5 Thoughts on the 2023 Ryder Cup

Edition No. 34 | September 26, 2023

Hey,

I am somewhere over the Atlantic as I write and edit this newsletter.

That is an insane sentence!

I am suspended in a thin — like, really thin! — metal box traveling at 568 miles per hour 35,000 feet above an ocean, typing some thoughts onto a slab of glass that almost anyone in the world would be able to read if I send this out before the metal tube I’m in lands back on the ground (update: I did not).

I am traveling 6,000 miles in 12 hours. Yesterday morning, I was in Texas. This morning, I am in Italy. An unthinkable sentence for almost all of human history.

All of this is very normal in 2023, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less astounding. Flight is extraordinary. It is such a tremendous gift to be able to see so much of the world with so little effort. One we probably don’t appreciate in full because we don’t consider it as often as we should.

It’s a kind of magic, though. One I’m grateful for and one that I hope I always find wonder in.

Onto the news.

But first

I played golf in a match in a league I’m in on Sunday. It did not go well. In fact, it went “Stephen Ames playing Tiger Woods in match play” poorly.

And I was frustrated about that. But one thing that’s been helpful for me as I consider how to mover forward with my “dad of four but plays as often as possible” golf game is reading Jon Sherman’s Practical Golf. He writes about how to improve your game in a thoughtful, personal, meaningful way, and I cannot stop reading his stuff.

If you’re in my world — that “might break 84, might shoot 97” sometimes-hellscape — you should absolutely subscribe to his newsletter. You’ll certainly think about your own golf differently (and more realistically).

He also offers a free chapter from his book about hitting driver better (which I need given that I’ve sworn off driver for the rest of 2023 and have been hitting 3 iron-3 iron-8 iron on par 5s) that will get you signed up for his newsletter as well.

Rohm

A great Wright Thompson line comes to mind this week. The one about the famous Masters piece he wrote where he talks about how that’s not really writing. It’s just opening up a vein and bleeding.

That’s more or less how I feel about Ryder Cup week.

Because that’s true, this newsletter is going to be a little unconventional and basically just a a random collection of thoughts that I’ve had about this week.

Let’s jump right in.

1. Ryder Cups mean so much. I remember standing next to Rahm after Whistling Straits during that awkward downtime when the Cup is over but matches are still being played. He was talking to me and Soly about the emotion of the week and said something to us like, “if you guys feel this way, think about what it’s like for us.”

I took this in a way I’m pretty sure Rahm did not mean it. Like, of course the players are invested, but it seems odd that I — a lowly thinker and typist — would feel even a percentage of what the No. 1 golfer in the world feels in any given week. And while it is true that I do not know what the emotion of playing in a Ryder Cup is actually like, it is also true that I am deeply invested in this week in a way I’m not even sure I fully understand.

On the flight over to Italy, I could already start to feel the tentacles of emotion whipping around in the unidentifiable places where our emotions tend to reside.

Time has passed since 2021, yes, and I’m sure there’s some mourning that’s going on there. I have changed, yes, in ways I both expected and did not. Golf has changed, for sure, and it will never be the same.

And so I suspect some of that change is part of the reason I am already feeling emotional about the pelts Ludvig and Viktor will carry back to Scandanavia whatever this week has in store. But I also think it’s not just the change I’m considering.

I imagine that part of the reason I’m feeling the way I’m feeling is because, well, no event in the world is both more about the golf and less about the golf at the exact same time.

This sounds insane! And it probably is.

But some combination of match play, team golf and a condensed event where every shot is consequential makes this (by far) the most meaningful golf — opening shot to final putt of every match — you’ll watch all year.

And yet, somehow, by the end of the week, you’ll realize that for the most part, the entire thing was never really about the golf at all but rather about the relationship that Ryder Cup weeks brings about. For the players and the teams and the folks putting all of this on, for sure.

But that has been my experience as well. Ryder Cup weeks have wrought friendships that would not be as substantial without those weeks. Period, full stop, not sure how else to say it.

None of this makes any sense!

How can something mean both more than it normally does and also far less?

I don’t understand it! And yet I feel its pull in both directions at the same time. I believe that tension at least hints at what exactly engenders the emotion so many of us feel about the Ryder Cup.

2. “It’s not that important an event for me.” I write about Rory a lot. Sometimes it feels like too much. I’m hyper aware of that, and it’s something I consider often.

On one hand, people who complain about this are justified. There are plenty of other stars to fixate on and delve into. He’s been usurped by Brooks Koepka in the major throne room. Heck, Zach Johnson has won a major more recently.

On the other hand ……

I write about things I’m compelled by, and what is more compelling than one of the all-time greats making fun of his 20-year-old self and nearly losing his emotions once again when talking about probably the most vulnerable moment of his career?

I watched that video above a few times. It’s so human. So good. So Rory.

He has a great line in there where he says, “Only can you get those moments at Ryder Cups. There’s no other place that we can experience something like that.”

I mentioned this before, but I wrote a sizzle piece for the PGA of America that Dan Hicks narrated that they’re currently using for some internal sales. It was such a blast, I had so much fun with it (and hopefully it will get released to the public at some point!). Anyway, the title of it is, Only Here.

The Ryder Cup has turned into a bit of a commercialized affair. You’d have to be a fool to not see that. But the beauty of this event is that it still seems to be mostly insulated from the c-suite. This is a good thing, of course, and I think the reason it is insulated from the c-suite is the same reason that the major championships are insulated from LIV. You can throw around all the money in the world, but you can’t manufacture or fabricate two Irishmen standing in a field in rural Wisconsin, crying their eyes out over the arc of their lives.

