Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
With Danny Willett claiming, in rather impressive fashion, the BMW PGA Championship on Sunday, we’re now officially on ‘The Road to Wisconsin’ … so I hope you went to the toilet before we left.
This means the first of those precious points anyone hoping to become a member of Pádraig Harrington’s Ryder Cup team will have to try and greedily gather between now and next year’s visit to Wentworth have been plundered and the rankings finally set into gear.
AND. IT. IS. EXCITING.
But when I looked at those very rankings on Monday morning just to see, at this early stage, how everyone had stacked up after their weekend of golf and getting locked at Rudimental, it got me wondering … what if we were already at the end of that road? As in, if the Ryder Cup was being played this year, as opposed to next, who exactly would be on it?
Now, for those of you who might not know the exact ‘ins and outs’ of how Harringon’s team will come together, here’s a quick run-down of how the eventual twelve will be decided: he’ll take the top four players from the European Points List; the top five from the World Points List; and then have three ‘Captain’s Picks’.
Given none of those two lists have existed over the last twelve months, however, I needed to look elsewhere in order to answer my question. So, for the ‘European Points List’ I looked at the current ‘Race to Dubai’ rankings; and for the ‘World Points List’ I looked at this year’s ‘FedEx Cup’ rankings as they stood at the end of the regular season. And, after doing that, here would be the nine players automatically qualified to be in the team:
Shane Lowry (IRE)
Jon Rahm (ESP)
Bernd Wiesberger (AUT)
Matt Wallace (ENG)
Rory McIlroy (NIR) *
Paul Casey (ENG) *
Justin Rose (ENG) *
Tommy Fleetwood (ENG) *
Francesco Molinari (ITA) *
(*) indicates players taken from the FedEx Cup Rankings for the “World Points List”.
Like, I think we can all agree, that’s a strong looking team. I mean, of those nine players, you’d only be looking at three rookies in Lowry, Wiesberger and Wallace, but all three of them, I think, would be more than capable of handling themselves in the cauldron that is a Ryder Cup. And the six ‘veterans’ in that nine? McIlroy, Rose, Casey, Molinari, Rahm and Fleetwood? You’re looking at a group of players with a total of nineteen Ryder Cup appearances between them and, insanely, fifteen wins – so, it’s not exactly the most ‘inexperienced’ of groups.
But, as we all know, nine players does not a Ryder Cup team make, now does it?
No. You need twelve for that. And so enters the three ‘Captain’s Picks’.
Now, as I summoned my inner Pádraig Harrington to help me make this decision, I boiled the pool of potential “picks” down to six players: Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, Henrick Stenson, Danny Willett, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Viktor Hovland. And after combing through each of their respective seasons (including taking a quick look at their seasons in 2018) here is how each of those players stack up:
| Poulter | Garcia | Stenson | Willett | Fitzpatrick | Hovland | |
| Events 2019 | 21 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 19 | 13 |
| Top 10’s | 8 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| Top 25’s | 4 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| Wins | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Runner-up | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Missed Cuts | 3 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 1 |
| Wins 2018 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Like, you look at that table and those figures, and there is just nothing between each of those six players. And I’m not just saying that for effect. I could sit here and go through that table, analysing it row by row, column by column, comparing how those six players did this year in relation to one another, but all it would amount to, really, would be an exercise in splitting hairs.
So, if the numbers alone aren’t enough to decide who gets a ticket to Wisconsin, what else do you look at? Well, that would be ‘experience’ – and for this particular group of players, the difference in that particular facet is … stark, to say the least. On one hand, you’ve got Poulter, Garcia and Stenson, a trio with twenty Ryder Cup appearances and fourteen wins between them. Whilst on the other hand, you have Willett, Fitzpatrick and Hovland, a trio with two Ryder Cup appearances and zero wins between them.
The counter-argument to the idea that ‘experience’ should somehow be a deciding factor, of course, is that how long can one ‘dine out’, so to say, on past accomplishments? I mean, this is the Ryder Cup we’re talking about – and an away Ryder Cup at that – to stand a chance, you have to have the best people for the job at your disposal once that Friday morning comes, not the people who were the best for the job two or four years previously.
So, we’ve taken the ‘numbers’ into consideration; and we’ve taken ‘experience levels’ into consideration; but we still don’t have a definitive answer for whom we should tell to pack their bags. Not good. Fortunately, though, there is one more angle we can come at this decision from in order to try and give ourselves some semblance of clarity – the “horses for courses” angle.
Heading to Whistling Straits for an away Ryder Cup, we can only, really, make an assumption that Steve Stricker will have the course set up with somewhat generously sized fairways and rough that isn’t overly penalising in order to maximize the usual strengths of any American team, that being prodigious length off the tee, approach shots that go to the moon and solid putting on lightning-quick greens – all things which, at a long, ‘links-style’ course like Whistling Straits, are very much the order of the day if you want to score well.
