Americans didn’t come away with a Ryder Cup win this weekend

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See website for details. Every two years, I look forward to my favorite weekend of the sports calendar, and for the last five tries, there has been maybe a smidge of Sunday drama. There was a smidge yesterday, but just not enough. Most of the drama happened away from the golf course. Gary Williams, Five Clubs Golf, also on Twitter at GaryWilliams1up, which we didn't see enough of from the United States at the Ryder Cup.

Sixteen and a half, eleven and a half loss to Europe. He joins us on the Adam Gold Show. I caught your stuff on Sirius XM Friday afternoon after the matches were over, and this is something that I said on Thursday to a friend of mine, Scott Misha, who used to write for the Augusta Chronicle, when we saw the pairings. And I'm like, how is Justin Thomas not out in the first group? And like, maybe he's right, maybe Scott was right when he said, well, he's not really made for foursomes. And I'm like, why is he on a team? Like, he's not there for a format. He was there because he's Justin Thomas, because we were picking him on form, he wouldn't have been picked.

And it was good to hear somebody else be as bewildered as I was. Yeah, I'm sorry, that doesn't fly with me, the idea that he's a situational participant. You cannot advance the campaign of Justin Thomas being on the team and then turn around and say, well, only part of the time. He's either the heartbeat of the team or he's not. And so on Friday morning, this is a road game, okay? This is walking in the Cameron indoor.

They've waited two years to get a piece of you. You don't lead with Sam Burns. You just don't.

You don't. And it's not just Justin Thomas, it's also Brooks Koepke. This is like an alpha dog, as you've got on your side, he's got five majors, more than anybody in the event, and he's got to be in that session as well. They're not guys statistically and analytically that much better. And the idea, well, he was what he was as far as his driving accuracy percentage. Justin Thomas was one percent less accurate over the course of the season than Sam Burns. And Sam Burns had played one match in his life in the Ryder Cup, and Justin Thomas has the best record of anybody on the side.

And he doesn't play? Sorry. That was a total whiff.

It was a total whiff. And I want to big picture this before we get to the other things and Gary Williams is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. Because this was talked about after Europe's Big Three, Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Victor Hovland were a combined, what, nine, two and four or something like that.

I mean, they were they were horses. Rory was better in these matches than he had been in any other Ryder Cup. He won four.

He was a leading point getter. I don't even know who the Big Three would be for the United States. If it's not Thomas and Koepcke and Scheffler and obviously not on not on great form, but also like they didn't play.

They didn't play great. Who would be America's Big Three going into these matches? You know, Adam, you first of all, you're a knowledgeable golf fan and you just touched upon something that I had. I had this conversation literally this morning with Rich Lerner about a lot of stuff. And one of those things was that like, who who are those guys? And and the names you just mentioned are the reasonable ones to lead with.

But if your big three include a couple of guys who didn't automatically qualify for the team, what does that tell you about your team? Right. That that their form, you know, and you could say, well, it was just at the back end.

Koepcke would have been on the side. Fair, fair. Yeah.

His points were only, you know, accrued in a finite number of events. But the truth is, is that it's really hard to even identify who America's Big Three is based on reputation and profile and relevancy. It's no question. It would be it would be Scheffler.

You could even say, you know, speech over Scheffler because he's a bigger star. But but he's not. He's compromised as a player right now. So you're touching upon a real a real issue that the American team had going into this.

And in Europe did not bomb didn't have a great summer. He didn't know. It's peculiar how things really dried up for him. And he got a two way.

Miss driver abandoned him. But there's no doubt that that Holland and his ascendancy is a real thing like he's that guy. And that guy is going to be a pain in the ass, not only for the American Ryder Cup team, but for everybody else in stroke play events.

As he's shown, compending in majors, winning big events, FedEx Cup, all of that. United State didn't have a big three. And the guy who wound up being their best player was a rookie in the event. Max Homer. He was. Max was the only American to play in all five matches.

He was absolutely dynamite. He makes the pot on the 18th green to keep the United States in it. If he doesn't make the pot and he knew it, if he doesn't make that pot, it's over then. So let me get to when it was over to two feet, eight inches for Tommy Fleetwood, who will never be confused with Ben Crenshaw among putting prowess. And Ricky Fowler says, pick it up. I could not believe that. I don't care if it's one foot.

You have to make the guy put it in the hole to end the matches. Visit us today at WRL sports fan dot com or wherever you discover your favorite podcasts. So tick to is a prescription treatment for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from systemic therapy or photo therapy. Don't take if you're allergic to so tick to serious reactions can occur before treatment. Get checked for infections, including tuberculosis. So tick to can lower your ability to fight infections. Don't start if you have one serious infections, cancers, including lymphoma, muscle problems and changes in certain labs have occurred.

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Call one eight eight eight SOTYK TU to learn more. I think he was thinking about. Can I still can I be like Jerry West being a losing team in the finals and win the MVP?

I think one of that Aon Nicholas Jacklin Sportsmanship Award could be like the Chuck Howley of the Ryder Cup and be an MVP team. I didn't get it. It was what it was. It was so on brand.

It was so on point for the week. It was it was a it was just this, you know, like, really, are you going to not make them work for anything? You're going to get down in every match. You're going to you're going to not make them have to win holes. You're going to basically concede holes. And the ultimate concession came at the very end.

It wasn't going to change the outcome. No, but it was apropos of the whole week for the U.S. team. So much with Gary Williams is joining us here in the Adam Gold Show, five clubs golf.

