell made the winning Ryder put. Nah, I mean maybe I guess he made the winning put on 16 if that's the case, but he didn't make it on 17. It just had his ball picked up. As you can imagine, as anyone would be, Hunter Mayan is just pretty devastated. You know, he gets asked questions in the press conference and is so kind of overwhelmed with emotion

that he can barely speak like through tears. And it's impossible to not watch that and not feel for Hunter Mayhan and feel sympathy for him. And Phil Mickelson to his credit, like grabs the mic and was like, any one of us would have wanted to be in that position. He put himself in that position today. Stuart Sink also sort of steps in.

So it's kind of a cool moment in terms of like camaraderie of those guys, basically kind of boost him up. Sync says, you know, he's a man in our team. He performed like a champ out there today. I think he's awesome. Really kind of, you know, the closest the US has come to winning in Europe all this time, 14 and after 13 and a half. As I said, like, you know, the rain gear probably didn't make any real difference, just like all kinds of things. But you just, you know, you never know what, what one thing could have flipped a match. And the last thing I have of this

is in, in Polter Clause, it's a big, big kerfuffle afterwards afterwards because this is again, the social media era coming to life. He posted a video of himself drinking or eating Cheerios out of the Ryder Cup with his children. And even the, even the European media was incensed about this, calling it extremely disrespectful. That's he was, I love being a bad about being a totalitarian converse. Yeah, listen, I'd love to get mad about Polter. That's totally fine. You win the cup. that he would, oh my, is steering a mat about what our stereo controversy is. Yeah, listen, I'd love to get mad about Pulitzer. That's totally fine. You win the cup.

You would do whatever you want with it. Oh my god. So that is 2010. That's a good one, man. That's a, you know, I look back at that wouldn't fondly just because it was close. Like the other European ones have been such blowouts and it's hard to look at fondly.

So all right, we go to Glenn Eagles, which is one that, you know, we kind of tend to fight over these a little bit or we can kind of be like, we do a little bartering when we do these recaps of like, all right, well, you got the highlight of 96, I'll take the highlight of 97. I wanted 14, man, I wanted to relive 14.

We are going to Glenn Eagles in Scotland. The captains are Tom Watson and Paul McGinley. Tom Watson is the oldest US captain ever at 65 years. All the ass captains are Andy North, Raymond Floyd, and Steve Stricker. You know, if you were worried about these, you know, maybe Tom Watson not being in touch with the players. You, of course, you got to throw in Andy North, Raymond Floyd.

Stricker being the lone exception here, and he's going to play a part here. It's just kind of loud to my old colleague, Andy North, is like an assistant captain in this writer cup. I mean, so obviously he's friends with Watson. So that's part of it. But like, Andy North hasn't been involved in like a lot of golf any North like notorious for only winning to us to you two us opens and no other tournaments in his entire like career, not exactly like finger on the pulse of the young writer cup kids. The quote about Watson of often wrong, but never in doubt is going to permeate so strongly

from the jump with his ass captains. And this was of course a Ted Bishop special. I want to shout out Shane Ryan. He's got a great podcast called The Rider Cup Run. He did a great episode on this of just the, you know, I'm not going to dive into all of the, what went into Watson becoming captain, but the idea being, hey, we haven't won across the pond and forever. It's been what is it?

21 years to this point. Tom Watson was the last captain of the US team that went over in one in 1993. They needed a strong force across the pond. Again, Ted Bishop kind of following his gut. Of course, Ted Bishop would later be fired for tweeting at Ian Poulter and calling him a little girl. So yeah, maybe, maybe not the guy to be calling the shots here. Nick Fowdo called out Sergio during live coverage saying he was useless on the 2018. And Bishop was with Fowdo on a Thursday at the Green Briar for the Fowdo series junior program when he tweeted to Poulter. Fowdoos record stands by itself six majors in all time writer cup points, yours versus his little girl. So I had a feeling some alcohol might have been involved in that one. So Shane Ryan would go on to say in this podcast that this was

the writer cup that broke the Americans. And I do not disagree with that assessment. Go into the Euro side first. Paul McGinley is the captain. And again, this is a whole saga on its own. I'm going to cover it as briefly as possible. But Darren Clark and Paul McGinley are great friends. But when Tom Watson is named the captain on the US side, this is I think from the guardians as Clark in a letter, head inform McGinley that he wasn't interested in the job for 14, which helped clear the way for McGinley cap and ship. But shortly after the 2012 Ryder Cup in Medina, Clark pulled an about face tossing his hat back in the ring to cap in the 14 team.

In Clark's corner was Ryder Cup stalwart Lee Westwood, who went to bat for the Burley Northern Irishman at a tournament press conference in Turkey. In late 2012, Clark changed his mind again, proclaiming he'd rather play on the 14 team than captain it. He also said that whoever is standing on stage, opposite Tom Watson needs a huge presence. We seriously need the right man for the job. So he meant MacGunley, right? Nope.

Clark was back in Kalman Montgomery to come back in and captain another home rider cup, just four years after captaining the one in Wales. So again, this is a whole long saga back and forth, but Rory McElroy puts a kind of a dagger in things when he tweeted, Ryder Cup captaincy should be a one time thing. Everyone deserving gets their chance and moves on. I would love to play under Paul McGinley in 2014.

I just give people an idea of how close McGinley and Clark were, Paul McGinley withdrew from the 2006 PGA championship to a 10 Clark's vice funeral when she died there in 2006. So again, it's a whole saga back and forth. And, you know, Lee Westwood, Bax, Colin Montgomery, Luke Donald, Bax, Paul McGinley, which leads to an interesting situation when Paul McGinley goes to fill out his team. And he ends up selecting Stephen Gallagher, a Scotsman who had had a great year in the lone Scottish player on the team, Ian Polter,

who's kind of an automatic pick at this point after what happened in Medina. And then had the decision between Lee Westwood, who backed Montgomery and Luke Donald, who backed McGinley. Do you remember who he took? He took Westwood, right? Because he took the guy who didn't track him. It was like he put the integrity of the Ryder Cup above any personal feelings. That's exactly right. I love it just real quick.

This doesn't happen in America, but there's always like a tug of war between captains in Europe. And it's like every interview is like asking, who are you backing? Like, who, you know, who's you, who are you supporting this year? And they almost like the committee on the Euro Tour weighs that of like, all right,

well, he's got, he's got Lee's support, but this guy's got Rory's support. And like in America, it's just like, nope, Zack's the pick or strikers the pick. There's never like a public discussion about like, I don't want that guy. Yeah. We just publicly backstab each other, right? I mean, we do it after the fact. Even though like, there's still, I mean, can you think of another than Watson,

an American captain who, when he got the job, people were pissed about it. I don't remember like a lot of like, there wasn't people upset when Fiorek got the gig or I mean there was some I feel like when layman and Paven maybe there was some controversy but never never quite as big as what happens in Europe where there's like people like literally you said in the last one calling Ian wisdom like a pathetic, you know Piece of shit Back to the US we have a bubble Watson leading the team in points. Ricky, Fiorek, Jimmy Walker, Phil, Koocher, Spieth, Reed, and

ZJ. Tom Watson, one of his first moves was to reduce the amount of captains picks from four to three, which puts ZJ on the team after Dustin Johnson took a voluntary leave of absence for golf. And I don't have any further details as to why he decided that, but I hope it wasn't a jesski injury. I don't know what it was, but Zach Johnson now makes the team on points in the nine slot. He would go on to go 0 2 and 1. Tom Watson selects Keegan Bradley Hunter Mayhan and with the final pick, he does not have the opportunity to select Billy Horser who had just finished second first and first in the final events of the 2014 season because the picks were made on September 2nd.

He changes his mind on the day of the picks. I believe on the day of the night. The night. It is believed that Bill Haas had already been communicated to that he would be on the team. Web Simpson would say, I thought I've got nothing to lose. So I texted him something like, I know it's a really tough decision for you. I know Chris just won and I know Bill Haas is playing really good.

And you even have other options other than that, but I really, really, really want to be on the team and I really, really want to represent the United States. I love this format and I'll do anything to be on the team. I mean, it was like 4.30 in the morning, it's a tough question to be asked. I just told him about my passion for the rider, a cup from my one experience and how I cared about it and how much I believed I thought I could bring to the team, nothing over the other guys, but just,

hey, you know, the Dynas is still there. I think about it and I want another shot. I didn't have a lot of interaction with Captain in terms of texting and phone calls throughout the year. He would text me occasionally that I'm on his radar, but it was kind of the first time I expressed to him how bad I wanted to be on the team. And by the end of the phone call,

Watson congratulated Tom Watson, told me he'll be named as a captain's pick later that day. Which even like reading back at that, all I'm hearing from Webb is that he wants to be on the team. Like, yeah, a lot of people don't want to be on the team. Brain Webb at all, like he, no, I'm saying like, I don't know what he said to convince him. Other than like, I just want to be on the team. I really want to be on the team. I want, I'm saying like, I don't know what he said to convince him. Like other than like, I swear to be on the team.

I really want to be on the team. I want, I'm sure you do. Like everyone wants to play on the team. I'm not like, who am I going to marry with? Why are you good fit for your gunning? Those like what, you know, I feel like a Bill Haas and a Cam Young should get together and do a prod. What it's like to almost be on a runner cup team.

If you'll remember, there was some big controversy leading up into this all of her brown from the telegraph has a take on a US player. There is no other stage in the game that would permit Ricky Fowler to disembark the Americans Ryder Cup plane in Edinburgh sporting a GI Joe style crew cut. The letters USA shaved around his ear and an exhibition of thugged jingoism that on any normal day would give grounds for many a club secretary to throw him off the premises in a heartbeat. Wow, the club secretary invoking the club secretary. I'll dare you. I'm going to finish my dinner of ham and peas and come right out and slap you on the wrist young man. Shingo is a Ted bitch.