And when you take that particular thinking into the equation, along with the other thoughts raised by the ‘numbers’ and ‘experience levels’, my three ‘Captain’s Picks’ would be Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson and Viktor Hovland. And here’s why I picked those three:
(i) Sergio (who just beat Poulter by a nose) has won at least once every year since he won the Masters. He has the length off the tee you’d want at Whistling Straits. He’s one of the best ball-strikers in the world and when he gets going with the irons he can look unbeatable; plus, when you combine that with how the Ryder Cup tends to make his putter get suddenly scorching hot, he’s a formidable match for anyone. He’s always tended to do well on ‘links-style’ courses. He’s coming off an inconsistent year, yes, with only 7 Top 10’s & 2 Top 25’s from 20 events, but still won a few weeks ago and had a runner-up finish with fellow Ryder Cup teammate, Tommy Fleetwood, at the Zurich Classic, a team-based event. And, finally, the last time it was put up to him to perform at a Ryder Cup as a ‘pick’ having not been playing all that astoundingly well, he delivered with 3 points and became Europe’s all-time leading points scorer in the process. So, yes, he does get some ‘credit’ for previous exploits at the Ryder Cup, but he has enough else going for him just to edge getting a seat.
(ii) Stenson would get the nod over Willett for a number of reasons. Yes, Henrik’s average distance off the tee is less than Willett’s (282.7 compared to 293.8) but when you factor in that the Swede predominantly hits 3-wood off the tee and, as a result, hits a lot of fairways with a ‘Driving Accuracy Percentage’ of 72.13% compared to Danny’s 59.57%, that swings it for me in Stenson’s direction, because with that kind of accuracy and consistency off the tee, it makes for a brilliant foursomes and fourball player – which he’s already shown himself in the past to be.
Again, like Sergio, Stenson’s ball striking and iron play is up there with the best in the world, and when he’s on, he is on – something which the numbers back up as last year on the PGA Tour he ranked #1 in the ‘Strokes Gained: Approach the Green’ stat. Though he tends to blow hot and cold on the greens – as his season has probably showed with just 4 Top 10’s & 6 Top 25’s from 20 starts – if Stenson gets hot with the putter (think Troon in 2016 and any of the last few Ryder Cups) it turns him into a very tough opponent. Plus, again like Sergio, when it was put up to him to perform as a ‘pick’ having not had the greatest of seasons due to injury, Henrik showed the experience and grit of a guy with five Ryder Cups and three wins under his belt by rocking up to Le Golf National and getting three points.
(iii) Hovland is probably the most controversial of my three picks, but I would have to take him over Fitzpatrick. The Englishman had a very consistent year (19 starts, 4 Top 10’s, 5 Top 25’s, 3 runner-ups, 2 missed cuts) and only just finished outside the automatic qualification spots on the “European Points List” in sixth place. In much the same way, though, you could say Hovland has had just as consistent a year. He’s only played 13 events, yes, but in those starts he has had 3 Top 10’s, 6 Top 25’s (and they were finishes only just outside the Top 10, mind) 1 runner-up and 1 missed cut. Like, that’s impressive going by anyone’s standards.
Though you can’t read too much into the stats, as it just wouldn’t be fair for Fitzpatrick, the one stat I think you can look at is distance off the tee. And when you do that? Well, the comparison is not even close. Hovland’s driving distance is 319.8 compared to Matthew’s 287.3. Plus, from everything I’ve seen from Viktor, you can throw in the fact that he’s also really accurate with all that distance; his iron play is super solid and his putting is very good – like, he doesn’t have to wait for his putter to get hot, it’s always in a perpetual state of “nice and toasty”.
And, finally, though they’re both well-versed in the world of matchplay thanks to playing college golf at a high level and having trophy-winning runs in the U.S. Amateur, the fact Viktor was only doing all this last year, gives me just another reason to back him in performing in Wisconsin.
So, there you have it, if the Ryder Cup were being played this year, these would be the twelve players (including my picks) who would be trying to go out and retain the trophy against the Americans. Shane Lowry (IRE), Jon Rahm (ESP), Bernd Wiesberger (AUT), Matt Wallace (ENG), Rory McIlroy (NIR), Paul Casey (ENG), Justin Rose (ENG), Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Francesco Molinari (ITA), Sergio Garcia (ESP), Henrik Stenson (SWE), Viktor Hovland (NOR).
A team where half of the members have won a total of 9 Major Championships between them. A team with four really talented, but also really gutsy, rookies. A team with the potential for some really strong foursomes/fourball pairings. A team with 33 Ryder Cup appearances and 26 wins spread between them.
And a team I’d fancy to go over to Wisconsin and do the job.
God … is it next year yet, no?