You can follow my Twitter at Gary Williams one up. Here's the thing. There's been a lot of talk about. Well, the Europeans, it means more to them. They want it more. I don't think either of those things are true, but I think that it means more to them in a different way than it does to the Americans. Nobody's going to tell me that Max Homer was not into it or Thomas or Spieth or any of those guys didn't badly want to win the Ryder Cup.

But the Europeans motivation historically has simply been different. At one point, it was about respect for their tour. Right.

It's not even about that anymore, because like what? Two guys don't play the U.S. tour. McIntyre and Huygaard. Right. Pretty much everybody on the on their side is our PGA Tour player or still in college like Ludwig Goldberg. So it's more about it's more about what has happened before. The fact that they had Seve Ballesteros, a locker for Ballesteros, the U.S. doesn't have anything like that to to add to the motivation. I just think the motivation is different for them than it is for us.

It is different. I will say this, Adam, I think it those things about the tour part still matter because you're absolutely right. You know, these guys make their living. Many of them live here, you know, overwhelmingly on the PGA Tour.

But you, like I have never forgotten where we came from. Right. And they're all a product of of what is a dirt road compared to, you know, the yellow brick road paved with gold. That is the PGA Tour. And the reality is, is that the PGA of America owns the event on this side of things. And and they they know that the Americans know they're a cash cow for that organization. Doesn't mean the PGA of America doesn't have good intent. But on the European side, it keeps them in business.

You know, the value of the Ryder Cup to their business in the absence of it in a non Ryder Cup year, their business loses money. And so that that part of it does matter. I think there's layers of allegiance to it. And again, you're absolutely right. The Americans care.

But there is a tinge. And I think you're going to hear more of this whole compensation. Listen, I think it's a worthwhile discussion.

World Cup players get compensated. You can say, oh, the flag's enough. Times have changed in this world. But here's the thing. There is an undercurrent and it's not it's I said undercurrent.

I didn't say it. It's the overwhelming, palpable feeling that you get around the American team. There's an undercurrent of obligation to being a part of this. Whereas with the European side, it's a humbling privilege to be on that team. And you can say that doesn't help you make putts.

Everything helps. Everything in the collective builds towards certain things. And and again, I think this American team, of course, they care. Of course they care. But there are things intangibly that I think are pretty powerful that drive this European team.

However, it doesn't change the fact that they've gotten they've gotten taken out to the shed the last couple of times in the United States. There's no doubt we haven't had a competitive Ryder Cup since Medina in 2012. And that's another thing that needs to be addressed. You can't just keep going.

Go out to Ryder Cup. It'll be great. Man, it's football season. Yeah. People can take it or leave it. And I promise you, the ratings are not going to be very good for this thing.

No, I agree. The time difference hurts. But yeah, the fact that the the matches were like when you woke up Friday or if maybe if you slept in and you didn't look at your phone until noon and you went, what's the score?

I mean, it it you slept in again on Saturday because there was almost no reason to watch. Final thing for Gary Williams. Rickie Fowler said that these were the 12 best players for each side. I disagree because at least one player should have been on that team.

That wasn't I said it before. And if it were up to me, Dustin Johnson was on the plane. Whether it's Sam Burns who comes off or very possibly Ricky, who since the win hadn't been great since the win in Detroit, hadn't been great. But it wasn't the 12 best Americans. I think DJ should have been on that team.

Fair. I mean, I could I could insert Keegan Bradley. You know, for that, you know, I get the sentiment for Lucas Glover because he won those two events, you know, and you can say, well, and I would also I would I would put forth the name Tony Fino. And you go, oh, he played very well. Hey, look, man, you want to golf tournaments this year?

Yeah. Justin Thomas didn't win any golf tournaments. And Tony Fino has actually played exceptionally well in the events. The last two times it's been contested in Paris when he was a rookie.

Then he played very, very well. This is not here's the other thing about this and why I hope they don't, because they got blown out. Revert back to, you know, only three captain's picks selfishly for guys like you and me. Yeah. The gas bag about this stuff is more interesting when half the team gets selected.

Yeah. This is not a reward for the season ahead. But that is five or two of the six that are automatically selected. This is the construct of a team. When, when, when Steve Kerr puts together the U.S. Olympic team that's going to go to Paris next summer, he's not going to look at who scored the most points and just go down the scoring title list and just take 12 guys. This is the construct of trying to put a team together. And as much as you know, you can sit like, I think the European Ryder Cup team is really one of the greatest teams that we've seen in sports in the last 50 years. Considering Adam, they only get to play once every two years and they're doing it in a sport in which team is not associated with the exercise. And they have managed to be unbelievably successful because they, they, they have figured some certain things out.

And, you know, one of those things is what do I have to do to touch upon these 12 guys to invest in each other? It's more than just making putts. That's too clear, but it's too trite. And it's really too unintelligent to just boil it down to just that. There are reasons these guys perform the way that they do beyond the fact that, well, they're just in good form.

There are a lot of things to this and Europe has figured it out far more effectively than we have for the last 30 years. Gary Williams. I appreciate your time, sir. Five Clubs Golf and at Gary Williams one up on Twitter. Appreciate it, my friend. I'll talk to you soon.

You got Gary Williams here on the Adam Gold show. OK, round two. Name something that's not boring.

Laundry? Oh, a book club. Computer Solitaire, huh? Ah, sorry. We were looking for Chumba Casino.

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