It also shaved USA in the size of his head, but I don't know if he had enough hair to be able to see it. There's a picture. And I had to read the caption to it for it to be upset that he had shaved USA in the size of the set. Because I couldn't shout out to the Euro media who I'm sure like it's usually plays the same tricks over and over and over again. We'll find something in the lead up to Italy to get upset about. It'll probably be Brooklyn. At least the American still have not apologized for Brooklyn. I don't really remember. There was some dubbing of this US team as the redeem team, which yeah, that didn't really work out. I feel like this, a more accurate expression of US plans here could be found in the unguarded

remark of past Captain Paul Azinger, who channeling both Braveheart and Paul Piction, said of Roy McElroy, I want us to go all William Wallace on his ass. I don't remember that from invoking the Irish Scottish stuff. That's a, I don't know about that. Paul Oliver Brown continued these next six days should form a fascinating, fascinating litmus test of Watson's credentials as the great moral educator of golf, as we wait to see whether he will curb any over exuberance among his men. Uh, let me point out this writer cup ends with Roy McAughey prematurely popping a bottle

champagne, uh, near the 18th green. So I'm sure Oliver Brown took Roy to task for it. It was an accident. But I'm sure there are people in England who are listening to this, Scotland, Ireland, whatever Europe that are annoyed. But like, I think what you and I constantly just like to joke about is that it's weird double standard that the English press has for behavior issues

that like nobody ever flips out about like John Rom like pounding his chest and like, you know, going all Hulk after beating Tiger in Paris. Nobody cares about Jose Maria de la Bautable and like Sevi like doing the Konga on, you know, the green at Mirafield like it's always the Americans are such foolish, the foolish, the foolish, the foolish, so that in the fat, look, It's always the Americans are just such thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish thuggish we get to Beth Bage because I cannot tell you having covered the last PGA that Brooks won at Beth Bage, the fans there are going to be unruly and awful and it's going to be nothing like Minnesota.

They should not the Ryder Cup. That's going to be a take. And I don't even like necessarily disagree with it. But it's also like, man, I as much as like I hate Polkters, Antics during the Ryder Cup, that is a hundred million percent part of it. Like that, it's a sports hate. It's like, dude, I just want to beat that dude. And like, it is all above board in the Ryder Cup. People that were mad at JT and Burger for chugging beers on the first tee, it was like, dude, what are we doing here?

This event is entertaining. I think a good rule of thumb that we've always followed is when the Americans lose, blame the Americans and when the Americans win, blame the Americans. Like that's the European rule. I guess, no matter what. It's like this every time. Americans and when the Americans win, blame the Americans like that. It's like this every time.

So getting into the European side, it's Rory Hendrick's tense, really good team. Hendrick's tense and Victor Duboison, Jamie Donaldson, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Martin Kymher, Thomas Bjorn, Graham McDowell, and the aforementioned picks of Gallagher, Polter and Westwood. So pre-match, we have Phil dropping in the widest comment of all time, trash talking comment of all time, saying we also don't litigate against each other. Of course, referring to that Rory and GMAC were tied up in a lawsuit, Rory filed the lawsuit the day before GMAC's wedding and didn't attend the wedding. Roy later settled it for I believe nearly $30 million.

I don't really know enough about that whole thing. I'd be a good deep dive someday. But Phil knows a lot about owing people $34 40 million. So I'm sure he didn't read exactly on that. No, Roy would reply. Find Phil later and say at least I'm not wanted by the FBI. And really a lot better dig than what what fill laid down. Listen, this two have been like sniping each other or rider cup stuff for years.

I'll still remember in Hazeltein, like they were in a match. It was like the first day and they were playing alternate shot and Phil was partnered with Ricky and Phil walked all the way across the fairway to see what the lie was like on Rory's, like T-shot. And Rory was like, we're fine here, Phil. Yeah. Like, get back over on your side of the fairway. He's like, remember how sweet it is.

It's particularly when it comes to the rider cup. These are two dudes who do not like each other. So like, people were kind of, I put this in the mailbag last week about, do you think it was like really low class of Rory to take a shot at Phil's, you know, gambling stuff, whatever. He wouldn't have done that if it was like a gambling is a disease. I was like, he didn't take a shot at his gambling. He took a shot that Phil's not involved in the rider cup, which I'm sure that Phil is bummed about. He said, well, he doesn't have to worry about that because I'm not going to be there this year. So I mean, I think

that's all a fair game when between these two over the years. Like you start firing out like, well, we're not litigating each other. it's all it's all fair game, man. That last one from Rory was one that I was like, I don't know if that was necessary, man. Like I It's trying to I don't know that one. I don't as much as I'm not I am team Rory every team fill like I might have just left that one alone if I was in but anyways Do you want to do like so I'm gonna play this now. There is a clip of a story. It's lengthy. I've used it in a Ryder Cup. Medley, I have, as comes from the Paul McGinley episode of the Ryder Cup from September of 2020 that I would point people towards oftentimes. And I'm going to play it again here because this clip alone transformed so much of my thinking of how the Ryder Cup is done. How teams are,

how a captain can make a difference in a Ryder Cup, how a plan can come. And I want to play it now because we're going to get into what Tom Watson does. And I want people to have the full stark difference and understanding of the difference in these two captains and how it played an enormous factor in this. So this is Paul McGinley, knowing a podcast from September 2020, talking about how he did one of his parents and one of his plans. So my philosophy of the captain was very much along the lines of Sam Tarns. It was about communication, it was about relationships,

it was about managing all the relationships. I mean, I didn't have 12 guys that I knew really, really well. I knew a lot of them well and some were easy to manage and some are more difficult. Victor Dubasson had made the team who, you know, all the French guys in tour were telling me, he was kicked off the French team when he was in amateur, kicked out of the federation, he were the wrong clothes, he wouldn't be told what to do, he won't

turn off for team meetings and all of those. And, you know, that was highlighted as a red flag to me. So I made it really made it my business, I put a lot of effort into managing him. And I did that by getting to know him as a person. Remember going out to Malaysia for a week where he was playing and spending a week with him, having dinner with him at night and trying to break down his barrier that he had as a human and then tried to get me into it. He's very untrustworthy of people and you know, try to get him in there. I took him down to Monaco. We had a bottle of wine on a friend of mine. He was a form of a one team. I knew he loved form of a one. Got him into that environment. Got him in a nice kind of kind of managed them and slowly brought

him into the team and then grabbed, got Graham McDowell to play a part as a senior guy. He needed a senior guy. Then I had to talk to Joel Graham into playing that role. Graham wanted to play a bigger role. He wanted to be one of the stars of the team and play in all five games. And I said, no, Graham, I mean, this is the plan. That stage, I was formulating the plan of who was going to play. Well, I've just like Sam did to me in the back of that B and W and away, down with a bottle of champagne, he had a plan and I was going to have a plan. And, you know, I was starting to formulate the plan,

plead out right a cup of who was going to play with who and, and, and then it was a question of when the right a cup came, was going to roll out that plan. It wasn't making look as I went, it wasn't making it up two days before. This was going to be made up well in advance, based on statistics based on, on, on the golf course. And, and, and that was going to be made up well in advance based on statistics based on the golf course and that was going to be the plan and then the communication of that plan to each individual player and not telling them like Sam did what everybody else is doing.

So for example, you know, Rory wasn't aware of who else was doing what the team except who he would be playing with and whose potential partners were and how many matches you would play. That's all he needed to know whereas Victor the same, you know, we who he would be playing with and whose potential partners were and many matches you would play. That's all he needed to know. Whereas Victor the same, you know, you're going to be playing too much, you're going to be playing with Graham in the four seasons the first two days and then he's going to play the singles, you're going to be playing three matches. You know, and then with Graham, I had to little bit of the yin and the yang. So trying to get Graham convinced to play this role of only playing three out of five matches

was not a thing. You know, Graham like all players has got a niggle when he wanted to play five. And he's coming off long after being the US Open Champion and a big star. And being an absolute hero in 2010. And really wanted to play that big role, that lead role. And I had a little bit of a smaller role from the play, but a very important one in terms of looking after one of the rookies playing the two matches in a difficult format that is for some. And I had to try and convince them

that this was the right thing to do. So I did it by talking to him on a humane level and also on a common sense level, and I set them down based on what I knew with statistics and what I trawled out. And I said, look, the real key to unlocking this golf course based on the stats that I've gathered over the last 10 years to the Johnny Walker round clinical golf course. Graham is the fact that the real key is unlocking the power fives. There's four power fives in this golf course as well as a drive for power four. Now they're all big power fives. And what I really want to do is I want to have the bigger hitter driving on these holes

four out of those five holes or even number screen. I really need you're not one of the bigger hitters. I need to put you with a big hitter driving on these holes, four out of those five holes or even numbers frame, I really need, you're not one of the bigger hitters, I need to put you with a big hitter, and I need to look after the guy who needs somebody senior and mature on the team, and there's nobody better than you to play that role. And then I took out the yardage map when I showed him, you know,

your average drive down to second gram, is, you know, he can't get home into, where is if he drives, you're able to get home into. And then slowly went around the golf course that way, when it comes to 14, he can't get home in two. Where is if he drives, you're able to get home in two. And then slowly, when around the golf course that way, when it comes to 14, he can drive the green gram, because it's an even number. It'll be his driving hole. Where is, you know, if you're driving on that hole,

you're gonna have to lay it up. And so my, my forces partnerships were young and young. I had a big hit around a short hitter in each partnership in order to attack the par-fives with the bigger hitter driving on the, on the even numbers. So then if you played all that role for them, I then gave them the cherry of, I say, look, if you do this for me,

I'll put you about number one in the singles in two weeks time. I'll put you about leading out the team in singles. Now I'm playing to his ego, I'm playing to, you know, a role that he really wanted to play. And he's like, really, what will Rory say about that? And I said, I've cleared it with Rory. Rory's good with all of this.

We're going to put Rory out number three because putting out number one is expectation on his shoulders. I know the last two European captains have put them out at number one, but that hasn't worked out too well. He's lost both of his games. You know, I personally wouldn't be putting out

the best player at number one because they've got nowhere to go at number one that expected to win as a huge amount of expectation to shoulders. And that was my, I said the grand, I said my good instinct is the best number one to the street fires, the guys with the biggest heart. That's the guy you put out number one, Graham, and you're the guy with the biggest heart

in this team. So, you know, it was all about managing that kind of, just an example of the communication and about an ad with Graham. And so he went away, then he played his two games with, with, with Victor, they won both of our games and Graham was terrific. And then he went out number one in the singles and one in the singles. And you know, the other point I made to him on the playing the singles, Graham, is look,

Graham, if you play this role in the first two days of only playing one match, you're gonna have an advantage in the singles. And the advantage will be, America are gonna do one or two things. They've had, sorry, if he always done one or two things. They'll add up a better player number one, or they'll put out the player who's playing the best that week.

