Quin’s note: I wrote the piece below for The American Spectator, before the Ryder Cup. It really should have been a great Ryder Cup, but it was a dud. The Americans again looked listless, and like they were having no fun, at a Cup in Europe. Tiger and Phil, as in old days, played badly (and won no matches between them). The Americans were slaughtered. And as I have argued numerous times (although I thought maybe the U.S. would win anyway), the trend on the PGA Tour of having absurdly wide fairways, not enough penalty for missing them, and super-fast greens, is not just bad course design but also means we can’t seem to play golf the way it was meant to be played. When we face a course set up like that (the way it should be), we can’t find a fairway, and we look bad.
Okay, enough carping…. Here’s the column:
The Ryder Cup begins Friday with the most impressive U.S. team since 1981, after three straight golf seasons of dramatic storylines and an exciting cast of superstars, capped by a return to the winner’s circle by some guy named Tiger.
If you care a whit about sports spectacle, be sure to tune in as the Americans try to return from Paris with the first Cup title won on European soil since 1993. It may be the only thing that can draw Americans together in this age of Trump and Avenatti.
Oh, where to begin?
Let’s start with the U.S. roster, one by one, a lineup more impressive than any since Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino, and Kite turned in dominating performances back before dominance was considered a white, male, heteronormative concept.
Captain Jim Furyk is a nine-time Ryder Cupper, a former U.S. Open winner, a 17-time PGA tour title winner, and a sure-to-be Hall of Famer. His loudest team member will be Patrick Reed, this year’s Masters titleist, already a six-time Tour winner at age 28, and the best player on each of the past two U.S. Ryder Cup teams. He’ll be joined by a big-bashers’ row of Brooks Koepka, winner of an amazing three Major championships in the past two years; Dustin Johnson, the former U.S. Open Champion and current top-ranked player in the world; and two-time Masters champ Bubba Watson, coming off a three-victory season.
Webb Simpson has won a prior U.S. Open and, in a strong season this year, a Players Championship. Rickie Fowler, the current “best player without a Major,” also has a Players title under his belt….
[The full column is here.]
