Brooks likes to play fast, I'm not sure Harman would be in the fast category

JT would be still be a solid pick. I'd take his game over Keegan Bradley's without question. I think his mentality and attitude are perfect for an away Ryder Cup and that you trust that he'll bring his A game.

Bradley has done absolutely nothing for the last 10 years until this year. Hell, I'd pick Denny McCarthy and his lethal putter before Bradley

https://x.com/golfdigest/status/1690900785180061697?s=46&t=OjC8DoTY_8a4eyXX0OKSyQ

Even with Glover's win today and moving up to 16th place in the Ryder Cup standings, he is still behind the group of guys from 9th to 13th fighting for those last spots.

Spieth is such a head case. Goes 7 under to open the tournament then scrambles for 3 rounds. Pair him with someone who can drive him down the fairway then let him go to work.

Jordan will likely pair up with Rickie in Rome

If Glover has a couple more strong finishes I don't see how you can look past that. Again, the whole point of adding picks was for this exact reason, so you don't leave off a guy who's playing lights out right now. JT may have to sit this one out.

The Milkman said:

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Bizarro Jerry said:

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JT would be still be a solid pick. I'd take his game over Keegan Bradley's without question. I think his mentality and attitude are perfect for an away Ryder Cup and that you trust that he'll bring his A game.

Bradley has done absolutely nothing for the last 10 years until this year. Hell, I'd pick Denny McCarthy and his lethal putter before Bradley

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But right now is A game is fighting hard to not even finish top 10 at the Wyndham. What does Bradley's last 10 years matter as long as his last 10 months are great? The Ryder Cup isn't a career reward. Its putting together the 12 guys who are playing the best and can win.

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I agree it's not a career award, but I do think experience and track record in past ryder cups, presidents cups, and majors matters when you're deciding who the last couple picks will be.

The top 6 auto qualifiers are there to make sure everyone that's having a great year is protected. Bradley is having a good year, but certainly not GREAT, otherwise he'd be in the top 6.

For example, here's some notable finishes this season:

ZOZO Championship (October 2022, almost a full year prior to Ryder Cup)- 1st
Farmers Insurance Open- 2nd
PLAYERS - CUT
The Masters- T23
PGA Championship- T29
Memorial- T30
US Open - CUT
Travelers- 1st
British Open- CUT
FedEx St. Jude- T43


Not a guy I'd be in a hurry to pick if I'm ZJ.

The Ralph Lauren Ryder Cup gear is out and it is awful. The sweater is almost identical to the one worn by Dorn in Major League.

I saw a link to it online to buy. That sweater will not be worn in actual competition fwiw. It is just a piece of general merchandise being sold.

ZJ just made it pretty clear that Koepka will be the only LIV player

where?

🚨🇺🇸👀 #NEW: Zach Johnson says he hasn’t spoken much with LIV golfers regarding the Ryder Cup. “There hasn’t been much communication. I’m gonna be fully transparent. It’s hard because I’m not able to witness what they’re doing and see their form with the exception of 4 events a… pic.twitter.com/qJcibKviqZ

— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) August 17, 2023

Quote:

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It's hard because I'm not able to witness what they're doing and see their form with the exception of 4 events a year.

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This is total nonsense.

bagger05 said:

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Quote:

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It's hard because I'm not able to witness what they're doing and see their form with the exception of 4 events a year.

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This is total nonsense.

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Maybe he doesn't get the CW on his streaming package.

While he certainly could, I'm guessing he's not too motivated to fly around and watch these guys in person.

98Ag99Grad said:

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If Glover has a couple more strong finishes I don't see how you can look past that. Again, the whole point of adding picks was for this exact reason, so you don't leave off a guy who's playing lights out right now. JT may have to sit this one out.

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Glover over coming the yips is incredible, and he's a great ball striker, but I'm not using my last pick to test out his newfound confidence in the biggest event he's played since last year's PGA Championship.

We're trying to win our first Ryder Cup in Europe in 30 years, and we are already probably taking 8 guys that have never played a Ryder Cup in Europe. I'm not leaving JT and his 6-2-1 record in the RC (4-1 in Europe) at home for a guy with 1 top 20 in his last 11 starts (Keegan), 1 top 10 in 4 months (Burns), or a guy who hasn't played in a major in 18 months.

If Finau or even DJ was playing really well, I think you could convince me to leave JT at home because those guys have the experience we need at this point, and are easy guys to pair up from a talent and temperament standpoint.

I also think with there being a month gap between the last tournament and the Ryder Cup makes the "hot hand" pick different. I'd rather take JT knowing that the moment won't be too big, knowing he pairs really well with Spieth and Fowler, and hoping that he can clean his game up over the next 7 weeks.

If I put myself in Zach Johnson's shoes, and I'm going into Saturday afternoon four-ball down one point, I'm sending out Cantlay/Schauffele and JT/Spieth and feeling like I've got a fighting chance against anybody.

aggiegolfer2012 said:

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Glover over coming the yips is incredible, and he's a great ball striker, but I'm not using my last pick to test out his newfound confidence in the biggest event he's played since last year's PGA Championship.

