Farmingdale, NY – Sometimes a captain is called a strange one. A bowel decision. Something that is not really logical on paper, but maybe logical mood.
Jimmy Walker knows well. Yes, that Jimmy Walker-the dual Ryder cupper who was in Manhattan on Thursday evening as a speaking guest at a Ryder Cup party. We talked at the bar for a few minutes, just enough time to ask him something that I wanted to pick up for a long time.
“Do you remember in 2016,” I started, “when Davis Love you combined with Zach Johnson in Foursomes?”
The combination made little analytical meaning-even when Walker won the PGA championship a month earlier a vast Hazeltine, to make the short-heat Johnson hit a set of tee-shots and longer irons.
“Yes,” Walker said and brought his mind back to that week. “We were surprised by it.”
It happens! But these statistical mistakes are the figurative cracking of the door that opens a little wider for your opponent to continue. And they come across the American side much more than the analytically minded Europeans, who employed Edoardo Molinari-one on a database obsessed player in self-assistant captain to build almost every link.
So it was not surprising at all when the Europeans were running their eight best golfers on Friday morning in the most optimal combinations. The Americans were not too far behind, except for An Couples in particular. Thirdly, against top five players in Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, Keegan Bradley Harris English and Collin Morikawa linked.
It was an obvious experience – Bradley who chose to sit all three of his Ryder Cup smokies and lean on a duo that played well during the last inland cup in Wisconsin. But when it comes to the data behind the current form of English and Morikawa, this was the literal least optimal couples, according to Datagolf.
We don’t talk Ah, I would go a different direction. We talk 132nd from 132 possible pairs. Datagolf gave English-Morikawa a chance of 34.7% to win, the lowest of one of the first session competitions.
And it has realized that invoicing.
McIlroy and Fleetwood won the 1st with a birdie and never looked back. They birds from 4 to 6 to win three more. English and Morikawa did not make an alternative shot birdie until the 9th, at which point they were already 5 lower. The competition would end about an hour later, with Europe won 5 and 4.
So, Captain Bradley, remind us why you made that phone call?
“Collin Morikawa is one of the best ball strikers in the world,” said Bradley when he made his choices. “So Harris is Harris is an incredible putter. We really had the feeling that they complement each other. They have a similar attitude and they really love each other and they are extreme competitors. They enjoy the chance to play together.”
He is nothing wrong about that. But this event is chewed afterwards as nothing else in the sport. And when you lean against the analysis, you open that door for criticism. According to Datagolf, the combinations of Team Europe were optimized to within a hundredth of a stroke, and after one session they lead on strange soil.
And given that all, there is still a very important thing to remember. When you link two top five players in the world to two top-30 players in the world, the figures do not whisper. They will scream, probably much louder than these professionals want that. But they will not be as loud as the figures that eventually take over the leadboard.
The funny part of that 2016 competition for Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson was that the data resources of Europe were looking forward to seeing that combination that week. And about 15 hours later they were confronted with one of the Truismen of Match-Play Golf at the highest level.
Walker and Johnson won handy, 4 and 2.
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