I'm not going to worry about who is on the Ryder Cup team until the players actually decide they want to compete. The Euros already all went and played Adare a couple weeks ago, so our team is behind. Probably none of the US team will go play before hand. This is a group that supposedly barely even played practice rounds at Bethpage.

If I had to pick, Henley can go ahead and never be on a team again. He may lead the pack of the least care for all the guys that don't care. Burns, see ya. He's never made a clutch putt in his life. Morikawa don't care. Mental midget. They should have a serious talk with Scottie. May just be time he moves on from team golf.

I'll add, I think it probably would have been better long term for the US to lose today. That's probably the only thing that would've forced some change. Now they'll get excited that the barely beat a horrific international team and role into to Ireland next year with no plan.

Scottie is good in fourball and singles... lol no way they tell him to not play

E said:

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Scottie is good in fourball and singles... lol no way they tell him to not play

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He is, but Scheffler is also 1-8-0 in foursomes

His overall record across team play is now 7-12-4.

That's pretty bad.

Obviously this is somewhat facetious, but he clearly doesn't want to be there. He's been fine in four ball in the Presidents Cup when the teams are incredibly lopsided in talent. He hasn't been good in anything but singles in the Ryder Cup.

They got a year to figure it out. It was good having Furyk there so he could see the pairings and how they decided on them and what worked and didn't. Sneds got bailed out today. Might be a one and done guy.

Someone around here has mentioned it before, but the Presidents Cup should be used to groom players for team golf, specifically foursomes. Maybe use 6 captain picks on guys under 30 and figure out which pairings can be good together.

For the past 20 years the Presidents Cup has been seen as a negative to the success (or lack thereof) for the Ryder Cup. So let's change our approach, and take advantage of having an event that the Euros don't. Find 4-5 guys that can play foursomes and figure it out during even years, so they can be ready for the odd years.

aggiebrother33 said:

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Paul McGinley said it best. I'd rather have a competitor than the top player when it comes down to it. I agree, we need to maybe have top 4 automatically qualify or even 2. Then the rest are picks

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what good is that when the majority of the time the captains pick their best friends, etc....

America's problem is with their mentality. They are soft, rich kids who dont have any dog in them. They are very selfish minded and it just doesn't translate to team golf.

I didn't hate the result over the weekend for USA. It was good to see us get punched in the face on Friday after seemingly sleepwalking through Thursday. Good to see some fight over the weekend. "The comeback" didn't make me anymore or less confident for Adare 2027, but it was good to see us get tested a bit (as opposed to just blowing out the internationals start-to-finish).

I tend to agree with the narrative that so long as Rory is willing to put his personal pride/reputation on the line in the Ryder Cup and treat it as the most important on his calendar... and Scottie is not... USA will continue to be at a disadvantage in this era. I think the most important thing that could possibly happen to USA in the next year is that Scottie fully invests in winning at Adare 2027. He needs to set the tone.

Rory changed after getting humiliated at Whistling Straits. He played horrible the first two days, but it meant alot to him that the full weight of the Europe team room still wanted him to play in the honored leadoff spot on Sunday. Ever since then, he's been a menace in the Ryder Cup and expects the same of all his teammates. I would have thought the 9&7 defeat at the 2023 Ryder Cup would have changed Scottie, but he still seems to have the same approach to USA team golf. He obviously cares and shows up. But it's clear Scottie has another level he can tap into (we see it at majors all the time).

That's not necessarily a knock on Scottie. He has young kids. Golf success in certain arenas/formats don't guarantee success in others. Scottie's greatest skill is that when everyone is playing their own ball, the likelihood that he will emerge as the best player increases as the sample size increases. The Ryder Cup is small sample with alot of team golf mixed in.

If Scottie blazes into Adare ready to set the tone and demand to Furyk that he's playing all five matches, that would be awesome. The base case is probably that he shows up a little more prepared and ready to go. It certainly helps that he experienced 2023 in Rome. There's no substitute for your first road Ryder Cup experience. Maybe USA arrives a few days earlier to adjust. Maybe Furyk has a little extra wisdom from the loss in 2018.

But overall, I think we should be realistic in how we deploy Scottie. There's no rule that says your best player has to play all five matches. Or that we should force him into certain formats that don't suit him (alt shot). We would have done alot better in the 2000s if we had accepted that about Tiger and not forced him to be something he's not in the Ryder Cup. We should think of Scottie the same way.

Scottie carries alot of extra weight on his shoulders in the Ryder Cup (much like Tiger used to). Beating him gives the Euros alot of juice. They're gunning for him. His losses are more impactful than other players' losses. We need to put him in position to succeed. One thing I can guarantee: we will not win in Adare 2027 if Scottie goes 1-3 or 1-4.

If I was captain, I'd sit him out of Friday morning alt shot. Let him ease into the tournament on Friday afternoon four ball next to Sam. He can avoid all the Friday morning hoopla and play his own ball. I'd likely let him play Saturday morning alt shot after he's settled in but it would depend on how he plays Friday afternoon. Then he plays Saturday afternoon four ball and leads us out in Sunday singles.

There's room to critique that approach but I think it beats throwing him out there first thing Friday morning with <insert alt shot partner that he hasn't had anything success with> against Rahm/Hatton. To me, that's setting him up to fail and setting the Euros up to slay our beast for a big opening W.

Good post

I wish they had taken this year to try out something besides him and Burns in that format, it just doesn't work.

They tried the Henley thing at Bethpage because it went well one match at a Presidents Cup. But putting the best approach player in the world 20-30 yards back of the Euros because you paired him with by far the shortest player on either team didn't make any sense either.