We're trying to win our first Ryder Cup in Europe in 30 years, and we are already probably taking 8 guys that have never played a Ryder Cup in Europe. I'm not leaving JT and his 6-2-1 record in the RC (4-1 in Europe) at home for a guy with 1 top 20 in his last 11 starts (Keegan), 1 top 10 in 4 months (Burns), or a guy who hasn't played in a major in 18 months.

If Finau or even DJ was playing really well, I think you could convince me to leave JT at home because those guys have the experience we need at this point, and are easy guys to pair up from a talent and temperament standpoint.

I also think with there being a month gap between the last tournament and the Ryder Cup makes the "hot hand" pick different. I'd rather take JT knowing that the moment won't be too big, knowing he pairs really well with Spieth and Fowler, and hoping that he can clean his game up over the next 7 weeks.

If I put myself in Zach Johnson's shoes, and I'm going into Saturday afternoon four-ball down one point, I'm sending out Cantlay/Schauffele and JT/Spieth and feeling like I've got a fighting chance against anybody.

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Good post and agree on almost all points.

Typically Saturday afternoon in Europe hosted events is foursomes, but agree with your general point in bold. There's a temptation to want to get your best guys out in the morning and set the tone for the day, but I think we need to optimize everything to make sure we have our 4 best foursomes pairings ready to go each afternoon. That's where Europe has killed us in the last two road Ryder Cups.

IMO Xander/Cantlay sets our tone for each foursomes session. When thinking about roster construction and lineup decisions, you can't ignore that Spieth/JT are proven in that format too. From there, I think you pair Morikawa with whoever is driving it best (maybe Scottie) and fill out the session with Max/Rickie (two high class iron players).

It will be interesting to see the dynamics of DJ and JT on if they are named or not. A case can be made for both. But what about guys playing well. It's an honor to play on the team, but it's about fielding a winning team. Do you take the best players or field the best team. Sometimes not the same. The goal is not to make players or officials happy. But it's to win.

I don't think Tiger's influence has been mentioned yet on this thread. Although not publicly, he's undoubtedly involved and he's going to back JT all day. I'd be very surprised at this point if JT doesn't get picked

By my simple (but possibly wrong) calculations, if Max and Xander both finish solo 8 or better, they bump Brooks out of an auto top 6 spot.

My US Ryder Cup picks: 1) Scheffler 2) Clark 3) Cantlay 4) Harman 5) Homa 6) Xander 7) Jordan 8) Young 9) Morikawa 10) Burns 11) Rickie 12) Justin.

Deluxe said:

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By my simple (but possibly wrong) calculations, if Max and Xander both finish solo 8 or better, they bump Brooks out of an auto top 6 spot.

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That's about right. I read a detailed article on it. To get the automatic qualifier, Homa has less to do. But Xander and some other guys could launch into top 6 as well. And it didn't require winning.

birdman said:

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Deluxe said:

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By my simple (but possibly wrong) calculations, if Max and Xander both finish solo 8 or better, they bump Brooks out of an auto top 6 spot.

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That's about right. I read a detailed article on it. To get the automatic qualifier, Homa has less to do. But Xander and some other guys could launch into top 6 as well. And it didn't require winning.

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Yep. Tomorrow will be a big day. Last day to earn points toward top 6 automatic qualification.

Homa is currently T4 and Xander is T10. Neither has much to worry about in the bigger picture cuz they're locks to be on the team one way or another. But if Brooks finishes 7th, ZJ will have a big decision to make.

Koepka is a no brainer. I think the debate is JT vs Keegan vs Glover. All those other dudes are in. I go with Glover. Dude is a great ballstriker, figured out the new putter, and is on an absolute heater and playing well again this weekend. JT has just been too bad all year. Showed a bit of life at the end, but he needed to qualify for more playoff weeks for me to get comfortable that he found his game again.

What is this fascination with Cam Young? Dude hits it a mile but really hasn't done much all season and has never won anything. I don't see why he gets a spot over someone like Glover.

Well Young is 7 spots higher than Glover in the US Ryder Cup Standings so that matters big time in getting a spot on the team.

Meh that's all from last year. Dude needs to win something. He's in danger of missing the Tour Championship now.

Yeah, Young is somewhat debatable. All I know is Glover is 7th in driving accuracy, 10th in GIR, 1st in proximity, and the putter swap seems to have fixed the one shortcoming in his game. Now could it go to crap again? Sure. But the fact it has improved from a very tangible change vs "he's just doing it better somehow lately" would have me picking him and not looking back

Well Glover is 16th in the Ryder Cup standings so he has no one to blame but himself for missing cuts and playing so poorly last year and most all this year until these last few weeks. The entire points time frame matters to make the Ryder Cup team every 2 years.

Partly true but also to find the right players for partner pairings and fit for the golf course in Rome. Glover missed the cut 11 times this year, didn't qualify for any majors, finished T-51 in the Players and missed the cut in the big designated invitationals such as API, Genesis and The Memorial. Not a good enough resume overall to be a Captain's pick for the Ryder Cup.

Guys who keep the ball in the fairway and hit approach shots closer than anyone are great for these events, especially alternate shot.

JT melted down in every big event this year

This team underachieved for years and ultimately changed the captains picks exactly for this scenario. You can take the big name that has been playing like ass, lose, and then scratch your head as to why. Or change the playbook and take a couple of guys playing great lately