We’re less than a week away from Davis Love III making the first three of his four captain’s picks, and about three weeks away from the opening tee shots (still waiting on Webb’s opener from 2014 to land by the way). I rounded up some twitter questions, and spent way too much time answering them below in what is Part 1 (of hopefully two parts) of the Ryder Cup Mailbag.
A lot of people are asking for my captain’s picks. I’ll give out what I would do at the same time that Love will be announcing his. I was clamoring for the US to change their system to allow them to make their picks as late as possible, and I’m on board with their approach so to name all four picks at this point would be premature. A lot can change over these coming weeks, and as I’ve said plenty of times, on September 7, 2014, no one was clamoring for Horschel to be on the team, and by the week of, we were incredulous that he was not wearing the stars and stripes. But of course, I’m going to break down all of my thoughts on the picks below.
If this is not sufficient, I spent an hour and a half chatting with Shane Ryan on the Friends of Tiger podcast last week talking nothing but the Cup.
Mailbag
@NoLayingUp if they pick Jim Furyk will a little bit of you die inside?
— Forearm Fischel (@LanceFischel5) September 5, 2016
I’m not gonna go full Bush 2003 and declare “Mission Accomplished” (you NEVER go full GWB), but I really want to think that we are safe now. I’ve already pleaded my case on why Furyk has absolutely no business being on this team, and I’m hoping his uninspiring performances in the FedExCup playoffs have sealed his fate. If you go 10-20-4 in the EPL, you get relegated. You get sent to an entirely different league. But if you’re an American Ryder Cupper, you get to be one of the captains… and maybe even a captain’s pick!
However, Love has mentioned his name enough times to scare us into thinking that we could see Furyk tee it up for the 10th time (for future reference, we will call it Not So Fast, Very Furious 10: Minnesota Drift), and he’s thrown in some Trump like logic when inaccurately stating how well he’s playing. In reality, he’s actually had his worst season (by the strokes gained measure, which is an average) since strokes gained became a stat, which should be qualify him to be forced to wear a hazmat suit on the premises to make sure his radioactive presence doesn’t infect any of the other players. He’s 37th in strokes gained average among Americans! And in the seasons where he’s actually been a great stroke play player (and there are many of them), he’s been at minimum one of the five worst Ryder Cup players ever. Ejected. Get him out of here.
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One thing we do know is that Love has to pick him next Monday, or that he won’t be on the team. His season is over, and he has to save the last spot for someone that shows out at the Tour Championship, or else he basically defeats the purpose of the Horschel Rule. I just can’t see him locking himself to Furyk’s wagon with still so many guys out there right there on the edge (Moore, Berger, Woodland) that could really force his hand at East Lake.
The last note I’ll make on this is that a source close to the situation has told me that he really does not think that Furyk is going to be picked. This is hardly a confirmation, but this source was right on information he gave me on the Presidents Cup picks last year, so let’s hope he or she is on top of it again.
@NoLayingUp who are your Ryder cup sleepers for ??? Does a guy like Ryan Moore have a shot with his recent play?
— Mick (@Reg_Daddy) September 5, 2016
@NoLayingUp Woodland 9th American in SG: Total. Top 15s in playoffs, why isn't there more buzz for a pick? Runner up at '15 match play.
— MIKEY (@MKov1014) September 5, 2016
Combining these two questions here.
Let’s start by saying that I don’t think Kuchar, Bubba, Fowler, or Furyk for that matter would qualify as sleepers. How you and I define a sleeper may vary greatly from the next person, but for the purpose of this exercise, I’ll say Woodland, McGirt (don’t laugh), Moore, and Berger are your main sleeper candidates. I’ll talk more down below as to why I think strokes gained is a way better way to fill in your team than the current points system, but these guys stack up quite favorably with a lot of guys already on the team in that regard. The eight automatic qualifiers rank as follows:
One of those things is not like the other, and has done nothing this season to warrant being on the team, but that’s none of my business (and has already been covered).
Here’s how the top non-qualifiers rank:
(One notable that is cut off is Justin Thomas, who sits at 53rd. More on him below.)
So over the course of the entire season, Rickie, Kuchar, and Bubba have been the best at beating the field out of all the non-automatic qualifiers. When Love makes his picks next Monday, this is who I think he’s going to go with (although, there’s a nugget below on the Holmes question which says that they are not high on Bubba). I have a hard time arguing against it. While their results may appear uninspiring, they are consistently outperforming their peers (which tells me a lot more about their seasons than the arbitrary points system does).
Yes, combined, those three have rather atrocious Ryder Cup records (Fowler is 0-3-4, Bubba is 3-8, and Kuchar is 4-6-2). If it were me, that record would matter more to me if I was looking much further down the list for their names. For instance, if Fowler is sitting where Webb is sitting in the standings, and I see that fat zero in the win column, the combination of those two factors has him snapchatting the Ryder Cup from Jupiter and not from Minnesota. Of these three, I think Bubba is the only guy who truly has his record working against him.
It would be interesting to see what a strokes gained stat for the second half of the year would look like. I’m not capable of producing that, but this guy has created one that includes numbers since the PGA Championship. This helps Fowler, Moore, Kisner, Na, and Woodland, hurts JB and Kuchar a lot, and Bubba a little. But if Love wants the guys that have been the best over the course of the year, and have experience in the Ryder Cup (for whatever that is worth), then he’s going with Fowler, Kuchar, and Bubba.
Now for the sleeper, I don’t think he will, or should go past the Woodland, McGirt, Berger, and Moore names mentioned above.
I’m surprised that I’m not more intrigued by seeing Woodland’s name at the top of this list. I’m a Woodland fan, but used to be a much bigger one. Pre-NLU days, he was my 2010-2011 version of Brooks Koepka – incredibly long, swaggy, and just oozing potential from an impregnable frame. But since his breakout 2011 campaign, he’s been borderline forgettable, and even during this solid 2015-2016 season, I have exactly zero memories of Woodland doing anything noteworthy the entire season (probably because he has just two top-10’s on the season). That surely says more about me than it does about him, and he makes a ton of sense for a long course, but it just doesn’t seem like he’s done enough to warrant a pick.
I think the pick is going to go to whoever is the hottest of these four guys, and they’re most likely the ones. I’m not counting out the Na-Chappell-Horschel trio sitting there just a few spots back, but it will likely take a win for one of those guys to fully get Love’s attention.
I’ll close this by briefly mentioning Justin Thomas. This is where you’re expecting me to lobby for him to be on the team,