Before testing the European Ryder Cup theory in practice, the clock is ticking.
Captain Luke Donald and his team are famous for being a little bit taller, looking for every angle to gain advantage.
At the moment when Roma won two years ago, Rory McIlroy said: “Winning a away game in the Ryder Cup is the toughest task in golf now – we’re going to do that.”
The group unanimously called on Donald to retain the game this year in New York, and the committee agreed.
Let’s take a look at what we know about the inner workings of Europe.
Difficulty of winning
The mission of appointing the captain begins with acknowledging the ever-changing era. There were seven games between 1987 and 1999 and they were all nervous, with no more than two points.
In 2002, Europe won three points.
But since then, eight of the ten games have won at least five points – the home team has won 11 points in the last 13 games.
in conclusion? It requires a lot of work.
Rookie leaves the captain
The committee looked at four captains who won Europe: two of them were not rookie captains (Tony Jacklin in 1987 and Bernard Galaher in 1995).
In the European era, the rookie captain on American soil had a record of 7-0. Therefore, the committee agreed with the players: they reappointed Donald.
A new show on the road
Donald and his team, including stats person Edoardo Molinari and 2014 captain Paul McGinley, began diving deeper and they concluded that not only the rookie captain struggled on the road, but also the first time players.
In three home Ryder Cups, five of the 12 rookies won over 50% of the points and scored 20.5 points (54%) in 38 rookie games.
By comparison, in the last three games, only two of only 10 rookies scored more than 50%, with only 10.5 totals from 32 games, at 33%.
But it’s worse than that, as those five successful family rookies scored 11 of 15 points and the rest won 9.5 of 23 points (41%).
But outside home, two good rookies are excellent (6.5 points from 8 points), but the rest contributed only 4 points (17%) from 24 points.
Molinari wants a qualification system that only determines the best rookies and newbies will object to it when seeking wildcards.
Course Leader
The team also identified the direct relationship between the results in the 21st century and the top three players in the world rankings of the two teams, thus determining the importance of curriculum leadership.
There are 11 games this century, and the team’s top three outperforms the opponent’s leading trio always wins the Ryder Cup.
Liv messed up the issue this year. In the world rankings, it lowered the problem to Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Russell Henley vors McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Bob MacIntyre.
If we use DataGolf rankings, it would be Scheffler, Ben Griffin and Russell Henley for McIlroy, Fleetwood and Jon Rahm.
Desensitization
A team insider revealed to Golf365 that we will see many new aspects of the team dynamics in the next few days and the importance of being under pressure to the crowd of guests is an important part of it.
Within minutes of his statement, McIlroy revealed that the team was using virtual reality headsets to desensitize themselves and then bombarded by inflammatory galleries in New York.
“We are doing everything we can to prepare for our situation,” he said, adding, “But you can wear all the VR headphones you want and once the first T-shirt comes out on Friday, it’s real and you just have to deal with everything that is happening.”
The headphones simulate hostile attractions and sounds of New York galleries.
“They commit abuse on us,” McIlroy said. “They are personalized, they say, you’re going to be so long?
Owning situation
McIlroy also hints at another factor: players need to take responsibility when facing abuse. He recalled an incident at Hazeltine in 2016 when he responded badly to the comments.
“I know I need to do better to wear a blink without hearing it,” he said. “It’s not a good comment, but I probably shouldn’t react to it.”
Bethpage Black Recce
The group left London on Sunday night for New York to practice on Monday and Tuesday.
The plan has nine holes one day and another 18 holes before heading to Manhattan on the last night.
Donald said the team won’t consider the city during the game, so it’s important to absorb it a little.
Intermediate time
Donald asked only that no one had returned to Europe: He didn’t want any jets to fall behind.
Some players will live in the United States and some will stay near New York. Some are being paired, some are doing it their way.
Robert MacIntyre is playing Shinnecock Hills and Aronimink – they are big classes like Bethpage, but also the main venue for next year.
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