🏌️♀️Bradley’s biggest Ryder Cup mistake? He refused to learn rom his mistakesOnce again, the Ryder Cup lived up to all the hype. Team USA mounted one of the finest last-day charges in the history of the tournament, but fell short. Joy tries to figure what went wrong…
Last week, I predicted a 16-12 win for Team USA in the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. Somehow, despite the egg on my face, I am delighted to be proven wrong. Having experienced enough sport to know that gazing into the crystal ball is an extremely hazardous activity, it is also the aspect that makes sport the greatest pursuit of mankind. Where’s the fun if you can start predicting what was going to happen in a match? In the end, what looked like a walk in the park for Team Europe, especially with a 12-5 lead going into the singles matches, turned into a narrow 15-13 win after a massive fightback by Team USA. It was exhilarating golf on Sunday as the USA kept chipping away at the lead, until Europe secured a half point through Shane Lowry to reach the magical number of 14 that retained the Ryder Cup, with only three matches still left on the golf course. “This is no one’s fault but mine,” American Captain Keegan Bradley admitted after the result. “This is no one else’s fault. Sometimes in sports, you go up against an opponent that sometimes beats you; they play better. And they (Europe) played better than us. We gave it a great fight, that’s for sure.” There is no doubt that Europe played better golf, and they were tactically superior. Yet, there were some huge gaffes made by Bradley that made things easier for Captain Luke Donald and his men. Bradley’s Big MistakeIn the big picture, Europe did several things right, but the one big mistake Bradley and his team made was pairing Collin Morikawa and Harris English for the foursomes matches on Friday, when they lost 5&4 to Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, and then repeating them for the Saturday foursomes despite the heavy walloping and clear indication that they did not work well as a pair. On Saturday, they ran into McIlroy and Fleetwood again and lost 3&2. Probably, any pair that Bradley put up would have lost to McIlroy/Fleetwood. However, this is why it mattered – in a tournament where it is difficult to get away with even a single minor mistake, Bradley somehow failed to learn from the on-the-ground facts and repeated the error again. Before the tournament started, Data Golf said the US pairing was 132nd out of 132 possible pairings, marking Morikawa and English as No11 and No12 US players in its ranking. Depending on data seems to be a critical factor for success these days, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. You never know the two could have motivated each other to a giant-killing act, but it was very evident on Friday that they did not make a good team. There was a possibility that the US could have saved at least one point by not combining them together, and that could have been crucial in the final result. The Scheffler Factor
When Scottie Scheffler, the world No1 and the most dominant player in the game right now, delivers just one point out of five, you know you have a problem. Bradley paired Scheffler twice with Russell Henley in foursomes. In fourballs, he played on Friday with JJ Spaun and on Saturday with Bryson DeChambeau (a really desperate move!). Now, on paper, a Scheffler/Henley pairing looks unbeatable. After all, Henley has been playing some great golf lately and climbed to No3 in the world rankings. Only on the basis of the world rankings, that should have been the strongest pair on the golf course. However, as we have seen time and again, reputation and rankings are irrelevant in the Ryder Cup. To pair Scheffler with Henley again after they were comprehensively beaten 5&3 by Ludvig Aberg and Matt Fitzpatrick, was Bradley’s second big mistake. And the fact that Scheffler could contribute only one point, was a huge factor in the US loss. Crowd, the 13th Man, scores several self-goalsHome crowd would be partisan and New York fans would be raucous. Europe was prepared for ‘the 13th man’ of Team USA, including using VR headsets that prepared them for shouting and abuses. However, what could have been a huge advantage for the hosts, was used by their opponents to fuel themselves to greater heights. Subjecting McIlroy to abuses and insults was kind of expected, throwing a beer can at his wife was absolutely not. The Sunday thrillerFor any miracle to happen, it was imperative that the first four players of Bradley needed to give them a rousing start. However, DeChambeau was five down after seven, Justin Thomas was two down after seven and Cameron Young was even after 16, having lost three out of his previous four holes. Thomas and Young defeated Fleetwood and Rose, but the most stunning result was the way DeChambeau fought back to share a point with Fitzpatrick. In the run-up to the event, Paul McGinley, who knows a thing or two about Ryder Cup and also about the form of players, had said on television that Fitzpatrick was probably the strongest player for Europe based on practice rounds and the way he was hitting the ball on the range. If you’re a football fan, you might enjoy Dhiman Sarkar’s weekly read Kick Off:
THE WEEK THAT WASPGA TOUR: Tournament: Ryder Cup Winning team: Europe Final score: 15-13 Score after Friday: 5.5-2.5 Score after Saturday: 11.5-4.5 Singles score: 3-8 Next event: Sanderson Farms Championship LIV GOLF: Tournament: No event last week Next event: Liv Golf Riyadh (2026 season) DP WORLD TOUR: Tournament: Ryder Cup Next event: Dunhill Links Championship LPGA: Tournament: No event last week Next event: LOTTE Championship presented by Hoakalei ASIAN TOUR: Tournament: Mercuries Taiwan Masters Winner: Rattanon Wannasrichan (THA) Winning score: 70-67-68-68 (17-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: US$1 million/US$180,000 Indians in the field: Yuvraj Singh Sandhu T43rd (74-74-76-74); Missed cut – Viraj Madappa (82-69), Shiv Kapur (76-77), Rahil Gangjee (80-74), SSP Chawrasia (79-75), Ajeetesh Sandhu (79-77), Rashid Khan (77-82) Next event: Jakarta International Championship KORN FERRY TOUR: Tournament: No event last week Next event: Compliance Solution Championship LADIES EUROPEAN TOUR: Tournament: Lacoste Ladies Open de France Winner: Anna Huang (CAN) Winning score: 68-64-65 (16-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: EUR400,000/EUR60,000 Indians in the field: Pranavi Urs T5th (70-68-65); Diksha Dagar T46th (72-69-71); Missed cut – Tvesa Malik (74-72); Avani Prashanth (73-74) Next event: Hero Women’s Indian Open ASIAN DEVELOPMENT TOUR: Tournament: No event this week Next event: Nam A Bank Vietnam Open PGTI TOUR Tournament: Telangana Golconda Masters Winner: Jamal Hossain (BAN) Winning score: 61-62-64 (23-under par) Prize purse/Winner’s cheque: INR1 crore/INR15 lakh Top scores: Akshay Sharma 2nd (62-64-65); Khalin Joshi 3rd (65-66-66); Shaurya Bhattacharya T4th (66-68-64); Manu Gandas T4th (66-68-64); Arjun Prasad 6th (69-65-65); Vishav Pratap Singh Gill 7th (70-68-63); Anshul Kabthiyal T8th (66-72-64); S Chikkarangappa T8th (69-66-67); Arjun Sharma T8th (67-67-68) Next event: Tamil Nadu Open INDIAN GOLF PREMIER LEAGUE: Tournament: No event last week Next event: IGPL Invitational - Pune Written and edited by Joy Chakravarty (@TheJoyofGolf). Produced by Shad Hasnain.
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