2018 Ryder Cup- Le Golf National

cshea

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Captain’s picks start coming in today, thought we could get the thread started.

Qualifiers:

US

Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Webb Simpson

3 of 4 captains picks get announced later today. Not much suspense, I’ll be stunned if the picks announced today are anything other than Bryson, Phil and Tiger. Tony Finau would seem to have a firm hold on the 4th spot that gets announced next week.

Europe:

Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, John Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Alex Noren, Thorbjorn Olesen

I believe all 4 of Europe’s picks get announced Wednesday. It isn’t as clear-cut as the US picks. Poulter has to be a lock. Then I think it gets a little dicey. Sergio has been in poor form (and didn’t come all that close to qualifying), Stenson has been dealing with nagging injuries. Casey and Rafa Cabrera-Bello are in the conversation. Do they drop Sergio or Stenson?
 

RedOctober3829

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Captain’s picks start coming in today, thought we could get the thread started.

Qualifiers:

US

Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Webb Simpson

3 of 4 captains picks get announced later today. Not much suspense, I’ll be stunned if the picks announced today are anything other than Bryson, Phil and Tiger. Tony Finau would seem to have a firm hold on the 4th spot that gets announced next week.

Europe:

Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, John Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Alex Noren, Thorbjorn Olesen

I believe all 4 of Europe’s picks get announced Wednesday. It isn’t as clear-cut as the US picks. Poulter has to be a lock. Then I think it gets a little dicey. Sergio has been in poor form (and didn’t come all that close to qualifying), Stenson has been dealing with nagging injuries. Casey and Rafa Cabrera-Bello are in the conversation. Do they drop Sergio or Stenson?
Jason Sobel put out his captain's picks predictions yesterday and he had the obvious 4 for the USA. Europe, as you said, is much more of a crapshoot. He has Stenson, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, and Sergio but wasn't real confident in his picks.

https://www.actionnetwork.com/golf/2018-ryder-cup-captains-picks-predictions-jason-sobel?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=jasonsobel
 

TFP

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Casey and RCB seem like near locks to me, so maybe they do those 2 plus Poulter, then one of Sergio/Stenson? I don't think there's anyone else in the wings to add if they drop both Sergio and Stenson, maybe Pieters based on his performance last time?
 
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MillarTime

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Agree, not much suspense on the US side unless Fowler can’t go. Not sure what happens in that case.
 

cshea

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Looks like Fowler is playing this week:


I assume they would just take the 9th guy as a qualifier (Bryson). I think that is how they did it when DJ took his leave of absence in 2014.
 

RedOctober3829

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Any indication of potential pairings? Tiger-Bryson seems like one that's going to happen. Do they go back to Reed-Spieth or does Jordan want to play with JT? Koepka and Johnson would be a powerful pairing that would outdrive anybody the Euros put out there but it's not a bombers course. Fowler-Simpson would be a nice steady pairing. Reed-Mickelson? Does Bubba sit out as many matches as possible?
 

BigMike

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It's always tricky because I like the European players more than US players. My favorite guys out there include Rory, and Poulter. And I have a deep dislike for around half of the US team
 

cshea

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Kuchar being named a Vice Captain (along with Duval and Zach Johnson) probably means Finau has that 4th spot locked up. I guess Xander winning this week could create some drama, but I think Finau’s the guy either way.

Europe had 5 rookies qualify, so they kind of had to go with all vets. Sergio is probably the shakiest pick, but he is 19-11-7 in Ryder Cup play so I guess they bank on the Cup bringing the best out of him.
 

TFP

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Finau it is. Can’t wait for this weekend to come.
 

MillarTime

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Brooks Koepka
Dustin Johnson
Justin Thomas
Patrick Reed
Bubba Watson
Jordan Spieth
Rickie Fowler
Webb Simpson
Bryson DeChambeau
Phil Mickelson
Tiger Woods
Tony Finau

Loaded. Let’s go!!!!
 

johnmd20

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Finau is awesome, this was a no brainer. The US team is stacked, they are -205 to win this year. That's a significantly large line, especially for a road Ryder Cup.
 

Koufax

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I had no idea that Bubba was ranked 13 in the world. Way better than I would have guessed. It's pretty interesting that Tiger has climbed 645 spots in the last year to claim the no. 21 spot. Good for him.
 

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat

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I had no idea that Bubba was ranked 13 in the world. Way better than I would have guessed. It's pretty interesting that Tiger has climbed 645 spots in the last year to claim the no. 21 spot. Good for him.
Bubba won 3 tournaments this season, including a WGC event. That will do wonders for your ranking.
 

luckysox

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Is Webb Simpson an ass, or do you guys just not like him because he's so, well, Webb Simpson-y? I know why people don't like Reed and Spieth and Bubba and even Tiger and Phil, but I've never heard anything negative about Simpson (besides having sucked last time in there RC). He's bland and plays slow...but otherwise?
 

cshea

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I don’t like him because he is Webb Simpson. And he has that stupid loopy follow through.