You mention Rory, you know what Rory gets in foursomes? He gets paired with a ball striker like Tommy Fleetwood. They used to try and get cute with who played with Rory, and they don't anymore. They send him out with a sidekick that is as good a ball striker as anybody there, and they set a tone. Because with that ball striking, if the putts are falling you can't beat them, and if they aren't you're still going to have to work to beat them because they aren't going to give any holes away. Rory wants to play with his best bud Lowry? Cool, that's why God made fourball. But in foursomes we aren't doing that.

They're sending their best player out with a consistently top 5-10 tee to green player in the world, Burns doesn't even rank in the top 10 Americans or top 30 in the world tee to green. If you want Scottie to set a tone when he's only hitting every other shot, send him out there with somebody that can at least come close to hanging with him from a ball striking perspective. Even this weekend, their foursomes match Burns had one of those days he has and was statistically the worst approach player on the course, and they still only lost one down.

I get what you're saying on Burns but it's incorrect. https://datagolf.com/true-sg-query I think he just had a bad day/rounds. By any measure he's been a top 4-5 player on the US side this season in ball striking and approach play. Really only Scottie, Morikowa and Cantlay have been better. Last 3 months #4 in BS, #4 in approach. Last 6 months #6 in BS, 3 on approach. Last 12 months #8 in BS & #4 in approach for team USA.

I think it's the obsession with playing with your friend where you're correct. Kisner has a great story about how he didn't want to play with Phil at all, they ended up playing together and killing it.

Deluxe makes some good points on Scottie for Team USA going into Ireland for 2027 Ryder Cup. Team USA and Captain Furyk needs Scottie to take a leadership role going into 2027 that could be a positive catalyst for Team USA to really compete against a good Team Europe that will have the advantages at Adare Manor. Team Europe is the favorite as Team USA is clearly the underdog.

My early list for the Top 12 players for Team USA (in no particular order) based on a) Presidents Cup this past weekend b) recent overall play on PGA Tour and big events and c) past experience in recent Presidents and Ryder cup competitions.

1) Scottie
2) Young
3) Xander
4) Cantlay
5) Morikawa
6) Justin
7) Gotterup
8) Koivun
9) Burns
10) Clark
11) Patrick Reed (leads the DP World Tour currently in the Race to Dubai)
12) Whoever is playing the best among Bridgeman, Spaun, Brooks or Bryson

You cited data golf that proves my point, he's 7th overall, mostly due to his putter. Filter it by tee to green and burns is closer to guys like Ben Kohls than he is to Cameron Young or Cantlay. As a comparison, he's behind Lowry in T2G and Approach, and the Euros still don't send him out in foursomes. They've only used him twice in that format with 6 opportunities and never with Rory. Burns approach play ranks fine, but with his distance to be that bad in SG off the tee is concerning at best, and that's where Scottie is hitting from in alt shot. Also strokes gained approach factors in where the ball is hit from. So mediocre approaches from bad tee shots still gain strokes and help his ranking there.

He's actually gotten better too, when he was a captains pick last time around in the Ryder Cup he was ranked in the 80's tee to green.

In theory they were giving Scottie a ball striker at Bethpage because Henley was top 10 tee to green. But it still didn't solve for the fact they were putting Scottie with the shortest hitter on the course with no roll on a course where being in the fairway wasn't much of an advantage because of the set up.

T2G includes ARG. Gotta swap it to BS to get off the tee and approach. He (relatively) sucks ARG. Average for tour more or less. So including T2G pulls his data way down. Probably worst on team ARG. His BS and approach are top 1/3 of the team. Putting is stellar. #1 or 2 on team. Like I said more of an off day/days for whatever reason.

I'll give you that he's had a nice run the last few months.
But he finished 2025 105th in approach, 2024 he was 53rd in approach, 2023 99th in approach. He's just not consistently one of our best ball strikers. Just making the comp that Rory gets a good reputation for setting a foursomes tone, when he gets a much more stable partner than we give Scottie, whether it's Henley or Burns recently.

aggiegolfer2012 said:

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You cited data golf that proves my point, he's 7th overall, mostly due to his putter. Filter it by tee to green and burns is closer to guys like Ben Kohls than he is to Cameron Young or Cantlay. As a comparison, he's behind Lowry in T2G and Approach, and the Euros still don't send him out in foursomes. They've only used him twice in that format with 6 opportunities and never with Rory. Burns approach play ranks fine, but with his distance to be that bad in SG off the tee is concerning at best, and that's where Scottie is hitting from in alt shot. Also strokes gained approach factors in where the ball is hit from. So mediocre approaches from bad tee shots still gain strokes and help his ranking there.

He's actually gotten better too, when he was a captains pick last time around in the Ryder Cup he was ranked in the 80's tee to green.

In theory they were giving Scottie a ball striker at Bethpage because Henley was top 10 tee to green. But it still didn't solve for the fact they were putting Scottie with the shortest hitter on the course with no roll on a course where being in the fairway wasn't much of an advantage because of the set up.

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Great points and looking forward to another year of Ryder Cup discourse with you. If we get smoked again in Ireland, it might be the last time I invest myself in Team USA strategic dynamics lol.

I was more open to the Scottie/Burns pairing last weekend than I was in Rome 2023, when we led off with it in foursomes for some reason. Burns has proven himself over the last year to be among the best "not Scottie" USA players. They could probably be ok in four ball, but your overarching point is something I agree with 100%... why would we not optimize Scottie's foursomes partner the way the Euros do in pairing Fleetwood with Rory.

Cantlay seems like he would fit the bill best based on his strokes gained tee to green. Cam Young could too but he probably needs to anchor a pairing. If Cantlay really is the guy, sorry Xander. We need to find you someone else.

I'll probably say this 100 times in the next year but we're not going to win in Rome if Scottie goes 1-3 or 1-4. Whatever it takes to set him up to succeed is what we should do.

https://instagr.am/p/DddmdDZjnQq