Farmingdale, NY – No matter what they do in their junior year, no matter what professionals they do, most Ryder Cupper have a strange thing in their first team event:
They do not belong.
The more players you talk to, the more it seems. Some evil Ryder Cup equations – between two years of rest, the nature of the individual season, passion and discomfort, which makes the greatest golfer on the planet…a little shame in front of his peers.
Cam Young started, “I think the first year was a lot of discovery for me just because I accepted the golf that I fit here. And I’m going to be here, that’s what I want to do. You know, I know, I qualify for these teams.”
Young is a rookie at Ryder Cup, but he is talking about the Presidents Cup, and he played in all five games in 2022. He has been on the PGA Tour in less than a year.
“You stick me in the team room for 10 months and I’m still a little uncomfortable sitting there just because I don’t know anyone,” Young said. “There are a few people on the team who know from junior golf, but there’s a gap – six, seven, eight years – I didn’t really see them a lot.”
Young is one of the top 20 players in the world, but “I’m still at my feet and now I think I’ve been here for a longer time and I feel more comfortable.”
He is not alone.
“I learned that I could compete in the top golf game,” Bob MacIntyre said Wednesday. That’s it, Bob, who reiterated the idea after a moment. After that Ryder Cup, he switched all the equipment and he thought he could reach a new level. Sure enough, he found it in the years since, won twice, and became the top 20 players in the world.
He now has a different view of his existence in the world of golf. It all started with the Ryder Cup.
You can say that the world’s number one Scottie Scheffler is the 12th and last person for Team USA in 2021. It’s nothing offensive, Scotty knows it. He hasn’t won the PGA Tour yet, but Steve Stricker and his teammates have gained a lot of recognition. He said he was “very excited” when he received the call. He then beat Jon Rahm 4 and 3 in a singles match, and basically won everything else after that.
Even Ram himself isn’t entirely sure of the role he could play during the first Ryder Cup.
“Yes, I’m very high in the world rankings and I’ve been playing great golf all the time,” Ram said. “But the second time I went into that locker room and it was very, very obvious to me that I was getting a low distance in the Ryder Cup just because of the comfort level of some players and how different the dynamics of the week were.
“Do I belong? Yes. [Garcia] and [Ian] Poulter is very big. It’s just that the heavyness they appear is very obvious. ”
Ram calls it scary and humble. But similar to Schefler, a few days after he found himself in a crucial singles game… against Tiger Woods.
If he didn’t belong to him yet, he won 2 and 1 in a few hours.
“I’m proud now,” Ram said that day. “This is indescribable.”
