Weren't they teammates at Cal?

Both went to cal but I don't believe they were ever teammates.

It's official now. JT is a bad pick.

Source: because Stephen McGee and Ryan Swope said so in their piece in the Premium forum.

I bet the Fortinet Championship will have a few more eyes on it than normal due to JT being in it. All eyes will be on him to see what kind of form he is in. I hope he finds his game and does well in that tournament. Also hope Homa does well. I want our guys playing well and feeling good going into the Ryder Cup.

JT will be as good as Spieth can carry him. He will make a couple of good shots but it will be Spieth's show that will determine success for him. And definitely count an L on the Sunday singles match. And I'm a huge JT fan. He just needs a complete change in his game from coach/daddy to caddy.

safety guy said:

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JT will be as good as Spieth can carry him. He will make a couple of good shots but it will be Spieth's show that will determine success for him. And definitely count an L on the Sunday singles match. And I'm a huge JT fan. He just needs a complete change in his game from coach/daddy to caddy.

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Dang dude. Don't concede yet. It's the Ryder Cup and anything can happen. It seems like Europe always has a guy or two that hasn't played well show up and go on a tear. I will say that I don't think there is a single American with more pressure on himself than JT. He's got to justify being picked. If he doesn't do well(or at least average), and we lose, him and Johnson will catch a lot of flack.

JT was probably the most obvious pick ZJ could make (behind Speith). Some of yall act like JT has forgotten how to swing a golf club and had the worst season imaginable. He's still ranked 26th in OWGR. Given his team record, and he's still only 15 months removed from a major championship, JT was a no brainer for Rome.

Keegan, Young, Finau, etc could have made it more difficult for ZJ, but they haven't done anything in months. I'd say Rickie Fowler is a bigger question mark than JT, even with his bounce back year.

OWGR's rankings use too-long a trail that includes tournament results going as far back as 24 months. He may not even be top 50 for the last year. There was nothing obvious about his pick unless you're just a fan.

And yes, his play the last 6 months indicates he has absolutely no clue how to replicate past success at the moment. That's just wrong for guys that have outplayed him by a wide margin the last year.

_lefraud_ said:

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JT was probably the most obvious pick ZJ could make (behind Speith). Some of yall act like JT has forgotten how to swing a golf club and had the worst season imaginable. He's still ranked 26th in OWGR.

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A few things.

First, I think any reasonable person will admit JT is playing poorly, especially compared to some players that were not picked. He's been playing poorly for the last 6 months, it's not like it's a bad couple of weeks thing.

As the previous poster mentioned, the OWGR is weighted heavily back a couple years, so that is really somewhat meaningless.

As far as the having forgotten to swing the club statement, I'd argue he has when it comes to the putter. He's dropped to #159 in strokes gained putting and #191 in avoiding 3 putts. He has lost confidence in his putting and it shows in his body language.

JT is going to have to reverse a 4-5 month trend of playing like a guy who has to fight to keep his card every year. I'm a JT fan but definitely believe he shouldn't have been picked. Certainly wasn't based on recent play which was the argument several years ago about going to 6 picks. Play the hot hand. I understand the pairing with Jordan and his experience but it is a pretty big leap to get there in my opinion.

Definite signs starting at the Masters where he missed the cut. In the 12 tournaments starting there, he missed 6 of 12 cuts with 1 top 10 - T9 at the travelers. Also had a T12 at the Wyndham.

But he held it together a bit following the masters cut with a T25 at the RBC followed by a T14 at the Wells Fargo. It's been really rough from there starting with the pga.

From that major to now he has played in 9 tournaments. Missed 5 of 9 cuts. Of the 4 cuts he made he had a T65 at the pga and a T60 at the genesis.

By his standards he has been terrible. To me he was an undeserving pick. But he has been picked so now I am hopeful he can find something and is able to contribute. He loves the event and is a guy for the moment. Here's to hoping he steps up and helps us retain the cup.