Either way, Graham, they'll have played 72 holes in the first two days. You only have played 36. You're going to be fresh or going out against whoever you're playing against. It doesn't matter who it is. And that's ultimately what happened. You know, he went out against Jordan's beat who was their best player. And Jordan Tired. I mean, Jordan got three up at Wednesday a year ago. I'm Graham, but what faded then is Graham went out to win two and one. So all those conversations where had two weeks in the advanced rider cup, Graham knew well in the advanced rider cup exactly what role you were playing.

And that's ultimately what happened. Incredible story. It, again, I cannot stress how, how drastic the difference is from what's about to unfold on the US side, right? And I don't know how you hear that story as one example of a leader and how you come up with a plan for the

Ryder Cup and not think that chemistry and captaincy and pairings and team chemistry matters, right? Like that's where I think I go back to like having trouble with this just label as a boys club of being like, no, like some of this decisions really will matter. And how the US did it up their pairings, the one that ended up working the best was also kind of an accident. And we'll get to that here in a second. So Tom Watson wanted to pair Jordan's spieth with Matt Kutcher and Patrick Reed with Jim Fjurik. Steve Tricker convinced him to put Reed and spieth together. So the only U.S. pairing that

really worked ended up being a total accident. The U.S US has their best ever outfits on. You commented yesterday on Twitter on it. The sweaters are fired. The beanies are great. Pinshtripe, white pinstripes on blue pants, on bottom. Just that simple Ryder Cup trophy on the front of them. And I mean, the breed and spieth went on to have just a truly all-time morning.

Like it was incredible. They are balling out their combined ages 45 years old, which is the youngest in US history. They hand Ian Polter is his first loss in his last eight rider cups. It's electric. Speed makes a 15 footer to put them five up through 10. He didn't even watch it go in. It's a foot away and the crowd is still like, you know, hasn't reacted to the putt yet. And you just hear him yell, come on. As the putt drops and like he and Reed are pumping each other up, it was awesome. It was like, all right, we've been looking for this pairing on the US side for quite some time. They get to have another pairing gets to the first tee. I believe this was the first group if I

remember right, introducing in four balls, the first player to play now on the tee. But, but Watson, the only problem was it was Web Simpson that was up at that point and he would go on to sky his opening T shot. I don't think it went barely 200 yards. Bailey reached the fairway. Fill you up. That's somebody who skies T shots occasionally. I feel you again, this is Tom Watson's ego at play here. His captain's pick, his final gut captain's pick has to be the one that hits the first shot in this four ball match. They would go on to play. They're playing Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson would go on to lose that match five and four. And Web Simpson would not play any

of the remaining three sessions. So whatever plan, whatever got it, we've got benched entirely after one. Whatever plan Tom Watson had for this captain's pick. It's going to be a little different than how the, you know, Paul McGinley's plan for Victor Dubuisson that included a trip to Malaysia, a trip to Monaco and taking one of his best players and basically assigning him the role of babysitting him. So Baba pumped up the crowd again before his opening shot, which he had done at Medina as well. Ricky and Jimmy Walker, the half machines would have with Thomas Bjorn and Martin Keimer

and Keegan and Phil beat Sergio and Rory in that morning and they are, the US is up two and a half to one and a half after the four ball session. So, all right, we got a couple of pairings at one, spieth and read and Bradley and Phil, like sure enough, they're going back out there, right? Right? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Wrong. Who would, why would it? Jordan Speeth would say I was 100% certain we were going back out. Tom had told the team. It would be depending on how you play in the morning. For whether or not you would go back out in the afternoon, they were not sent out in the afternoon. Watson said, they were very upset with me for not playing them this afternoon. I said, I know you're going to be mad at me, but you'll be playing Saturday for sure. Okay, I don't think that's really just a problem. I thought it was the best decision not to play them. Okay, I forget this article is from Fair enough.

What were the reasons for the decision? I won't go into those, says Tom Watson. I can see this in like a lot of Zach acting like this. I'm not gonna go into that. Like I, when Watson would go on to say, when I told Patrick that he wasn't going to play in the afternoon, it was comical at the time and not so comical now. I said, how does that make you feel? He said, well, I'm all right with it.

He said, well, really captain, I'm not all right with it. I said, that's the way I want you to be. What lesson have you learned from this? I love your fire, but you're not playing. He says, you're going to be second guest and obviously you're going to second guest me on that decision right there. I have to search this. I think I remember almost saying like on Twitter in 2014, like this is not second guessing. This is first guessing, like this is your pairing, send them back out. The original plan was not to send Phil and Keegan back out again, feels 44 years old.

You know, on a visiting Ryder Cup team, but they do send them back out for that afternoon. Just to deal with, I'm sorry to interrupt, but is this do where Phil is like tells Watson, I'm putting everything I have into this match. Like I don't want to play in the afternoon. That is 2012. Okay.

So they he and Keegan played 36 holes on the Friday. They won that and then they were playing Saturday morning and they had he had told Davis like I'm putting everything I have into this match. Don't play me in the afternoon. We're not going to go back out and they won that match and then they didn't send him out for the final match. momentum flipped and everyone yelled at Davis. When in in reality. That was not the plan. So in this, like, at least in that one, there was a plan that was stuck to. So Jim Furekin and Matt Kutcher go out for afternoon for sums, Jamie Donington and Lee Westwood beat them two up. Mayhan and ZJ played together. They lose to Rose and Stenson two and one. Of course, Walker and Fowler have to go back out completely. They have their match

with Rory and Sergio Fowler and Walker were back out completely. They have their match with Rory and Sergio Fowler and Walker were two up and three to play but they lose two of the last three. Roy blew on way right on 18 but gets right of a tree. Sergio is hitting a fairway wood out of the rough and hits an awesome fairway wood onto the back of the green. They two putt birdie to have the match. Again, 44-year-old Phil goes back out for this second session. He and Keegan get wamped three and two. Again, 44 year old Phil goes back out for this second session. He and Kegan get wamped three and two. Watson hunted Kegan and Phil down on the AT and accosted them for not hitting a fairway. What a leader. How dare you? It is five to three Europe after the Europeans win three and a half to a half in four sums like they always dominate. The press conference

that night was a mess. Watson was all over the place. He said the plan was to play Bubba twice, but he then he also didn't sub in read and speak and he couldn't name who he subbed in for Bubba and read. They're like, okay, well, yeah, the plan was for Bubba and Webb. Who did you sub in? And he couldn't name who he put in in their place, which again, Adam Sarson tweet, McGinley plan to have McDowell go first two years ago. Watson couldn't remember who he put in in their place, which again, Adam Sarsant tweet, McGinley planned to have McDowell go first two years ago. Watson couldn't remember who he put out on Friday instead of

speak and read. I listen, there's almost no chance to fill us listening to this. Phil, if you are listening to this, you were right about a lot of shit in this. Yeah, I can see I can 100% understand why this was building. I think the I one of the things that the idea that has that's filled with somehow like unclassy or whatever, it this should had to be done the way that it does what's coming had to be done because of how monumentally bad badly managed they were in this Ryder Cup.

Watson left the team with this quote. It's five to three. That's two matches. You win two matches. You're back to even you win four. You're up by two. That's the way this Ryder Cup works. And that's the reality of it. I have to say I'm good with it. But it's firing shit. That is a true call to arms. Adding up the math. Saturday morning, four ball. We have Rosenstensen going out first against bubble lots in this time pair with Matt Kutcher. Rosenstensen demolished them three and two, not Bubba and Kutcher's fault. Rosenstensen were 12 under as a team, which is a rider cup record. Furek and Mayhan went out that morning again in four ball and won

four and three over Donaldson and Westwood. Read and spieth again back together. They go ape shit. It is peak read. They beat Bjorn and Kymar five and three. This is the shushing is when the shushing comes to the following day. This is just read just amp and everybody up. Rory and Polter play a match with Ricky and Grimmy Walker. Can you guess what happens in that match? They have. As they always do, Polter was kicking it around the whole match, but he managed a huge chip in on the back nine.

And of course, he drained a 12 footer on 18 for the half. If you remember, Polter's game was not in very good shape for this guy. He did not have a very good rider cup, but like he just did what he needed to in that moment. Europe's lead is down to six and a half, five and a half. So, you know, of course, you know, Jimmy and Ricky who have had their first three matches and have been the only team that have played all three matches. Surely enough, they're going to rest in the afternoon. Phil and Keegan sat out the morning.

Surely they're going to play in the afternoon. Watson would say they didn't perform at all that well yesterday afternoon. They really wanted to go today. These are the best pairings for alternate shot. And he would send out Bubba in Koocher, Fiuric in Mayhan, Read in Speed and Walker and Fowler out for a fourth time. Watson said, I expected exactly what Phil said to me. He said, we can get it done.

I said, well, the it done. I said, well, the way this course sets up, the four teams I put out there give us the best chance. Phil lobby to again, give us a chance. I had to tell him no. I think Phil was really pissed about this. I remember it was texting Watson and enormous and really anger. It was like the boiling point of like, I cannot believe that this is going to be. Well, it's just a downstream effect of a panic decision on day one, which was like sending Phil and Keegan back out for the afternoon and for some, which was not the plan. Now they played 36 holes. They played shitty in that afternoon session. So now you got to rest in the next morning and then they played bad in the foursome. So now that afternoon, you're not in a huge hurry to get them out for foursums. It's just

no game plan at all. And speaking to no game plan, Fiorek and Mayhem, who win their match for in three in the morning, get told, you guys are playing foursums in the afternoon. Haven't not a part of the plan at any point didn't work familiar with each other's golf balls. I believe this point. I don't know what the one ball rule was or whatnot. It's not much of a factor now, but this was a bigger deal back then. I believe and they go to the range and start messing around with other golf balls and who's deciding who's ball they're going to play for match play that afternoon. Always a great sign in the middle of a rider cup when you're going to the range to figure out somebody else's golf ball for the first time. Again, I want to acknowledge your Watson saying about

like about players he doesn't know at all without any statistical analysis at all total eye test how he comes up with the four pairings that give him the best chance. Again, this is total, just total gut, which brings me again back to the famous Watson quote, often wrong, but never in doubt. When asked later, if he regretted not playing Mikkelson Watson said no, flat out. No. Afternoon for sums goes probably how you'd expect Donaldson and Westwood beat C. J. and Cooch or two and one Sergio and Roy beat fear can may end the the the hasty pairing that was put together they beat them three and two. Kimer and Rose split with spieth and Reed Reed missed a very short putt 18 inches that I was was described on the 16th hole that ends up costing them the full point and Dupuison and McDowell

demolish an exhausted Ricky and Jimmy Walker again speaking to like a rested Dubuison and McDowell, the pairing that McDowell that McGinley came up with months, if not years prior, going up against a hastily made team that was trotted out for their second straight 36 whole day. Jimmy Walker hit a shank in the third fairway. Watson would go on to say, it may have been a mistake that I put Jimmy and Ricky out for four matches. He cannot, he cannot help himself though.

