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JOhnny Miller, whose away with words competed with his gift for painting 7-irons against the desert sky, described the Ryder Cup in this way:
“A regular touring event is a 35-foot dive of a cliff, a major is a 50-foot dive and the Ryder Cup is a 100-foot dive.”
Like no other event in Golf, the Ryder Cup is fed by raw, rawless emotion. It is golf at its loudest and golf on its most revealing, at the same time the happiest place in the game and the most heartbreaking, an electrified detour of an individual game in a band-of-brother’s mission that long after the cup has been won or lost, the feelings still start to fade along the line, even when the photos start to blur.
The genius of the Ryder Cup is that it only happens every two years, it is packed in three long, churning days and it feels so different than something else in Golf.
The Ryder Cup is correct. It thunder. It intimidates.
And finally it is almost here.
Perhaps it is recent bias, but this Ryder Cup, the one who starts in less than four weeks at Braawny Bethpage Black, feels like the most expected Ryder Cup ever. It probably felt like that in 1991 at Kiawah Island because the once dominant Americans had lost two in a row and a tied up while Seve Ballesteros fired the European flame, and the matches have only grown since then.
But because it is in Bethpage Black, a place where Golf Egos are crushed, because Europeans won easily in Rome two years ago, because it will be an unfiltered New York-oriented crowd, because Keegan Bradley is the captain, because the European team has hardly changed anything else, except the outfits and because it always feels the irmen.
What else could the best American players convince to postpone their low season and play in the ProCore championship next week, all in the name of team building and to sharpen their competitive edges?
When Bradley announced last week that since Arnold Palmer he would not be the first play captain in 1963, it felt the right decision, but only being able to determine time and the outcome if it was the best decision.
That does not want to suggest that Bradley has to lead himself, although it will be impossible not to ask himself “what if?” the Americans must lose. He honored his dedication to be the captain and to place it above everything, so that he has eliminated the potential distraction of him every day.
Minimizing distractions is a mantra for coaches, whether it’s football, pickleball or the Ryder Cup. Had Bradley waved at the first Tee sound with a driver in his hand and a lunch sheet in his back pocket, it was the risk of counterproductive.
It feels cleaner but a little less intriguing in this way.
The Americans do not need intrigues. They have to win.
This is the first American team that is paid to play in the Ryder Cup … And if things go aside for the home team, the New York will encourage the New York Jets Boo in the same way.
The pressure is just as much on the crowd of Uncle Sam as ever before. This is the first American team that is paid to play in the Ryder Cup – the Europeans will undoubtedly remind us that they are doing the goodness of their heart and for continental pride – and if things go aside for the home team, the New York crowd will encourage them in the same way if they fascinate the New York Jets.
There are good reasons to worry about the crowd at Bethpage and not just because of how they could hang Europeans. The Americans will also hear it if things are going badly.
Four years ago at Whistling Straits it felt as if the Ryder Cup entered an era of persistent American dominance and the endless choruses of “Olé, Olé, Olé” oppressed that had become an aggravating earwig to the brigade of stars and stripes.
Seven of the 12 Americans in Whistling Straits are in this year’s team, and six that were in Rome will be at Bethpage – but the landscape has been shifted. Scottie Scheffler is now the best player in the world, while Europeans are stronger from top to bottom than four years ago, something that they explicitly proven in Rome.
In the meantime, Europeans are playing to disturb the developing story that road teams rarely win in the Ryder Cup. It may be true, but it gives Europeans something to play towards instead of playing something.
Winning is a hard demand for the Americans against a team with Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose in the core. In the meantime, Europeans are playing to disturb the developing story that road teams rarely win in the Ryder Cup. It may be true, but it gives Europeans something to play towards instead of playing something.
There is a feeling that Bradley won his team long ago with his passion and his preparation. The man who always considered himself an outsider and deliberately kept his distance from others on tour, seems to have galvanized his group, which is not a small task in the private jet world of professional wave.
Some suggested on Wednesday that the Americans may have won this Ryder Cup because of Bradley’s selfless decision, so that he effectively ended his team two years after Zach Johnson had left him from his team.
It is a nice rally hoop-“let’s win this for Keegan”-comparable with the spirit of Seve who has received the honor for feeding the successful Captainincy of José María Olazábal in Medina in 2012, but the matches are still planned to be played 26-28 September.
In case that.
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