Ryder Cup Rainsuits

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jonnygrouville

New
Good points all round.

Would Monty trade his Ryder Cup record or one or a couple of his many European Tour order of merits for a major? He probably would. With three majors in the US, should he have tried playing the US Tour for a few years? Maybe, but he has been close enough without.

A lot of great golfers haven't had amazing Ryder Cup records, and I bet they aren't that worried about it. Especially the ones with major victories. A great record like Monty's would probably still be a line near the top of his CV even if he did have a couple of majors on the top.

But it is an oddity. I know Ernie Els' isn't worried about his Ryder Cup record. The whole of England goes bezerk when they win The Ashes and this is a once in a blue moon cricket match only played against Australia. Not the world cup or anything, but is tradition. Even if the Ryder Cup is a battle of tradition against money, I know everyone teeing it up in those singles wants to win!
 
K

Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
They definately want to win and its an awesome event. But everytime the U.S. loses people start worrying about the state of American golf. When has anyone's career ever been judged by their Ryder Cup record? Never. Larry Nelson is about the closest, and maybe Brian Barnes because he beat Nicklaus twice in the same day. Other than that its individual stroke play wins, namely Majors. Anybody know Hogan's Ryder Cup foursomes record by heart? Monty is a footnote in the history of golf because he pitched a shutout in the majors. Just the way it is.

That said, I'm waking up at 4:00 to watch. Just want to see exciting golf played under that kind of pressure.
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

New
I did hear the greatest thing today when Bubba hit driver on the 370 yard par-4 #15 and he yelled for it to bite.





3JACK
 
K

Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
That was great but that hole is only 246 to the front edge taking that line. Uphill and cold though. Johson ripped 3 wood right on. Cool hole but that carry should be 20 yds longer. Nobody will ever take the left route. there's no danger in going for it. they were even playing out of the hazard. I bet the designer would like a mulligan on that hole.
 
mjstrong

mjstrong

New
Kevin Shields said:
That was great but that hole is only 246 to the front edge taking that line. Uphill and cold though. Johson ripped 3 wood right on. Cool hole but that carry should be 20 yds longer. Nobody will ever take the left route. there's no danger in going for it. they were even playing out of the hazard. I bet the designer would like a mulligan on that hole.
Click to expand...

Maybe a little more like the 14th (?) at Royal Montreal, where Woody Austin had his Aquaman incident?
 
birdie_man

birdie_man

New
Golf needs more team events.

And more matchplay.

Not good for TV?.....let the guys use power carts...

(I take it that once these match play tourneys are wittled down to only a few guys there often isn't enough action going on all at once)
 
Last edited:
birdie_man

birdie_man

New
Richie3Jack said:
The stats can be used in various ways to figure out what works best.

For me, when it came to 'low score' format, I looked mostly at par-3, par-4, and par-5 scoring average and weighed them appropriately (because there are 10 par-4's, 4 par-3's, 4 par-5's. IIRC, somebody like Bubba Watson has been awful on par-3's this year. Overton has been awful on par-5's. They actually should work well together in the best score format because they are pretty strong except for those 2 respective areas, but Overton can make up for Bubba's par-3 deficiencies and Bubba can make up for Overton's par-5 deficiencies. With Phil and Dustin, I just don't see them being that statistically compatible and I feel that's probably what happened to Tiger and Phil when they paired up.
Click to expand...

I like it.

One guy to cover the other's misses.

I think more than that may have not been going on with Phil and Tiger though.

I could be wrong. (honest...I am still an "outsider" after all)

I think that the Ryder Cup captain on either side that starts using statistical compatibility to pair up players instead of pairing guys by who gets along with each other or by 'gut instinct', they'll likely dominate. Obviously, if some guys get hot, that stuff will get thrown out of the window, but I still think a statistically compatible team will be very tough to beat.






3JACK
Click to expand...

There is science to human types and behaviour, Richie.

Imagine you play against a guy all year round. You hate his guts, for some reason. Even being around him in a social environment is tough to handle, and drains you.