He finishes the quote. I thought they could handle it. Just again, pushing the blame on them. I get may have been a mistake, but I thought they could handle it. Even in that moment, he the blame on them. I get, may have been a mistake, but I thought they could handle it. Even in that moment, he puts it on them. It's quite remarkable. Wow. McDowell after the round, comments, specifically comments on the fatigue of Walker and says

Dubieson and he and Dubieson got energy from the fact that they had no energy and the McGinley's plan was working to perfection. Europe goes six, oh, and two in foursums. He's walking in that night. If I had to second guess myself, I think it was based on just a couple players getting tired. Might have done it differently if I knew they were going to be that way. Again, putting it on the players for getting tired.

Watson said, do we play well enough to win? And obviously we haven't in the last two Ryder cups. It's up to the players. It's up for the actors to go out there and act. They haven't acted well enough to get that standing ovation at the end in the last two Ryder cups. At this point, I feel like Paul McGinley is like Gordon Bombay of the Mighty Ducks.

And Tom Watson is, what's Jack Riley's the coach of the opposing Mighty Ducks? Like he is the textbook of like, all right, I got all the players. I'm gonna run the team this old archaic way and McGinley rallies the team. Like Tom Watson's just the villain in this movie of like how not to run a team.

Going back to Paul McGinley's plan into Sunday, he sends G-AC out first. He plays Watts and like a fiddle. They run Jordan's beef back out of fatigue. Jordan's beef speed gets out to a three up lead. But McGinley comes roaring back and beat spieth two and one. A fan, heckos Patrick Reed on the first

tee before his match against Henry extension about practicing his playing after the short miss on 16. He gives him a, it gives him his first shush of the day. Read goes, Apeshit, sunk a, a second straight birdie to have a hole on the seventh and turns to the pro European crowd. Gives them the famous shush sign all the way off the green and says, come on, encouraging them to keep yelling out. I don't know if he made up his mind if he wanted to be quiet or yell at him because he gives them both motions, but it was great. He was

great. He goes on to win this match club twirling up the 18th, stalking his approach into the final green and winning his match. It was I tweeted this earlier this week, but it's good to know, I wish you could know you're in the good all days before they've passed because the the sentiment that Reed had built up would be gone here in a couple of few years later. So I remember telling that I tweeted something I was like, I love cheering for Patrick Reed. Like sorry, not sorry. We're talking about years later. And I was like, God, that got like a thousand retweets. And you looked it up and it was like six retweets. I was like, Oh, different era of Twitter. Maybe everyone like went back and undid it. They're like, Oh, I got it. I got to scrub that one. I think this is actually the beginning of our friendship too,

because we had not physically met in 2014, but we're starting to sort of communicate on Twitter. So I don't even know if you had revealed yourself who you weren't real life yet. It was a fun ride or I mean, it was fun and not fun. I mean, it was so like the four ball sessions went. The US won the four ball sessions, and then just got asked whooped in the four some sessions. And again, Rory just went out into molest Ricky Fowler. I believe my tweet at the time was Rory just carved R O R Y into the other side of Ricky's head as he beat up five before. Hunter Mayan made four early birdies and had a four up lead, but Justin Rose made five

winning birdies coming in. They end up having that match when Mayan bogie the 18th hole in the fourth match. Phil beat a hapless Stephen Galagher 3 and 1. Kimer beat Watson, 4 and 2. Coacher demolished Thomas Bjorn, 4 and 3. Sergio beat Jim Furek, 1 up. And then that turned the tide over to Jamie Donson and Keegan's match. It was all going to come down to, but Keegan was already dormant for Jamie Donson

steps up and stuffs one in there on the 15th green. It's a walk off. He doesn't even have to put it. Jamie Donson beats Keegan five and three and Europe has reclaimed the right or it retains the right or cup wins the right or cup whatever you want to say didn't kick in that shagans over the fairway. Yeah, they didn't even they didn't even get all the web to the green Polter and web Simpson have their match. So web gets his redemption ZJ and Victor Dubeson have the final match and then Westwood and Jimmy Walker or Jimmy Walker Pete Lee Westwood three and two but the final is 16 and a half to 11 and a half. So now the main event, though that I have anything else after that. Yeah, definitely nothing happened. I just kind of fainted into the. So we get to the press conference after where a question goes out.

Anyone that was on a team at Valhalla, can you put your finger on what worked in 2008 and what hasn't worked since? And I don't have separate music for Lisa, or Lisa pave, so we're just going to play. And I don't have separate music for Lisa Pave, or Lisa Pave. So we're just going to play. After looking around, we get to Phil Bickle, said that is Phil Bickle, since music. And he said there were two things that allows to play our best that I think Paul Azinger did.

And he got everyone invested in the process. He got everyone invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were going to be, who was going to be in their pod, who, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod. In my case, we had Ray Floyd, and we hung out together, and we all invested in each other's play. We were invested in picking Hunter that week.

Anthony Kim and myself and Justin were in a pod, and we were involved in having Hunter be our guy to fill the pod. Something like a boys club. So we were invested in the process. The other thing that Paul did really well, is we had a game plan for each of us, you know, how we were gonna go about doing this,

how we were gonna go about playing together golf ball format What we're gonna do if so and so is playing well if so and so is not playing well We had a real game plan those two things helped us to bring out our best golf And I think that you know we all do the best we can and we're trying our hardest I'm just looking back at what gave us the most success because we use that same process in the president's cup And we do really well unfortunately We have straight from a winning formula in 2008 for the last three rider cups. We need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best.

Question. That felt like a pretty brutal destruction of the leadership that's gone on this week. Bickleson, oh, I'm sorry, you're taking it that way. I'm just talking about what Paul Aesir did to help us play our best. It's certainly, I don't understand why you would take it that way. You asked me what I thought we should do going toward going forward to bring our best golf out. And I go back to when we played our best golf and replicate that formula question. That didn't happen. Happen this week. Michelson. Uh, no, nobody here was involved in any decision. So no question goes. Question goes to A's

or to Michelson. Can you tell us what you think about what Phil said about Paul A's here? I had a different philosophy as far as being a captain this team. You know it takes 12 players to win. It's not pods. It's 12 players. Yeah, I felt I felt based on my decision on yes, I talked to the players with my vice captain for very instrumental and making decisions as to whom to pair with who to pair with. I had a different philosophy than Paul. I decided not to go that way, but I did have most of them playing the practice rounds together who played most of the time in matches, most of the time. I think that was the proper thing to do. Yes, I did mix and match a little bit from there, but again, you have to go with the evolution of the playing of the match and see who is playing the best and to play who to play with whom,

and that's what I did. Questions. Do you think that Phil was being disloyal because it sounded like that wasn't said not at all? He has a difference of opinion, that's okay. My management philosophy is different than his. A furec would go on to say, if I could put my finger on it, I would have changed a shit a long time ago, but we haven't and we are going to keep searching. I asked Hunter Mayhan about this on the pod a couple years ago about how this played out and here is some of his audio, not as long as the last one I promised.

Yeah, and I think that's what Phil's message was at that time was, your has a plan, and they have a plan of attack, and that's what we were, it felt like, and what it really seemed like we were sort of lacking was they have a process in what they're doing and You can't tell me that they're just better than us and they're beating us But they feel so comfortable with what they're doing and they it's just you can see in their play They just have no doubt about what they're doing when they get there like it's already done And I think the hardest part for us as players was we didn't know what still was going on who we were playing with going into like I said I didn't know I was playing with Jim until Saturday afternoon and I was like

you know, that's a frustrating thing for a player and changes need to be made and at some point someone's got to speak up and it's okay to be uncomfortable. As I sound, that's how things get done. And Phil's, and Phil's, the great thing with Phil is he has so much respect with all the players and the PJ of America and the PJ Tore that when he said something, it has weight. And we all supported him in that way. And

he has the guts, you know, and we've seen it through time. He has the guts to go out there and put himself out there. And I think we all really respected him for that because he wants to win and he wants to compete. Okay. I, I, I, I, I, I, not along with all that really. So that, that's, that's the end of the, of the Tom Watson. Oh, I don't know if you hear the bus. If you hear that beeping noise, the bus is coming right back around. And we're going to go make sure we're going to run him back over on, uh, on the way

in reverse and then run back over in forward direction as well because, um, this is from a, I hope I didn't mess. I think Gene Mojale, I forget where this comes from. But I think it's Bob Herrick. Actually, I read this from. Four sources who witnessed the proceedings in the US team room at Clint E. Coles. First of all, I love that part.

Four people came forward, I guess it's the story. Said Watson took no responsibility for any shortcomings, scoffed at a gift that the US team members gave him, ridiculed several European team players and started the proceedings by denigrating the Americans play that afternoon. This comes on Saturday evening going into the singles play. They gathered in the team room that night. A hotel ballroom in the lavish glint.

