Ryder Cup Preview

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If this week’s Ryder Cup comes anywhere near the excitement of the Solheim equivalent, prepare for  palpitations.

Huge amounts of work has gone into the thousands of articles written by every journalist and blogger, justified as this is simply the biggest golf event of the year, but how easy is it to justify a bet?

Along with the analysis of current form, event form and, of course, the captain’s picks, social media has gone crackers about the lack of uniformity in pre-event photos, bare white legs and the now traditional lack of hat amid the bonce of Europe’s great hope, Rory McIlroy. 

Ultimately, what does it all mean besides the extra hype before a biennial contest between players that see and play against each other more often than not during the year, and spend the majority of their time in The States?

Tradition. 

The very basis of golf, the history of the four majors, the courses, such as St. Andrews, Augusta and Sawgrass that can tell tales of the legends, and of the failures. All that comes before anything else. 

24 Ryder Cups have taken place since deciding the US was about to dominate little ol’ GB and Ireland, with the US beating the combined Europe team at just nine of those and tying at The Belfry in 1989.     

So, tick to Europe there. There is also the massive advantage that Europe have won the last six events held at ‘home’, defeated only at Walton Heath in 1981 and The Belfry in 1993, both venues with a definite leaning to European conditions.

However, recent venues such as The K-Club. Celtic Manor, Gleneagles and Le Golf National were all very Euro-centric, a contrast to this week’s host, the driver-heavy Marco Simone Country Club. 

In modern day golf, that change shouldn’t make much difference. As said, these players are regularly playing long, tee-to-green courses that rely on the putting rather than a short game although the home side win by a long way if it is course experience that matters.

Two of the three winners of the Italian Open play this week – rookies Nicolai Hojgaard and Robert MacIntyre – with the likes of  Matt Fitzpatrick (lost play-off), Viktor Hovland (3rd), Rory McIlroy (4th), and Tyrrell Hatton (8th) showing up well behind the Scot. A year earlier, Tommy Fleetwood finished tied with the subsequently dumped Adran Meronk, just behind winner Hojgaard.

But then, look at Europe’s only major, the Open Championship.

Brian Harman was brilliant in his six shot win over Jon Rahm and Sepp Straka, Collin Morikawa beat Jordan Spieth at Royal St.Georges, and Spieth himself won at Birkdale in 2017. In-between, Shane Lowry beat Tommy Fleetwood at Portrush and 2014 winner Rory McIlroy finished behind Frani Molinari (part of the Moli-wood success in France) in 2018, tied with Tommy and Xander Schauffele. 

Work it out yourself! 

At around even money the pair, the market looks right. Forced to choose, perhaps home advantage creates the same desire that the European side thrived on in Spain last week. Yet, the overall thinking is the Europeans are so reliant on the top three – Rory, Viktor and Rahm – that any failure leads to a failure. As such, even though the market has flipped-flopped in favour of the home side, I’d be half-tempted to be on the draw at double-figures. It will surely be close, with Europe looking to have a solid set of pairings to rely on but the visitors with the strength in depth for Sunday singles.

Tale of the Tape

TEAM EUROPE PLAYER	RYDER CUP (WON-LOST-TIE)	4-SOMES (WON-LOST-TIE)	4-BALLS (WON-LOST-TIE	SINGLES (WON-LOST-TIE)
RORY MCILROY	12-12-4	5-5-1	4-5-2	3-2-1
VIKTOR HOVLAND	0-3-2	0-2-0	0-1-1	0-0-1
JON RAHM	4-3-1	2-0-0	1-2-1	1-1-0
TOMMY FLEETWOOD	4-2-2	2-0-0	2-1-1	0-1-1
TYRRELL HATTON	2-4-1	0-1-0	2-1-1	0-2-0
MATT FITZPATRICK	0-5-0	0-3-0	N/A	0-2-0
JUSTIN ROSE	13-8-2	7-2-1	4-4-0	2-2-1
LUDVIG ABERG	DEBUT	N/A	N/A	N/A
NICOLAI HOJGAARD	DEBUT	N/A	N/A	N/A
SHANE LOWRY	1-2-0	N/A	1-1-0	0-0-1
SEPP STRAKA	DEBUT	N/A	N/A	N/A
ROBERT MACINTYRE	DEBUT	N/A	N/A	N/A

Different day, different conditions, different opponents, but history records that this European team has won six of its last combined 21 singles matches (28.5%) against the US 41% (seven from 17). It’s another stat to add to the table. Meaningless? perhaps, but go to war with something. 

Best Bet – Max Homa – Top US Rookie (7/4)

Ignoring the main win market, there are a host of opportunities available. At last week’s Solheim Cup, European rookies and lifelong friends Linn Grant and Maja Stark shared 5.5 points with the former edging the ‘top rookie’ market. Key was her pairing with top overall scorer Carlota Ciganda, inspired by her home crowd and clearly up for winning for her good friend and captain Suzann Pettersen and that should be key when looking at the top rookies for both sides this week.

For the US, this week’s practice rounds suggest current Open champion Brian Harman looks to be paired alongside either Morikawa, Homa or Rickie Fowler. However, with the first two names looking like a lock pairing, the 36-year-old may not be the best fit for a long course, finding himself playing less than the four games required to cop this market.