It is an extreme example so it will be easy to get the point...but safe to say, no matter how damn good your "stats" (whichever stats) pair together, it probably is bad news pairing the two of YOU together for a Ryder Cup-like event, if you are interested in winning.

All I am saying is it is ONE contributing factor, along with the others I had listed. (plus I said "etc." for things I DIDN'T list)

I absolutely am not saying that stats are bunk.

...

...
 
Last edited:
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

New
birdie_man said:
There is science to human types, Richie.

Imagine you play against a guy all year round. You hate his guts, for some reason. Even being around him in a social environment is tough to handle, and drains you.

It is an extreme example so it will be easy to get the point...but safe to say, no matter how damn good your "stats" (whichever stats) pair together, it probably is bad news pairing the two of YOU together for a Ryder Cup-like event, if you are interested in winning.

All I am saying is it is ONE contributing factor, along with the others I had listed. (plus I said "etc." for things I DIDN'T list)

I absolutely am not saying that stats are bunk.

...

...
Click to expand...

I agree with what you are saying. But like I showed, I have given plenty of options for somebody like Mickelson to play with...DJ wasn't one of them. So a player should be able to get along with at least one of those players to some degree and play well with them. If they can't, then I wouldn't want them on my team. If they qualify and are forced to be on the team, then I just sit him out until singles match play. Although I doubt that would ever be the case.

They do this stuff all of the time in other sports. Baseball is the most prevalent, but something like football...pretty much the ultimate team sport....is done a lot as well. Those who take advantage of this data (Belichick & Andy Reid) have benefited from it. And IIRC, Saints GM Mickey Loomis is a big 'stat head' as well.

I think my stats are a good start, but very basic for the most part...in part because I don't have the resources or access to the data that many could provide. Once the RC is finished, I'll do a look back at the pairings and try to analyze how well I think both captains did in pairing up players that were statistically compatible.

In my preview of the RC, I did say that the US team's big weak spot was their putting. I'm not quite sure how much that effects RC effectiveness but it sure seems to. OTOH, the Euros have some really good putters on their squad, in particular Luke Donald (who was ranked #2 last year in 'putts gained', behind Tiger who's not putting nearly as well this year) and Harrington.





3JACK
 
R

rogerdodger

New
What was interesting was the amount of US putts that came up short. The greens were slow with all the rain. I think fast greens are a lot easier to putt. The U.S. putting, with some exceptions, was average at best. It was surprising that it was such a close match, Europe had a big advantage. Good Ryder Cup, congrats to the Euros, well played USA.
 
birdie_man

birdie_man

New
Hey sounds good to me man.

I hope there is no one on the team that cannot get along with a single other guy...

I think you would likely make a good Cap'n Richie.

Do you do stats for a living? Someone on here does. (can't member)
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

New
birdie_man said:
Hey sounds good to me man.

I hope there is no one on the team that cannot get along with a single other guy...

I think you would likely make a good Cap'n Richie.

Do you do stats for a living? Someone on here does. (can't member)
Click to expand...

Yes, I work as a statistical analysis. I'm not as adept as the MIT guys as that's what a Coastal Carolina University education gets ya, but I paid a fraction of the tuition :)

I like Brian's thoughts of 'we wouldn't make friends, but we'd win.' It's like Joe Clark says in Lean On Me, 'discipline is not the enemy of enthusiasm.'

You can go in, take care of business, and dominate these guys and I think that winds up being more fun than losing with a 'family atmosphere.' Azinger's approach was much more to the way I think it should be done and I think those guys had a lot more fun out there than with Pavin's approach. I also think the rainsuit saga set a horrible precedent that the captain wasn't prepared (I actually liked the look of the rainsuits, but I'd wear hot pink leopard print if it mean keeping me dry).





3JACK
 
K

Kevin Shields

Super Moderator
Richie 3Jack nails it! I would actually say Stewart Cink played well, hit alot of good shots and made a huge putt on sunday. But his inability to close out a match he shouldve won and the US really needed makes it hard to defend him. Two reeeeally short putts on 15 and 17 were killer. Needed that full point.
 