Eagles hotel with TVs, ping pong tables, food and drink. They were joined by their wives or girlfriends, except for Fowler, weird, parenthetical air, as well as their caddies and their significant others. Some of the hotel staff were in the room as were a few members of the PGA of America staff. In all more than 40 people were there when Watson returned to the team room after speaking to the media about Sunday parings. Watson started by saying, according to all the sources, you stink at ForSums. Just to kind of call to arms you want to hear. After praising the rookie team of Patrick Reed, Jordan Speeth, Watson went through the Sunday singles pairings

and ridiculed several members of the European side as he went through the matchups. Soon after Watson was presented a gift by Fiurek, a replica of the Ryder Cup trophy that was signed by every member of the team. Instead of thanking them, the sources said Watson said, the gift meant nothing to him. If the players didn't get the real rider cup on Sunday

that he wanted to be holding it aloft on the green and victory, apparently this was like Phil's idea, like earlier on, but Phil at this point refused to be the one to present the trophy to him. I said, one of the sources that's almost verbatim. He basically said it means nothing to him added another. It was fairly shocking that he treated this thoughtful gift with such disdain. Again, according to three witnesses Watson greeted several of the singles losers

Sunday, including Bradley by telling them they should have played better. And so after this like weird speech that he that Watson gives like some players try to take over and like Phil gets up and has a speech in front of the team and like positions himself with like his back towards Watson to like cut him out of it to basically be like, all right, I'm running this now and goes on to say great things about each player and like give like an actual real kind of speech ahead of it. And it's like, hey, you know, so and so this is what you're great at. You're good. I have great confidence that you're going to go do this tomorrow. blah, blah, blah. So more from high medias, there were times

when Tom seems so unintentionally mean and tough. I wondered if he was trying to pull the herb bricks and get the team to unite by turning against them, set a witness to the week at Glen Eagles, referencing the hockey coach. You love the United States, you're a Olympic gold and 80. But what he might have been doing to motivate some guys just had them rolling their eyes. More of a recap. Jamie Zalinson does a TV interview the morning after. Monday still looks messed up and confirms that he's still drunk as he's doing the interview because

I'm still drunk. I remember that. Anytime you wake up drunk and that's that's a night. Bubba went 0 and 3 pushing his Radica record on four and soil to a one and six. Tom Watson's captain's picks go two five and one. Watson left the team party after just a few minutes. Of course, after it. Later when Ted Bishop got fired over the little girl tweet Watson turned down his adduction into the PGA hall, America Hall of Fame in protest of Bishop's firing, which I did not know that. Also on this Monday after the Ryder Cup, Charlie Weiss got fired from Kansas after going six and 22.

So I think I, that was lengthy, but I still feel like I'm leaving something on the table for what a bad job that Watson did. But again, this is the writer cup that like, it took me a few years afterwards to like fully learn. Again, I've said some million times now, but like, this is the lens I view the writer cup through now.

And like leaders versus non-leaders. And I do want to excuse Watson a little bit. Like this was Bishop's fault. Like Watson was always gonna run the team this way. And it was Bishop's fault for putting him in place for that. But that's 24. You know what's tangentially connected that I do love is I think it was 16 when they asked Phil again about it was like, hey, you know, do you have any regrets? And he was like, look, I obviously couldn't handle it better. Boba. And then somehow he ended up dragging house Sutton. Like, do you remember this? And like someone found house Sutton. So it was like the writer

cup after feel like completely barbecued Tom Watson. He was like, Yeah, I have some regrets. And obviously I put my foot in my mouth and not, you know, Boba, and it was a lot of pressure on me to deliver stuff. But let me tell you about how how a sudden sucks. Just the man. I look, we've talked a lot about field this year. Phil has made his feelings known that he doesn't care for for us that much anymore.

But I just, I'm so grateful to have lived in the era of Phil, like producing content, uh, and just being non-stop entertaining for us after for all these years. For sure. Yeah, I forgot about that. All right, we come finally to 2018. One of the first writer cups, let's say you and I, who actually watched this writer cup together, few, one of the few of the young American media at the time, I don't know if I can so-called myself young, but who went over to France and got ourselves a credential and saw. I was not this, I went as a fan. A kind of last year actually. Yeah, with BMW.

This is the first time I met your wife, if I recall. But yes, the golf is at Leg golf, National will come to be a definitive character in this Ryder Cup. Very difficult course as many of you remember, the Americans were sort of implored to go over and play this because it was sort of seen as like nothing that they had had seen before. Only Justin Thomas went over and played in the French open, which would sort of prove beneficial to his performance later that year. But it wasn't, it was a little bit overstated that the Americans hadn't seen it. Jordan's beef, bubble Watson, Tony Fienau, all played the course with Jim Furek in July. Michelson's knuck over and played around on the way to the Scottish open. Brooks had played it when he was on the European tour or the challenge tour in 2014.

So somewhat familiar with things, but as we soon learned, the Americans were sort of a little bit hamstrung by a couple of things that happened in terms of setting up their team for a course fit. Notably, that Tiger Woods won the tour championship. His first back. What if he won? Was there was we asked over and over what if what if he ever came back and won? And Tiger did come back and win basically putting everything he had into winning that tour championship. The week before the week before the essentially Sunday, it happens. Have to get on a plane on Monday and go over to Paris. I think that night. They're on a plane, right? Yes. I believe so. So Tiger shows up pretty fucking gas at this rider cup and still ends up playing four times.

So that's a good example of perhaps not thinking about things the way that the European captains do. But in the picks leading up to this, Phil Michelson, for the first time in 11 Ryder cups, this is a 12 Ryder Cup team that he was a part of, but he had qualified on points the previous 11 times, which is bonkers. He did not play particularly well that summer leading up to this. It did shoot a 63 that sort of essentially nudged him onto the team, made it really hard for Jim Furik, the captain to sort of pass him over. And I will say to all the people who say that Phil was obviously a stupid pick for this,

Phil, I actually wrote this in one ESPN.com. I wanna read this, I'm gonna call myself out here in this. There's been a surprising amount of criticism about Michelson making the team as a captain's pick this year, which is somewhat odd, considering he's having his best season statistically in years.

He's fourth on the PGA tour in Strokes Game Pudding and fourth in Birdie average. No one on the PGA tour in Strokes Gain Pudding and fourth in Burdy average. No one on the tour has been better this year at approach shots from 150 to 175 yards, which seems like a pretty important distance. Michelson took a lot of heat for being so critical of U.S. Captain Tom Watson at Glen Eagles, but in reality, that moment is the reason the United States now has a consistent plan going into every rider cup. It's not strategy to get slapped together on a napkin five days before the event.

Yes, it was cruel to play the role of Brutus to Watson's Julius Caesar the way he did right after the United States got crushed on European soil yet again, but something that gets lost in remembering that moment is that Mikkelsen told the truth. Players weren't involved in any decision under Watson. Now Mikkelsen and Woods behind the scenes

have almost much input as furick. That's a good thing. For all the angst over his overall writer to cup record, he's 7 3 and 0 in the last three. So, maybe feels like justifiable is. This is a pretty, you know, decent selection here. I will say I'm a king of second guessing. I had no qualms with the Phil pick. And I have a quote here from a prominent golf podcast. I saw her song and saying they got the right guys. You'll not have second guessing from me. I would probably subbubba off the team if I could. I think Patrick Cantley would slide in nicely, particularly on this course.

And I'm sure that won't be a popular take considering his three wins this year, but I think they got 11 out of 12 right. I'm even good on Web Simpson. You could take away his players win and I'd still want him on the team, which only stock to be pretty present. Okay. Thank you. I think right about that writer, but I think upon seeing the golf course, though, which I

will put again, I'm just a talking head. No, it's take what I seriously put like I do upon hindsight. I like as soon as I walked it, I was like, oh god, this ain't Phil. Like, oh my god, this ain't Phil, which I will put on the cap and say a little bit to say, like, you got to have the vision for that kind of thing because it became an incredibly apparent. I think you're going to get to it. The Phil was unplayable in this Ryder Cup. Correct. And you know who said that afterwards was filled. Since we're calling out, I'm going to read something here.

ESPN had a little thing where writers were asked to predict who would be the sort of hidden MVP of the Ryder Cup, who's the hero of the Ryder Cup. And one Kevin Van Volkerberg said, Sergio Garcia is going to summon some old magic and play the way he has in the months. It went a few close matches and keep Europe in it until the very end, knowing this might be his last Ryder Cup in Europe as a player. So that turned out to be pretty impressive.

What wasn't impressive was one Kevin Van Valkberg wrote this about Patrick Reed in ranking of the Ryder Cup, who's most important on the writer cup. All ranked all 24 players. On one hand, this is Patrick Reed was ranked number two behind Justin Rose as the most important person on the writer cup squads. On one hand, this ranking assumes he's going to continue his incredible run in writer cups and not regress toward the mean. On the other hand, all available evidence points to the case that Reed might have been

born for this event. He might be the American sevy, the man who didn't care if he rubbed people the wrong way and lived for this event every two years. After what he did against Roy McElroy in singles two years ago, when the pair battled in one of the epic singles matches in Ryder Cup history, the number one spot in these rankings is Reed until someone takes it away from him. He's earned it. He doesn't drive it the farthest. He isn't the best iron player in the world, and he isn't the best putter. In this event, that doesn't matter. He's on a parade of the moment.

You'll be interesting to see who United States Captain Jim Furek pairs with Reed. Obviously Reed and Speed have had great success together, losing just once in seven matches. But with Speed struggling, it seems unlikely he'll play five times, meaning Reed will need a new partner for at least one match. Oops. That didn't turn out to be so smart. Anyway, just to kind of run down, you know, the teams here, Sergio Garcia, God, a captain's pick here and was somewhat controversial, surprisingly so. I want to read here a piece from the Guardian. Bjorn has admitted,

as Tom's Bjorn in the captain, has admitted that Garcia's off course influence was a defining factor. Five rookies had earlier claimed automatic birth for Europe and the Dane clearly regards that as a risk, if not offset by a Ryder Cup specialism. Garcia has represented Europe eight times, winning 22 and a half points. I can't pinpoint what a European team room is, Bjorn said. I can't tell you exactly what that makes it great, but I know one thing I know is Sergio is right at the center of it every single time. He makes that team so much better.

So he has so many qualities not just as a player, but he is a world class player. I think that this is going to make everybody around him, everybody on the team better. You need to make the team work. You need to make that environment correct for everybody and he is right at the center of doing that. We need people that can rise to the occasion,

that can up their game, and that can make the man standing next to them better. Sergio does that. He's the one that stands up and gives a speech to others, and he has done that in the past. He's the one that stands up on Thursday night and rallies the troops. He's also the one on Saturday night when your four points ahead who says, okay, this is by no means over yet because he knows that. He's been there.

When pressed on whether Garcia would have been picked virtually regardless of individual results, Bjorn replied, I feel like if I had to go a long, long way to leave him out of my mind, I wanted him there. Bjorn replied, I feel like if I had to go a long, long way to leave him out of my mind, I wanted him there. Europe's captain did accept reasoning attached to the criticism and skepticism. In sport, people tend to go with just performance, so that's easy to measure. So that would have been from the outside. I understand.

I understand that's the way people look at it, but when you sit in my role, Patrick Haring can put it best. He always said, it's not about picking the best players. It's about picking the best team. And that's what the picks are for. So is that remind you of any current situation? I mean, can we just get a video dubbing in a different name for Sergio in that? It's so much bigger than you can imagine.