I'll put it this way, if USA doesn't win, it won't be because ZJ chose JT.

If the Ryder Cup was played a year ago, the US team likely wins as several members of Team Europe weren't playing that well. What a difference a year makes as about 7 or so of Team Europe's top players are all playing good golf led by the hottest player in the game, Viktor. Rory, Rahm, Viktor, Rose, Fleetwod. Fitzpatrick, Hatton, etc are all playing pretty good golf in the past few months. It will be a close match in Rome.

The European Captain's picks are in, and they have put together a good team.

Will be interesting to see how pick #6 performs, how Ludvig Aberg does should be a fun watch, I have a feeling he is going to be a force in many Ryder Cup matches to come.

Can't wait for the matches to start.

Both teams look really good.

USA! USA!

FTR....Fleetwood, Straka, Rose, Lowry, Hojgaard and Aberg are the picks.

Their vice captains played / were grouped with him this weekend so they could get a better feel for their pick. Talk about pressure.

9 of the last 18 Ryder Cups have been decided by a margin where one match flipping from one team to the other team would have changed the outcome of the overall RC. In some cases that is an outright 2 point win turning into a tie, but nevertheless, there's a good chance of every match mattering

Aggies with their first former student to make the ryder cup!

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/ludvig-aberg-ryder-cup-history-team-usa-walker-cup-worst-break-golf-history-the-grind?utm_medium=email&utm_source=090523&utm_campaign=hitlist&utm_content=DM43622&uuid=7220faf9f1d5421ebe74b696f7c9aa7a

Quote:

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The former Texas A&M star is a generational driver of the golf ball, but there's a lot more to his game as evidenced by birdieing four of his final five holes to close out the win in Switzerland. And now he's made history before ever taking a single swing at a Ryder Cup by becoming the first player to get into the biennial event before playing in a major championship:

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Can you imagine Ludvig and Bennett both playing together? Natty all the way.

Thanks, Alex Myers!

Never realized how big Cink is.

aggiedent said:

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It's official now. JT is a bad pick.

Source: because Stephen McGee and Ryan Swope said so in their piece in the Premium forum.

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Is this like Gabe bock saying Johnny manziel could make it on the PGA tour?

_lefraud_ said:

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Never realized how big Cink is.

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Or how small Harman is. If you've ever seen Rickie or JT in person then this picture is even crazier. They're both TINY and make him look like an ant.

This week really shows how far the US still has to go with the Ryder Cup. 2/12 US players playing this week and 12/12 European players playing.

Little different in the quality of event though. The BMW championship is the flagship event for the DP tour. The Fortinet is a fall event at a mediocre course most of these guys never play. Not sure it's comparable.

Meh, kind of hard to compare a European major tournament to whatever there is in Napa this week. Those Euros aren't playing this week as a tune up for the Ryder Cup.

Of course the event aren't comparable, but there's something to be said for playing some competitive golf before you go to Rome. Even Homa said he was shaking off a little rust to start the round. It's not a great tournament, but it's a good chance to get your 12 guys playing together for a little tune up.

I would say the bigger issue was not all 12 going over to see the course last week. Speith can be excused because his kid was being born. Cantlay and Xander were at a bachelor party, which was planned ahead but IMO could have been rescheduled. Not seeing the course ahead of time and practicing could come back to bite them.

Back in March there were rumors of a minor hip issue with JT that he denied, but I remember the few podcasts I listen to mentioning it leading into the Masters and fading him in their betting segments even though he had 6 top 25s in 7 starts leading into the Masters.

If he was really injured, the new schedule (Players Championship + 4 majors in 4 months + new elevated events) wouldn't really set up for him to get healthy and find form. If ZJ knew he was back healthy and was going to have a 2 month break to get work in, he was an easy pick. His strokes gained approach at Fortinet was back at JT levels, driving distance was back (even though accuracy wasn't great), the putter will always be streaky, but I'm hoping it's a sign of JT being back.