Maybe the Ryder Cup as an entity fell into all of this on accident, but as you will hear over and over again this week — and as Rory said in that video — it is something that is absolutely worth preserving.

Anyway, I put part of the 2021 Ryder Cup chapter from Normal Sport 1 — the stuff about Rory breaking down and losing it at Whistling Straits — online for free if you want to read it.

3. Europe’s competitive advantage. Europe has won Ryder Cups it should not have won for several reasons. Almost none of them have anything to do with golf. If you don’t believe me, go watch this video and see if it changes your mind.

The first line absolutely slaps. “As you get older, things get taken away from you. And that’s a part of life.” Come on!

So does this one: “You wear them down with excellence.”

This one from Jose Maria Olazabal, too: “Seve showed me that there are times when you need to reach into the depths of your soul to get you through.”

The Euros have long understood the following two things about the Ryder Cup:

1. Using data to make pairings is smart.
2. Caring about each other and the event is nearly as important as being good at golf.

The first one seems (and probably is) obvious. The second one less so. I guess my question on the second one — if you don’t believe it — is how many Ryder Cups the U.S. needs to lose as the favorite before we begin to believe that talent alone is not enough to win an emotional team event like this one?

Ten? Fifty? One hundred?

It seems as if the U.S. has finally matched the Euros in both of these categories, and this to me is the very reason JT was picked for the U.S. team this time around. Not because he’s buds with Zach Johnson or because Spieth needs his emotional support animal.

No, JT is in Rome (for a lot of reasons, but mostly) because I think the U.S. finally believes that talent alone doesn’t win the day. You can’t go in absent of it, but it’s not the preeminent thing. It never really was. I think it’s good and fine to believe that somebody other than JT could have brought JT things to the table or that JT’s poor play outweighs the value he brings to this team.

What seems foolish, though, based on the last [gestures at the Ryder Cup Wikipedia page] is the belief that Tom Watson subscribed to that it’s as simple as going out and making more birdies than the other guys. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of team sport that’s easy for an individual sportsman to fall into.

It seems like (seems like!) the U.S. is intent on avoiding that trap now. That doesn’t guarantee a win, but it’s probably the only way forward.

4. Ludvig. I called my dad last week, and at one point he said something like, “You know who’s going to dominate this event?”

I don’t know if he’s going to, but I absolutely knew who my dad was going to say.

5. The 28th match. Who do I want on the course with the Cup tied 13.5-13.5? Basically, what is my answer to this question?

It’s not going to happen because they’ll go earlier than one of the last few matches, but it would be hard to topple JT and Rory getting to the 16th tee box AS with the other 11 matches in the house and nothing else on the course other than terror and history. It would also be hard to breathe.

After all the hollering about JT, all the Rory rhetoric from the last few years and all the ways golf has changed since Whistling Straits, that would be a pretty unreal way to end the best event of the year.

By the Numbies

28.5: I have been thinking about Sergio’s Ryder Cup record a lot (normal stuff). He put up 28.5 points over the course of his (probably complete) Ryder Cup career. Twenty-eight and a half!

Nobody on the U.S. team has even played in (or come close to playing in) 28 matches. The closest is Spieth with 18. To put in perspective what Sergio has done at the Ryder Cup, Spieth would have to go 2-2-1 every year until he’s 44 years old just to get within a half point of Sergio’s number. I guess that could happen, but my gosh.

It’s a bummer that he’s not here. All eras end, but this one — with what could have been a final European Ryder Cup for the best to ever do it — certainly should have ended more gracefully.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ Speaking of newsletters, Geoff Shackelford’s is so good. If you’re not subscribed, you should be! I loved this from him on the Solheim Cup (and kinda about the Ryder Cup, too!)

These weird little Cup events are amazing. They expose everything and everyone. From the slightest bits of uncalled for prickliness, to questionable decision-making and even character deficiencies, Cups can change careers for better or worse.

Golf fans love seeing the emotion and devotion to craft players put on display, all while not earning a paycheck. And regardless of the horrendous Comcast effort Sunday, anyone who watched will never forget this one. Let it all be a warning of what’s on the line starting Friday in Rome.

👉️ If you haven’t read my piece on the 2021 Ryder Cup, here it is. I don’t know if it’s the best I’ve done — some of the writing even just two years later makes me cringe just a bit — but it was everything I had in the moment. And it’s a piece that reverberates because it highlighted a philosophy — winning together > losing alone — that I’ve tried to implement more in my own life.

I wrote in last week’s newsletter that no Ryder Cup will ever be more personally fun or career-shifting than 2016 was, and that’s almost certainly true. But 2021 affected me in a deeply personal way that changed how I think about both this event and the sport in general. It was the Cup that gave way to Normal Sport 1, which gave way to Normal Sport 2, which gave way to this newsletter.

It’s perhaps a stretch to say you wouldn’t be reading this email if not for the 2021 Ryder Cup, but not an excessive one.

👉️ This from LKD and Jamie Kennedy on how the Euros manipulate Ryder Cup courses to their advantage is excellent. He’s great at doing these

How is This App Free?

This absolutely sent me.

In the absence of Normal Sport content this week, I think this does the trick.

I feel bad for this guy who became an auto-meme, but I could also very easily envision JT pulling this the first time Lowry tells him to putt a 2-footer.

Occupational Hazard

If you haven’t weighed in on what this young fellow does for a living, please do.

I would say he throws 97 with movement and a 1.25 WHIP for the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate and is ready to get the call up for something he calls “Rocktober,” and in fact fashioned himself for such a call up, but I’ve already used a very specific baseball line on Burns in the past.

Also, good luck topping this run of responses.