S

SJO

New
I don't see how Europe had this huge advantage that everyone keeps talking about. They've only played the Welsh Open there 3 times. Yes that's an advantage but the Ryder Cup members didn't all play every time. The other thing that was to Europe's advantage was the greens apparently. The European Tour don't play on slow greens very much either, so they had to adjust too.

I really think the whole thing is overanalysed. It ended up being as close as it is physically possible to be and people are talking about how America just didn't putt as well or don't have the team spirit and I think it's out of order. Why try and be clever and tell us all why Europe won and USA lost? It was almost the flip of a coin and was really exciting, it wasn't the captains or the rainsuits or the greens, someone had to win, end of. I'm really talking about those guys on the Golf Channel here. I suppose they get paid to talk shit.
 
J

jonnygrouville

New
Exactly. It is something to talk about and, when there are so many horrible things going on in the world, what is wrong with a bit of distraction? I wish I could also make a living talking crap, but sadly not.

As we know, there is so little between these guys at the top. It could have been just as close with the second twelve of the US played the top twelve from Europe or vice versa. You can talk about waterproof suits, team talks and air-punching, but it is all down to the golf on the day.

Was it Bobby Jones that said eighteen hole matches were just sprints? The odds might be against them, but do you reckon anyone in the top fifty in the world doesn’t think they could beat Woods on their day? I would have thought they would.

Okay, Cink missed a couple of putts and didn’t close out McIlroy, but he holed some serious yardage in previous rounds. People remember misses.

And people remember loses. Pairings are really only going to be criticized when they lose, normally when they are favourites on paper. Does seem a bit odd that the papers portray Woods and Mickelson as ‘problems’ for the captain. I’m guessing a captain would want these guys to be the ones you could put with anyone, hopefully rookies.

Would be interesting to see what Captain Brian would have done differently! Alternative pairings? Different team-talks with lashings of baloney?
 
birdie_man

birdie_man

New
Richie3Jack said:
You can go in, take care of business, and dominate these guys and I think that winds up being more fun than losing with a 'family atmosphere.'
Click to expand...

Who said anything about a "family atmosphere"? Just curious.

Does anyone ever really aspire to lose?

Azinger's approach was much more to the way I think it should be done and I think those guys had a lot more fun out there than with Pavin's approach.
Click to expand...

Can't remember why but I remember being pretty impressed with how Azinger went about things.

Cool topic anyway.

If one thing is certain, a lot of "stuff" gets more complicated when it becomes NOT solitary.
 
A

aaron_lohan

New
SJO said:
I don't see how Europe had this huge advantage that everyone keeps talking about. They've only played the Welsh Open there 3 times. Yes that's an advantage but the Ryder Cup members didn't all play every time. The other thing that was to Europe's advantage was the greens apparently. The European Tour don't play on slow greens very much either, so they had to adjust too.

I really think the whole thing is overanalysed. It ended up being as close as it is physically possible to be and people are talking about how America just didn't putt as well or don't have the team spirit and I think it's out of order. Why try and be clever and tell us all why Europe won and USA lost? It was almost the flip of a coin and was really exciting, it wasn't the captains or the rainsuits or the greens, someone had to win, end of. I'm really talking about those guys on the Golf Channel here. I suppose they get paid to talk shit.
Click to expand...

Europe were heavily favoured because on paper they have a far stronger team.
 
S

savydan

New
By the way, did anyone get screwed trying to record the RC on Monday?

On Sunday night, the DirecTV guide showed 7 consecutive episodes of Law and Order on USA starting at 4 am on Monday. So I had no choice other than to record L&O on USA during the time the RC was going to be on.

Sometime after I went to bed, they must have updated their Guide to show it as the Ryder Cup Final Round and so my L&O request was nulified and it did not record the RC.

With all the sophistication, I would think there would be some way around this.

I think that Direct and in particular Sunday Ticket and the Red Zone Channel are the greatest inventions of western civilization, but this recording snafu really pissed me off.

Anyone else have this or know of a way around it?
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top