So it's genius when the Europeans do it, but boys club in the US does it. We're not. No, okay. Okay. Clicks. Like whatever you want to, what do you call it? So in the lead up to the Ryder Cup, some people thought that, you know, this was going to go really well for the US, that, you know, and, you know, two people on this podcast included, but we didn't have some of the, I would say the, the most outlandish tings, Alan Shipnuck, who will come up later, said, I see the US winning this 16 to 12. So the beginning, this is Alan had written a column basically saying that the rider cup is in danger of being obsolete because the US is going to be so good from this point going on, going forward. Michael Bamberger, his colleague at the time,

golf.com, agreed with him and said, I would go bigger. I think the US is going to win by a touchdown. Seven points. Which could he touchdown at six points. Maybe he just met six. It could even. It could have been. Yeah, I didn't add the extra point. Our friend Luke Cardinine said, I think one day we'll look back on this American Ryder Cup team like we look back at the dream team in the Olympics. If we're going to bury others, I hope you have some quotes for me. I got one from a cop order here. This year's team US is loaded to the gills and Europe is well not. The lowest rank player on the US side is Phil Mickelson, who's ranked 25th in the world. The US used Captain's picks on two of the

10 best players ever, Mickelson and Woods, winners of three for playoff events. That's Woods and Bryson to Shambot, and three of the top six in the final FedEx Cup standings. Woods to Shambot and Tony Finoe. Those were our Captain's picks at aclamation point. Justin Ray says the US Ryder Cup team has an average world rank of 11.2, the best of any team US or Europe since the world ranking began in 1986. So it seems like, despite the fact that it had been 25 years, something at this point that the US had won in Europe, that they were big favorites. It seems like this is going to go really well, right? Cause we, I mean,

we're in between this. Between 2014 and 18, the task forces formed. They have a new plan for rolling cap and sees out. They have a whole new plan. They won handily at Hazel team and it looked like, all right, Europe's kinda turning over a little bit here. Like it's time for the US to go over and do this.

Yep. And in morning four balls, US comes out pretty bad ass. All right, Brooks, Keppka and Tony Finaw pair up and they beat John Rom and Justin Rose in a match where they were two down with four to play. Tony Finaw famously hit a shot that bounced off of the the wood sort of structure outside of on the 16th hole and bounced and landed like three feet from the hole to make a birdie. They flipped that match. It was just like a sort of a stunning moment. I remember I think you were tweeting like all kinds of American flag memes

Dustin Johnson and Ricky Fowler just whooped on Roy McAroy and Thorborne Olsen. Rory was the only player on the course who did not make a birdie in that moment. And of course, our boys Jordan's spieth and Justin Thomas paired together. They come out, they've broken up the famous spieth and Jordan's spieth and Patrick Greed pairing. JT and spieth win, they beat Paul Casey and and Cyril Hatton one up. The only disappointment of the morning was that Patrick Reed and Tiger Woods fell three to one to Francesco Mollinari and Tommy Fleetwood, a pair of lads who one really saw coming as being paired together. No one understood that exactly what they had in common or why you'd put two relatively short hitters together. understood that exactly what they had in common or why you'd put two relatively short hitters together,

but as we would come to learn in years past that the statistical modeling that the European tour had so nailed and this says, just that they would be amazing partners together. And of course, they were basically kicking ass in every single one of their matches. But so let's say, the things seem to be going well at this point for the United States. They're up three to one there. The morning's gone so well. It feels like, oh, Europe is on tilt. It does not happen the way that everyone sort of foresaw

in the afternoon that day as we switch to ForSums. The Americans have traditionally been not particularly great in this format, but it goes historically bad. I forget swept across the board, losing all four matches, DJ and Ricky Fowler get beat by Stenson and Rose, Rory and Roy show some life in he and he and Polter whoop up on Bubba and web.

Garcia and Alex Noren, Thump, Mikkelsen and Verizon, the Shamboh in a match that goes comically bad as I constantly can do remember what they were down at the turn of nine holes what they were six down seven Seven down. Now, this is, if you will remember, the infamous deal where Phil was hitting iron's off the tee and still hitting the bottom. So Phil had been practicing like he'd been really quite lost. He had not played well in about a month leading some of the panic coming into this, but he had said he had been grinding on the range like every day. And he basically, while the morning matches were going on, Phil was on the range.

Two hours, just like beating balls. Basically, he said, I was just trying to find something. Bryson first ever Ryder Cup, if, you know, had wanted to play off events, this was sort of the beginning of the rise of the brief time when Bryson was, he wasn't quite like one of the world's best players, but it was trending in that direction. There's more science than brute strength at this point. Nobody was questioning this pick coming into it. I mean, he was bawling. It was the Billy Horseshoe like, all right, well, I mean, Horseshoe balled out in the playoffs and didn't make the team because of the timing. Like, there's no possible chance you left Bryson

at home. It would have been seen, I think, as a huge whiff. Like, there would have been massive criticism if somehow they didn't take Bryson. Phil, who knows, like, I think you could argue that the Fierreck could have said to to fill like, hey, I think this is a terrible course fit for you. I really want you as an assistant captain. Like, I just don't want to take you. And I really would love to take Zander Schoffley, who would have been a great fit for this course.

Actually finished 12th and points that year. People think this would have been sort of too early to take in Zander. But really, Zander had sort of proved himself had already finished in the in majors, top 10 and won the tour championship the previous year. Zander was not like an outside of the box pick. If you are, especially if you're thinking about like course fit, someone who drives it straight, somebody who's a good iron player who, but was never really like sort of all that serious in the conversation, just because of Phil being such a big name and because of Tiger, obviously, Tiger was going to get picked away another,

particularly, you know, with the summer that he had. And then of course, Bryce and wins two playoff events, like you're going to take him for sure. Thinking back on this time, again, it's obvious in hindsight, but like Phil was a presence and he was coming off a good rider cup in 16. And the architect of changing over this team, it was kind of, I remember that feeling of like, I feel wants to play. He's kind of earned that right. He's played, played awesome at Medina, what the ever that all happened at at Glen Eagles. He played awesome at Hazel Teen. I know those are home ones, but it was just kind of like dude, kind of putting the ball in his

hands of like, I expect you to come ball out. If you want this that bad, come bring it. And so again, it, I don't know, I remember it making sense. Again, until we saw the golf course. Yep. So Europe has then has a 5-3 lead as the first time that they've swept possession since 1989 and the first sweep of four sums in Ryder Cup history.

Wow. That's how bad it was. Think about how many Ryder Cup save played. 1989 and the first sweep of four sums in writer cup history. That's how bad it was. Think about how many writer cups they've played. None of the matches made to the 17th. That's I remember like it ended early. Everyone's kind of like, oh, I guess we're done with golf for the day. It was still really bright out. Usually you're sitting like on 17 or 18 and you didn't get to see a single shot. I'll take a few set up, open for drama.

You were kind of fucked. So I have some, I have some sad news to report. You know how we've always talked about how that when Patrick Reed shot 84 and said that, or 85 and said the tiger apologized to him, right? That actually came the next day. Patrick played poorly in the, he played like a complete disaster, the following day. And it was, he said the tiger in the infamous New York Times article had apologized to him for their first performance when Patrick

did not play all that poorly. So I'm sad to sort of, uh, uh, the fact check this legend here. I scrub this, I think we need to let that live on it. Delete, delete, delete. Uh, so things continue to go. I still don't believe it. I grew ever a poll, whatever apologize to a partner of like, yeah, I played bad. Sorry. Yeah, I don't think that would ever happen. So things continue to go poorly on Saturday in the morning, four balls. As I said, Patrick, complete shit show. One of the worst kind of, I think Bratica performances that we can remember,

our dear friend Brendan Porath sort of tweets out, what would read have shot today if he had kept his own card? And a stuit reader said, if you gave him a bogey for every dash on his card, which is almost certainly giving him multiple strokes, he's plus 9 through 14. And then he hit it in the water in 15 again, he missed all eight fairways to start out the first thing. So things go very poorly. In other pairings too,

Sir Paul Casey and Tarotten beat up on DJ and Ricky Fowler, Sergio and Rory beat up on Brooks and Finau. Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas beat Impolter and John Rom which prevents the United States from losing its ninth consecutive match. Oh my god. They were outlast. Yes, they were outlast. So like if they had, and it was close, they ended up winning two and one. Spieth made a sort of a huge clutch birdie on 17 to sort of slam the door on that match. You know, if they had sort of not turned around in one match, imagine that like having just,

it was basically the only thing that even like made the Ryder Cup seem like it was still a possibility. It was eight four Europe at that point, but you know, if it's eight and a half, to three and a half or nine, after three at that point, it's like's eight and a half to three and a half or nine, after three at that point, it's like, what are we even doing here? The US managed to salvage a split in afternoon for some Henrik Stenson. We don't want to talk about like being used properly in Ryder Cup. Stenson had struggled a lot with his game coming into this Ryder Cup.

Everyone was sort of speculating like whether he should be on the team, whether he should even play it all during singles, and expertly like during team play. You know, Bjorn used him, you're only going to play in an alternate shot. This is what I want you to pair with Justin Rose each time. Hennig went three and oh, it seemed like a, you know, just a brilliant use of, you know, his, he was their stats guy like driving accuracy. That was their like, hey, he's going to tee off on these holes and he like hit fairway, fairway, fairway, fairway. I remember seeing some stuff about that. And then he was going up. I think one of them, he was going up against Bubba, right? I remember somebody, one of their stats guys tweeting like

Here's the stents its last eight t-shots fairway fairway fairway good luck Bubba So it's it's 10 six going into singles And you know we've seen 10 six before like it's probably not totally out of the realm of possibility But some things have to go really right for United States. Justin Thomas comes out and has a pretty bad ass slug match with Roy McRoy. He's won up leading in 18 Roy drives in the fairway bunker, has to hit kind of a hero, Miracle shot, doesn't hit to lip, goes into the water, where he ends up conceding in 18 fairway, and it's like, holy shit.

Like, you know, our Ryder Cup lion just beat, you know, they're, you know, sort of best Ryder Cup player like this, this could happen. Dear reader, it did not happen. Web sims and one and Tony Finau one, but until then, it was like a bloodbath for like six straight matches.