Fellow Californians Morikawa and Homa were team-mates at the Zurich Classic, and whilst that didn’t work out, both were previously involved in the winning 2022 President’s Cup side with the selection impressing when winning all four of his matches.  

The six-time PGA winner teamed up with Tony Finau to win both his foursomes, and with Billy Horschel in the fourball, both losing their pairs games when without the 32-year-old in tow. two from three at the 2013 Walker Cup, Homa was ranked 835th in the world when Europe last hosted the Ryder Cup.

Now, five years later and listed 828 places higher, Homa has a bank of six victories, including two at the Wells Fargo Championship, at which he joins Fowler, McIlroy, Harman and Wyndham Clark on the honours board. Victories at Riviera and at Silverado are plenty of evidence that he plays ‘proper’ golf, not relying purely on brute strength, whilst his ability in a dog-fight was highlighted with a chip-in birdie on the final hole at the Fortinet last year. 

Linking up with the two-time major champion would seem to be a perfect combination of solid tee-to-green form, whilst I wouldn’t fear that many from the opposing side should it come to him needing a vital half to win this market.

As it is, Homa is the rookie that doesn’t appear to be as such, is experienced enough under the cosh and comes here after his best-ever major finish – 10th at Hoylake – and 6th, 5th and 13th through the FedEX play-offs. He also has a vital outing at his favoured Silverado to have kept him keen.

Harman may not play enough, Sam Burns looks to come again after taking time off since East Lake a month ago and, again, may not play the vital four or five matches, whilst Wyndham Clark may be the most like Hojgaard, Meronk and MacIntyre in aggression but practice suggests an outing or two with Brooks Koepka, an all-or-nothing duo that might take time to click.

Next Best – Sepp Straka – Top European Rookie (3/1)    

As far as official rankings are concerned there may not be a lot between the four newbies in the US team. Homa lists as just two places above Harman in seventh place, a further place above Clark, and Burns lags behind but in 20th.

The European side looks completely different although the bias towards the PGA Tour is a caveat.

Despite his runner-up to McIlroy in Scotland, Robert MacIntyre looks woefully short of the form you look for in the lead up to this event. Ranked the lowest of the 24 players by stats site https://www.tour-tips.com/ he arrives after lowly places at Crans and Wentworth, before missing the cut in France last week, a course on which he finished top 10 in 2022.

Looking unlikely to play many, the Scot is easy to leave out in this market, as is Ludvig Aberg, darling of the golfing press but surely under-priced at around 11/8 given his lack of experience under this type of pressure. Sure, he is a talent worth following for the next eight Ryder Cups (if captain Luke Donald is to be believed) but this is a huge task. Despite the bank of wins at a lower level, the Swede has let a few chances go in a short professional career, nabbing a weak Matt Fitzpatrick at Crans, form that looks great on paper but relied on the former US Open champion losing a three-shot lead down the stretch.

It’s a tough take, granted, and it’s one I probably wouldn’t have in a 72-hole tournament around a track that will reward length. However, I see no reason why the 23-year-old is so much shorter than multiple winner Nicolai Hojgaard or Sepp Straka,the latter now ranked just a couple of places behind Burns, in 22nd.

Hojgaard looked to be the pick over Adrian Meronk for the final place on the team and will enjoy an experience that looked for so long to be coming his brother’s – Rasmus – way.  The Dane has a cracking bank of standard DPWT form, along with course form of 5/27/1 so this should be no issue. However, whilst he has made both cuts in the two majors at which he qualified – 50th at the PGA, 23rd at The Open – I have the feeling he is just slightly below what we need to win this market. He’ll be off to the PGA Tour next year and those big fairways will suit down to the ground and that’s where I’ll be looking to land better than the 3/1 on offer this week.

That said, Hojgaard looks a real danger to the selection, an Austrian born that grew up and speaks very American. 

That factor makes no odds – he can speak Japanese if he likes – because we have a player at the peak of his form at 30 years of age, a number said to be that at which a golfer should ‘peak’.

Go back long enough and Straka teamed up with his brother to lose in the final of a European Boys Championship (to Spain, with a certain Jon Rahm) before going through the ranks. It’s taken time but two wins and an excellent year with the majors and Straka finds himself as the seventh highest ranked European member, 33 places above his nearest teammate, MacIntyre.

In finishing seventh at Oak Hill, a tough par-70, Straka announced he may improve past his maiden victory at the Honda Classic, at which he beat Shane Lowry by a single shot. He duly did so, finishing 16th at the Memorial before winning the John Deere Classic, an event at which Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlory and European captain Luke Donald have thrived.

Next up was a running-on tied-second to Harman at Hoylake before finishing the season with an improving run on to a sixth place at East Lake. I’m very much buoyed by his one outing since the end of the PGA season, 10th at the BMW PGA at Wentworth, where all facets of the game were in great shape, particularly driving accuracy, greens-in-reg and therefore tee-to-green.  

The selection will not be fazed by any of the forecast winds, has the all-round game to compliment any of his likely pairings – which look to be one of the ‘big four’ – and can play enough matches to nab the 2.5/3 points that will be required.

It’s not an event to be heavily invested in – perhaps spot a weak one as we get to Sunday singles – but it’s a great watch. Hopefully, Homa, Straka, or both can pay for the beers.