Keegan Bradley's Ryder Cup legacy is likely already sealed.
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Bad decisions are unavoidable. No one in a position of leadership should be expected to make all the right calls, especially not Keegan Bradley who last year was unexpectedly elevated to United States Ryder Cup captain.
So shouldn’t have been surprising when Bradley made some bad calls on Friday, helping the U.S. dig itself a 5 ½ to 2 ½ against Europe (which needs only 14 points for the week to retain the Ryder Cup).
And it wasn’t an instant cause for massive concern. As Bradley correctly pointed out on Friday night, the USA hadn’t played itself out of this thing. Far from it.
“We can just turn this thing around in one quick session,” Bradley said. “You go out tomorrow and you try to win one session, then you try to win the next one. You don’t need to get all four points in one session.”
The true mark of good leadership, after all, is how one responds to the inevitable mistakes.
And Bradley one mistake Friday that was obvious: the alternate-shot pairing of Harris English and Collin Morikawa – ranked Data Golf, which specializes in golf analytics as the worst combination of the 132 possible – looked completely hapless in the opening foursomes session, falling 5 & 4 to Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy (that means the match ended after the 14th hole because the U.S. was down by five holes with only four to play). Not only did the pairing fail the data test, but they bombed the eye test: at no point did they look comfortable or as if they had a chance of winning.
And that gave Bradley the ultimate gift for a leader: a problem with an obvious solution.
For the good of the team, and for the good of those players – who will be relied upon in Sunday’s singles matches, when everyone must play – they should not have been paired together again.
But instead of making the right decision, Bradley doubled down.
“We’re sticking to our plan,” Bradley said. “We’re not going to panic. We’re not going to panic and make those sort of mistakes. We’re going to stick to what we know. We have a lot of confidence in them.”
And is that because your analytics say something different, or a gut feel?
“It’s a little bit of both,” Bradley said. “They were really bummed out that they lost their match [Friday]. They were eager to get back out on the course, and that’s why we did that.”
Predictably, sticking to the obviously bad plan backfired. English and Morikawa fell behind quickly and lost again to McIlroy and Fleet wood, 3 & 2. And the U.S. once again lost the morning session 3-1, leaving hem . down 8 ½ to 3 ½ with 16 matches to play (four on Saturday afternoon and the 12 Sunday singles matches). And not only did Bradley almost certainly cost the USA any chance it had at winning the Ryder Cup with that blunder, but likely sealed his fate as one of the worst Ryder Cup captains of all time.
Think we’re being overly dramatic?
The last time the U.S. lost its first two sessions on home soil was in 2004, when Europe destroyed them at Oakland Hills under Hal Sutton – who is still mocked for doubling down on his failed decision to pair Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods together.
Bradley’s decision is even harder to defend than that, and the implications are even worse because Saturday morning the U.S. became the first Ryder Cup squad in history to lose its first three sessions on home soil.
Of course, it would be short-sighted to put all of this on Bradley. Outside of that pairing his best players haven’t been nearly good enough: their two best players, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau combined to win one of the first six matches they played. That’s not good enough.
The PGA of America, which made the out-of-the-blue decision to name Bradley the captain, needs to have its entire process looked at especially compared to how the Europeans are operating.
And then of course, some of it is just the Europeans playing better.
The U.S. had a chance to stay in touch with Europe had they won the last match of Saturday morning sessions – they would have trailed by three points instead of five -- but Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley fell in large part because of some timely putting by their opponents: Robert MacIntyre drained a 10 footer to tie the 15th hole and Viktor Hovland made a 13-footer to tie the 17th hole. The average PGA tour player makes a 10-foot putt about 40% of the time and converts 13-footers at about 30%. And Hovland and MacIntyre beat the odds twice in a three-hole stretch that mattered the most.
And the Europeans have been draining long putts on the Americans all week.
Some will use that as a reason to absolve Bradley of responsibility. But it just further highlights the importance of getting the stuff right that you have control over. Bradley failed that test and likely cost his team at least a chance to win on Sunday.
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Category: General Sports