I mean, Ron Beats Tiger in, you know, a pretty epic match. This is like, Ron acting like, you know, Hulk Hogan and thumping his chest and being, you know, basically being like, I've lived out a dream. I've beat Tiger Rids and Ryder Cup. Pretty cool emotional moment. Ian Polter, Thumbs Dustin Johnson, number one player in the world, Dustin Johnson goes one in three this Ryder Cup just, excuse me, goes one in four. Pretty, like if you're looking for reasons why it didn't go well for Jim Furek, the number one thing you could probably point to is that his best player was pretty shitty. Like, he was, remember, Dustin Johnson was like filling with different putters like right before the, the Ryder Cup had started.

He just couldn't figure out like, he's paced a putt or making sure a putt and he just missed, you know, watch some of the videos of he just missed a shit ton of putts. That's where like when people are asking like, well, if DJ went up five and 0 in the last one, why wouldn't he be on this team? It's like, man, I was memories from France are pretty strong,, right? And I don't that doesn't mean he would play horribly.

This go around, but like I just am not itching to add them to this 2023 team. Only three players ended up in the US with winning records, Justin Thomas went for and one, Jordan's speed three, two and no, Web Simpson, two and one and Tony Fienaum, two and one. So when you only win, you know, what like 10 and a half points, like it's going to get pretty bloody pretty quickly. Sort of lasting one of the lasting memories, Phil going up against Francisco Mallonari, hits an iron and I like to joke that he conceded

while the ball was in the air. Didn't quite work out that way. Like you waited until it splashed, at least I think ball was in the air. Didn't quite work out that way. Like, he waited until it splashed. At least, I think it was the 16th poll when the knee shook Molly's hand for the winning point. I was, of course, you know, in France for ESPN writing about this, tweeted that the media center erupted in excitement after and was scolded by John Huggand

who said this did not happen. And I was like, John, I'm literally in the press room, like seeing this unfold. So he's like, well, it was a, it was a, you know, just a few people. No, it was not. Like people, all, the European media all throughout the day was like, every time John Rahm would make a putt was like roaring with approval. So the idea that the American media, the jingles and jingles is quite quite I swear, I didn't write this down,

but I know for fact that this happened that the the Brookline thing came up again. Like, you probably have been an article in a pre thing where he interviewed someone who's talking about how the sting was still there. We're talking about 19 years, Sally. the sting was still there. We're talking about 19 years, Sally. That's, I mean, they just will never ever let it go. So where things get enjoyable for the Americans as they often do. Wait, did Reed do some shushing?

Yes, sorry. Patrick Reed won his singles match. And in what is, I think maybe one of the better Patrick Greed moments of all time. Shushes people while he's like while the US is down like six points. I think he'd already lost the cup and I think he was Shushy people. Maybe I think that's he's sort of played it off like it was a joke. He beat Hatten three and two but he was shushing people during the... So it was Tiger that was way in him down.

That's all I did to go win a match. Very strange Ryder Cup for Tiger. You know, seemed very, very out of it at the end of it was like, I thought, honestly, that he fell asleep in the press conference afterwards. Like, you know, this is the person who was in a lot of pain. Then I was really wonder like what was going on with him. I mean, if slurring his words in a TV interview, that one interview was, oh man, it was like, dude,

I, this is not good. This is really not good. Which just goes the show. I mean, like, I mean, he'd only sat one session. There had to be a better way to use him. I mean, you know, they didn't play him in in ForSums He'd only sat one session. There had to be a better way to use him. I mean, they didn't play him in ForSums one of the days when you'd think that that would be a pretty effective way

to use Tiger Means. That's the way that the heroes used Stenson and worked out great for them. So if you want to sort of go back and nitpick on stuff, that would be a good way to sort of look at it. Your boy, Kim and Vogueberg wrote a somewhat, I don't know if they have say it was scathing column, but certainly a column kind of taking to task the end of the Phil and Tiger era, caused enormous uproar in terms of people saying that, you know, I essentially

said, like, hey, you know what, this is not a small sample size anymore. These two dudes have had their shot. Like, they're the common denominator in like a lot of this, you know, poor play. And I spent a second said, like, this should be their last Ry last rider cup. Like they don't need to be a part of teams going forward, which logically makes pretty good sense. Like they're old as shit and they've not had success in the rider cup and they've caused you know a lot of I don't know weird energy in the team room. I mean like one of the things I don't remember is spieth and Thomas were rubbing Phil Mickelson's belly in between shots on the late Saturday. It's trying to sort of use him as a rally monkey, I don't know. Dear readers, we're quite upset with Mr. Van Vogelberg for suggesting such a thing.

At the very end of my column, people were asked if it was sort of sad that, you know, Phil's last swing on a Ryder Cup was a shot that splashed into the water and someone asked Ricky about it and he said, you know, I don't know, it ends where it ends. And I said he was talking about the 2018 Ryder Cup, but he could have just as easily been talking about the end of an era. Things get entertaining, not quite as entertaining as

Glenn Eagles and the press conference actually. That's pretty close. Really what I will say is most of it happens in the aftermath. It doesn't happen in the actual press conference, in part because for whatever reason no one would ask Patrick a direct question about it. I believe, I think it was, I remember, Brian Racker posed a question to Jordan's beef and Patrick. How did you feel about your guys' pairing being broken up? And the two of them, I remember this specifically, turned and looked at each other down the dius, and there were several seconds of very awkward silence.

And basically Patrick later said, like I was looking to light up the room like Phil did Tom Watson. And Spieth jumped in and sort of answered, and I can't even remember his answer, but it was very diplomatic and you know, if you're a kid as well. And I said to Karen Krauss as a friend of mine

who was working with the New York Times at the time, like we should try to grab Patrick as he's like walking out of the room. She had a pretty good relationship with Patrick. And I was like, you know, you should definitely try to ask him because I think he's about ready to blow. And she was like, totally, yes. She, as Patrick was walking out of the room, says, you know, Patrick, you have one more time and he says to her, Hey, call me.

And so Karen gets Patrick and asks him, you know, what did you think essentially about this? And writes what is, you know, the most memorable piece about this Ryder Cup, which, what's it getting from the number one rule? With America's world of split Americans, you got to start playing that with each other. All right, so this is Karen. It starts with a preamble, a sense of essentially about how it's a column. So it's it's not like a breaking news piece, but it's sort of talking about why, you know, why the decision was made to split them up. Furek said the decision is split, spieth and reep had been his call. As reads

silently cieved the news conference ended in a telephone interview less than an hour later, Reed expressed his frustrations and how the pairings were handled. He said he conveyed to Furek his desire to be paired with Spieth, who was not a good friend, but with whom he has chemistry that is hard to pinpoint much less replicate. Spieth was his first choice, Reed said. His second choice, he said, was Woods, whom he said he loved. But Reed fully expected to be paired with Spieth and felt blindsided, he said.

When Fureck decided to pair Spieth with Justin Thomas, who starred with Ricky Fowler in last year's Presidents Cup, Spieth and Thomas have known each other since childhood and are great friends, but Reed didn't see why that should have been a factor in splitting up the two winning pairings. Spieth and Reed and Thomas and Fowler, Reed described the decision-making process

as a buddy system. Yeah. The input of all but a select few players. The issues obviously with Jordan not wanting to play with me. Read said adding, I don't have any issue with Jordan. When it comes right down to it,

I don't care if I like the person I'm paired with or if the person likes me as long as it works and it sets up the team for success. He and I know how to make each other better. We know how to get the job done. Speed and Thomas went three and one as a team. Their own loss was by five and four to Mollinari and Fleetwood. Fowler went one and two while playing with Dustin Johnson, the world's number one. Read and Woods lost their first match against Fleetwood and Mollinari after which Read said, would apologize for letting him down. He said he told him we win together as a team and we lose together as a team.

Reed expected Fierrick to tweak the pairings for the first session. I thought he might go back with the groups that have worked in the past. He said, noting that Europe's Captain Thomas Bjorn set Mackelroy back out with Ian Poulter in the afternoon after he lost in the morning when paired with the Orbarn Olson. Instead Reed was benched in the afternoon as Woods. The next morning Reed again, as was Woods. The next morning Reed again played with Woods. And again, they lost him on our end of Fleetwood as Reed dumped multiple balls in water hazards. Reed didn't play the second session afternoon session. For somebody as successful in the Ryder Cup as I am, I don't think it's smart

to sit me twice. Reed who earned the nickname Captain America for his fiery play in the Ryder Cup as I am, I don't think it's smart to sit me twice. Reed who earned the nickname Captain America for his fiery play in the 2014 and 2016 Ryder Cups was the ninth match off the first T in single session. Unless the United States staged a furious comeback, the outcome was not going to rest on his shoulders. He played well, giving himself a birdie pot on every hole in the front nine, but it didn't matter. Europe had secured the victory by the time he had finished hat and off. When Reed and Spieth were

asked about their split up in the interview, Reed said, I'm him like I was about to light up the room and feel like filled it in 14. Reed thought of all the inspirational sayings he had read in the team room. Every day I saw a leave your egos at the door. Reed said, referring to the Europeans, they do that better than us. If only we could leave our Egos at the door, like Patrick Reed does, yes. So it actually doesn't stop there. If you remember, Reed then got on the phone with the New York

Post as a sort of a follow, because in anyone knows in the New York media market, you can't get beat on a story like this. You got to sort of go and this was where we read uttered this sort of infamous quote, well, I'm three and oh and singles. I forgot about that. He also followed up with the confirming the tiger had apologized to him after their lost their four ball match. So things, things get even hairier. Oh my god.

Because on the flight home, Brooks, Keppka and Dustin Johnson get into a near fight and have to be pulled apart before they come to blows. I just, I don't get why people say team chemistry matters in these things. I just don't get it. Forber best buds, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Kevka, nearly coming to blows. And of course, Karen's story is published while they're flying back over the Atlantic. And people start seeing the story and are like furious with Reed

who's sitting on the fucking plane. Stop. The US is, I don't think that Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed or Dustin Johnson Brooks thing is related to all the fucking point. The US is, I don't think the Dessert Johnson Patrick Reed or Dessert Johnson Brooks thing is related to all the Patrick thing. But those two, imagine this, I want to fucking 30 for 30 just on this plane flight. You got porch infuri, who's like put his sword and soul into this fucking rider cup for two years. You got DJ and Brooks who are fighting.

I've heard many rumors over the years about what this is about, none of them which I can repeat. But who knows? The two of them have never quite, it's weird, mended fences entirely since then. There used to be big workout buddies and stuff. But who knows what the result of that was. And then you've got people reading the fun story about Patrick, basically, you know, barbecuing all of their, all the selections. So I, in a story that I wrote for his pen that never actually got published for a number of reasons, I actually talked to Jim Furik about this, and I'm gonna go ahead and sort of discuss this.

