Furyk asked Reed who he wanted to play with and he said Spieth. Furyk asked Spieth who he wanted to play with and he said JT. Is the issue more that our captain made decisions based on players requests? Should Furyk have instead looked at past results and said "Jordan and Patrick, you're playing together"? There's a case either way.

I think there was ample reason to believe the Tiger/Reed pairing would work. But Tiger struggled on Friday morning and Reed was simply terrible on Saturday morning. We'll never know what plans Furyk may have had for Saturday afternoon if Reed played well Saturday morning. As it stood in real time, I can't fault Furyk for sitting Reed on Saturday afternoon.

Should Spieth have just requested to play with Patrick up front? Maybe. If JT/Spieth hadn't paired well together, I think alot more criticism could be tossed his way. The trickle down effect on pairings is a valid critique though. IMO this just points to a flaw in a totally democratic system of determining partners.

12thMan2012 said:

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I've got a named source that says Spieth threw a hissy fit, Patrick Reed, who unlike the crybaby had the guts to put his name on it. Also Solly from NLU was talking to caddies saying nobody had an idea of who they were playing with up until they were announced.

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Then name your source Mr. Bigshot!

We've all got the same source, I put his name in the post, Patrick Reed.

The Shane Bacon podcast with Karen Crouse gives some decent color on Reed's take.

I hadn't heard it until you mentioned it. Nice to hear somebody else recognize how Spieth's selfishness, and Furyk's lack of courage, had a huge impact on this loss; while the rest of the media goes at the easy target in Reed to avoid having to call out the golden boy.

I kinda like Koepka's explanation. They just played bad.

It's true what Brooks said... America didn't "play good." I think there were several reasons for that, not the least of which was the grind of the FEDEX cup (luckily that's being adjusted). That being said, other than Rose and McIlroy the Euros had several guys play their asses off after going through the same grind. Maybe the energy from the home crowd kept them rolling?

Speaking of home... I do think the unfamiliar course played a role (smart move by the Euros). If the guys cared THAT much about the RC, more than just JT would have bothered to play the French Open this year (inconvenient as it may have been).

ALL of that being said Furyk sucked on several levels. He's a nice guy, but he snap hooked his captaincy like he did to gag away that US Open. He's Vice Captain material... nothing more.

I don't know what to think as far as the Reed/Jordan thing... but I know Furyk handled Mick and his ego all wrong. The way I saw it, he had 2 options.

1. Ask Phil to drop the ego and say "Phil, you're playing terribly. I need you to get it together and figure out a way to make some birdies SATURDAY morning. You're sitting Day 1."

OR

2. Cater to Phil's ego and play him right out of the gate on Day 1... on his own ball... and depending on how things go, possibly play him again in 4-ball on Day 2... but most likely we'll see you in the singles.

Furyk did neither. He catered to Phil in the worst possible way. Day 1... Foursomes... in a session where America got swept 4-0.

Vice Captain material I tell ya...