NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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When Europe won the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National on the outskirts of Paris, it was a true masterclass in team formation.
Captain Thomas Bjørn knew he needed accurate drivers of the ball on a layout that heavily punished offline tee shots. That informed his pairing construction and his captain’s picks, the latter being skewed to meet the accuracy criterion. For example, Henrik Stenson – a player not particularly close to qualifying on points – was No. 1 in driving accuracy on the PGA Tour in the 2017-18 season.
When the match arrived, the four captain’s picks proved to be impactful. Stenson (3-0), Sergio García (3-1), Ian Poulter (2-2) and Paul Casey (1-1-1) all contributed, which was a difference-maker in Europe’s 17½-10½ victory.
The American side was ill-equipped to handle the narrow setup. A microcosm of that was in Jim Furyk’s four captain’s picks, as Tiger Woods (0-4), Phil Mickelson (0-2) and Bryson DeChambeau (0-3) all came away without points, while only Tony Finau (2-1) proved to be a positive selection. Their driving-accuracy rankings that season were telling. Woods (No. 127), Mickelson (No. 189), DeChambeau (No. 92) and Finau (No. 174) were all relatively crooked off the tee despite their success.
It was unfortunate for Furyk given that he didn’t have much choice. Woods had just won the Tour Championship less than a week before the Ryder Cup started, DeChambeau had recently won two FedEx Cup playoff events and Finau went on a strong summer run. Mickelson was not in good form but had been a fixture in U.S. team golf for more than two decades. Players who likely would have been better course fits – notably Xander Schauffele, Matt Kuchar and Kevin Kisner – did not get selected.
Now we are three months away from the next Ryder Cup on European soil. According to Data Golf, host course Marco Simone Golf Club, the site of the recent Italian Open, is above average for valuing distance and accuracy off the tee when compared with other DP World Tour courses – suggesting wayward shots will have consequences, but the course is also too long for players to be conservative by hitting a lot of irons off the tee.
At Le Golf National, there was an extreme premium on accuracy and little premium on distance. So it seems as if this will be a different test than it was in France five years ago.
And to that end, there isn’t a meaningful on-paper advantage for either side when it comes to driving the ball. When considering the likely participants, both the U.S. and Europe have eight players in the current top 50 for strokes gained off-the-tee on the PGA Tour. When it comes to accuracy, both teams have three likely participants in the top 50 on tour.
Despite that, we can still make some assumptions. We know from historical data that overall skill level is accentuated when a course is lengthened. The Americans, who are considered the more talented team overall on paper, took advantage of this in victories at Hazeltine in 2016 and Whistling Straits in 2021, stretching out the already-long courses to their favor.
Marco Simone is a par-71 layout with a length of 7,255 yards, which would be about average on the PGA Tour. Europe is likely to shorten certain holes, especially the two par-3s (Nos. 7 and 17) that play more than 200 yards, to mitigate the hosts’ disadvantage. The Europeans also could raise the rough, especially around the greens where more guesswork would be introduced.
We’ll be monitoring both teams to see whether there are any notable gear changes during the summer, and whether the conditions necessitate any tweaking.
Sean Fairholm