I said to Jim Furik, you know, I went up to him at Riviera and I said, you know, I'm writing a story about Patrick Greed and I really would love to talk to you about like what happened to the Ryder Cup. And I was in my draft of Jim Furek, let's out a long deep sigh when I ask him after his found around the Genesis open, if he's open to talk about Patrick Greed.

To my surprise, he agrees. You're the first one to really come and ask me these questions. We lean up against the wall inside the Riviera Country Club Clubhouse and he thinks long and hard about his answers. Furek knows he's walking on eggshells, even though the Ryder Cup ended months ago.

In retrospect, perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise to see the American Ryder Cup to keen go down in flames in Paris, considering the United States hasn't won the Cup when the event is contested in Europe in 25 years. But Reed made the aftermath. The Americans even worse by criticizing Furek in the New York Times. He added that Team Europe was more successful in Ryder Cup because they were better at moving egos from the situation. But then added in the substance interview with the New York Post, he had his reputation

hadn't been tarnished by the debacle because he was still three in oh and singles. If there's one thing I want to understand in talking to Fiorek is how Reed's comments might affect his future status on Ryder Cup teams and president's cup teams. His reputation may not matter as long as he keeps qualifying on points, but what if Reed struggles as he's struggling now, and needs someone to advocate for him and to leave big happens pick. Look, Fiorek said, the one thing I don't want to do is make this

situation any worse. These guys are all going to play in the president's cup team one day and a rider cup team together. Patrick has so much talent, he's going to be on a lot of these teams. Maybe I told them I've talked to multiple sources who contain that read begged Furek and the US Vice Capins to let him play with Woods, his childhood hero, what then did Furek make of the claim that he felt blindsided by the pairing? Fierrick deep side again. He knew who he was playing with, but it's behind us. He said, look, I see football players yelling each other all the time on the sidelines and they hash it out and move forward.

I'm not holding a grudge. We'll learn for it, but he knew who was playing with. Had Reed reached out to Fierk to clear the air and apologize? Nope, no Furek said, if he'd like to talk about what happened, I'm amenable to it, but no. So I think you and I have both heard of many things, the same stuff over the years that this was not some blind side of Patrick Reed that this was talked about well in advance.

This was, in fact, Patrick Reed's idea that he wanted to play with Patrick. And if there is some good that has come out of this, it's that Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth became sort of a stalwart American pairing. There's some hope, I think, has been sort of, talked about there the years that this is the American version of Sevi and Oli. And that that may not have happened. I think has been sort of talked about there the years that this is the American version of, you know, Sevi and Ali, and that that may not have happened.

Had they just stuck JT with Ricky Fowler, whatever. In one final wrap-up, oh, excuse me. There's still more to come, I'm sorry. I forget there's so much Patrick Reed stuff that I got lost in my notes here. During this Ryder Cup, Justine went on sort of a, this is before used golf facts had emerged when Justine K. Reed was tweeting from her own account.

And I remember this. And no one is before, I think Twitter's verification system. So no one really knew, was this actually her? And she was just sort of launching into attacks on Jim Furek and Dylan's share went up to her and was like, hey, is this you? Or is this actually your account?

This is Adderider Cup beaster. And she was like, I don't know and I can't say. I can't say it's a response. So not exactly well hidden. So not exactly like well hidden. And then of course, after the writer cup, Janet Kessler-Karein, Patrick's mother-in-law, went on a Facebook rant, criticizing all of the buddy system and how terrible the American's cancer.

And I bring this up only because I'm very, very close. American fans started attacking her. And she said, Oh my, you are fat and you are fat. You are fat and look like a frog. You are a cyber bully. And then when people claimed that Patrick played horrible, she said, no, Patrick shot four under on a Friday.

I don't recall Mollenari and Fleetwood. They won all their matches. So it's not like they would have beaten them anyway. So on a day when things went horribly sideways for Patrick, they were still cheap. The deep state was claiming that he was worse than he was. So one last thing. Patrick also

favorited it to the Patrick read account. Uh, favorited a tweet that said, uh, let's face it, Fiorek lost this writer cup before it was even played. His captain's choices speak for themselves. Jordan needs to grow up writer cup is for the your country, not yourself. And in what? God, um, Bill Mikkelsen said afterwards, uh, he basically played in a safe way, like the week afterwards and said that he described Legolf national as almost unplayable. And that that kind of golf was a waste of my time. I'm 48. I'm not

going to play in tournaments with rough like that anymore. was a waste of my time. I'm 48, I'm not gonna play in tournaments with rough like that anymore. It's a waste of my time. I'm gonna play in courses that are playable with that I can be aggressive and attacking and make lots of birdies. The fairways were 14 to 16 yards wide. The fact is they had brutal rough and it's almost playable and it's not the way I play.

I don't play like that. What a fucking captain's big, man. Yeah. That was your attitude. Like, maybe tell Jim like, Hey, I don't think it's an our best interest that I play in this Ryder Cup. Like I'll be a great cheerleader in this, but this one's

not for me. I will say Phil was right about that too. Just a couple of historical notes I for our listeners that might be of note, the day after the Ryder Cup appeared strapped debuted. Oh, my God. The boys went to Iowa. And also that week right after the Ryder Cup was the first time Max Helmo appeared on the

LU podcast and told some very funny tales. So, you know, from the ashes of the Ryder Cup, some good was born. I love that. I think Max was on way back in the old Amsterdam. I think maybe it was a replay of it or it was other than we had just gotten his tour card back. Yes. So the one that was with actual Mac first one microphones.

And not me on speaker phone, my iPhone, and tour recording device, which happened like 92 episodes. Sorry about that guy. Okay. So again, I'm hearing all the stuff we've heard today and recap today. I'm hearing a lot of problems. And if I, this could be like the meme of the guy putting on the clown makeup as he keeps like trying to tell himself things. I'm hearing a lot of problems from guys that aren't on the 2023 United States Ryder Cup team.

And look, could Zach Johnson go down as a horrible captain? That's most certainly a possibility. But Patrick Reed in the in the locker room, not going to be a problem here. You know, Phil Mickelson Tiger Woods with the effects they've had, not going to be a problem here. You know, Brooks, Capca kind of laying an egg in France, you know, that's possibility. Ricky Fowler laid an egg in France and has not been a great Ryder Cup player. They're on this team. That's maybe if I'm just to hone in on something that has been a problem in the past that's on this team. It would be that, but all that to say, I don't know, I still am like, I'm so back and forth on this. You can't review all of these and feel great about anyone's chances over there. But I also am like trying pretty hard to give like this US group of fresh chance and a fresh

start at going over there and doing it. If they don't win this one, I don't know when they will. I truly don't. Because there's something, there's truly something in them going over there and being incapable of playing their best golf. I think it'll come down to Zander and Cantlay and Sheffler and Moorakawa and Max more than it will. Like the the the captain's picks. I know Moorakawa and Max, more than it will, like the captain's pick, so no more Kawa's a captain's pick, but I have a feeling it'll come down to more about how they play than the construction and the pairings and all that, but we will see. We will see.

I think maybe you could make the case that, like you can't set up a dare manor quite like the way you could set up, like this Marcos Amon. So like if the tricks that they're playing with the courses where it's basically go, you don't have any Acred drivers, like we're gonna stick it to you in that way.

I think maybe you could say, well, maybe they'll have a better chance at a dare if this same thing plays out. But I mean, what, it'll be 35 years at that point that they have in one in Europe. I mean, I kind of like that you have to go and take it from another team. You have to play their style of golf to win their Ryder Cup from them. You know, some of the course stuff can be maybe a little bit comical and it seems like

Marcus Mone could be that. But, you know, you got to, you got to show up and play. If that, if it's in, that's why the home field advantage is big, you know, you got to, you got to show up and play if that if it's in that's why the home field advantage is big, you know, you're figured out how to do it in the midway through in America, you know, in the 2000s when they stopped US and OK, and you know, stole one of a dino. So yeah, man, I don't know. I'm sure we'll be back in 4.84 more times before we go kick it off in Rome, but this was a really fun look back Because it's just so chaotic. It's such a disaster. I wonder what disaster stories will be telling about the 2023 writer cup But Unless you have anything else to add this is one of our link theest pods ever and one of my favorites ever because It's just a treasure trove of beauties and this event just keeps delivering

It's fun. It is a little bit of a beauties and this event just keeps delivering. It's fun. It is a little bit of a bummer sometimes to me when people like delete their old tweets because they don't want to have some take to get them canceled or they don't want to get old takes exposed to whatever because being able to use Twitter and go back and see some of what was kind of tweeted during the 2018 Ryder Cup from like me or you or our friends or whatever is a super fun exercise which something you can't really do like the 2006 or 2010 Ryder Cup from like me or you or our friends or whatever is a super fun Exercise which something you can't really do like the 2006 2010 Ryder Cup So don't delete old tweets man like just how no everyone should own their takes There's probably still people out there that think I delete tweets all my Saudi tweets

So just just for the record that's not directed at me in terms of The the horrific story I was going on around me that was not like if if you had, oh, I did forget to mention in the, I did mention earlier that, you know, Alan had, Shippnut had written an infamous column about how the, you know, things are going to get ugly for the Europeans. And so in the press conference, in the European press conference after the writer cup,

Rory kicked off his press conference by saying, where's Alan Shippnut? And they all say, and Alan gracefully took his medicine from all the heroes and stuff. And I will say I'm still mad at Alan for that because I all of American media got lumped in on that in terms of like to all of the angst of the Europeans was directed at anyone that was like coming over or I was openly rooting for the US team and I always am. But like people thought I also said like yeah, it's over. And like the Europeans are guaranteed to win this one. I was like, Hey, I said, I thought the US would win, but I didn't,

that was not my call. I didn't do that. But I think we're still recovering from that one. Thanks. So, all right, we'll see. We'll make an all-end prediction this time too. I'm sure we will as we lead up to it But this was a blast. Hope everyone enjoyed listening. We'll be back. We'll do we'll pick back up with major ones here You're shortly. We still have one recorded that we haven't aired yet And we'll keep going with that series. This was fun to do a little mix up. I have one less thing to leave you with Tommy Tommy Tommy Tommy Fleetwood

Molynari Molynari Alright that's it thank you Be the right club Be the right club today That is better than most How about him? That is better than most

Better than most.