He begged on to the 2014 team, sucked, got benched. So I kinda don’t like him for that too. He is one of the few that can tolerate playing with Bubba so we’ve got that going for us.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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He's always struck me as an amalgamation of every country club dickbag that I can't stand.
He does come off smarmy, in a DL3 type fashion, like he was born with a silver spoon up his butt, but he’s never really bugged me all that much. I do remember his wife bossing him around after he won the Open that year and the cameras were just trying to get a minute with him.
 

gtg807y

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Webb just feels like the odd man out on an otherwise stacked team. He made it on points, so good for him, but I doubt he'd have been a captain's pick if he didn't hang on to that last qualifying spot. Also, as mentioned, he begged onto the team in 2014 and only played twice, getting smoked in fourballs with Bubba and halving with Poulter on Sunday (good effort bud!) well after the Cup had already been won by Europe (ah).

He and Bubba were great together in 2012 though. Pair them up and either recapture the magic or contain the disease so it only costs one point in a session rather than two.
 

RedOctober3829

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Just to see it on paper, here are the world rankings of each team.
USA
Dustin Johnson-2
Brooks Koepka-3
Justin Thomas-4
Bryson DeChambeau-8
Rickie Fowler-9
Jordan Spieth-10
Bubba Watson-13
Patrick Reed-14
Tony Finau-15
Webb Simpson-17
Tiger Woods-21
Phil Mickelson-25

Europe
Justin Rose-1
Francesco Molinari-5
Rory McIlroy-6
Jon Rahm-7
Tommy Fleetwood-12
Alex Noren-16
Paul Casey-19
Henrik Stenson-23
Tyrell Hatton-26
Sergio Garcia-29
Ian Poulter-34
Thorbjorn Olesen-44
 

luckysox

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Hatton is a bit of a nut on the course, right? Temper, etc. I’m looking forward to seeing that play out. Maybe he and Bryson will go head to head in singles.
 

TFP

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The 2016 Ryder Cup Ian on golf channel right now. What a magical weekend that has me absolutely jacked up for next weekend.
 

TFP

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Trying to figure out my viewing approach for this. I might just wake up at 5am-ish and try to catch up on DVR to get to live as quick as possible. No chance I can stay up from 2am all the way through though.
 

cshea

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I think I’m going to try and give it a go at 2 am, with the dvr going for the gaps when I inevitably fall asleep. I’ll have to stock up on K Cups too.

At least Sunday is a manageable 6am start.
 

Number45forever

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I'm prob going to go with a 3:30 or 4 wake up Friday and Saturday. Watch the groups tee off on DVR, then quickly start fast forwarding to live. Have to follow along with golf twitter and texting my one equally obsessed friend who will be up that early to watch. Going to start things off with a really early bed time on Thursday to bank some sleep.

Can't wait for this event. Pairings I want to see:
- Tiger-Justin Thomas
- Phil-Bryson
- Tiger-Reed (if Speith/Reed is ever broken up)
- Tiger-Phil (four ball only, please)
- DJ-Koepka

Let's do this!
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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I'm prob going to go with a 3:30 or 4 wake up Friday and Saturday. Watch the groups tee off on DVR, then quickly start fast forwarding to live. Have to follow along with golf twitter and texting my one equally obsessed friend who will be up that early to watch. Going to start things off with a really early bed time on Thursday to bank some sleep.

Can't wait for this event. Pairings I want to see:
- Tiger-Justin Thomas
- Phil-Bryson
- Tiger-Reed (if Speith/Reed is ever broken up)
- Tiger-Phil (four ball only, please)
- DJ-Koepka

Let's do this!
I have literally zero desire to see Reed on the course let alone paired with Tiger. Think it’s far more likely you see Bryson with Tiger, not that I want to watch him either. This is gonna be tough, there’s a full 1/3 of the team I don’t like.
 

johnmd20

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At least waking up at 4-4:45am makes sense. That way, you can still catch the back nine of the first groups off. But waking up at 2am is asking for a very long day.
 

luckysox

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Setting the alarm for 2am Friday morning!! And I can happily put aside my relative dislike of Spieth, Reed, DeChambeau and Bubba for 3 days of ‘Murican Unity.
 

cshea

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FWIW, on a NLU Ryder Cup preview podcast a week or two ago, their informed speculation was that the US pods would look something like:

Tiger, JT, Spieth, Reed
Phil, Rickie, DJ, Finau
Brooks, Bryson, Webb, Bubba (island of misfit toys pod here)

It wasn’t 100%, but the majority of pairs did come from the pods at Hazeltine. Those groupings spread out the 3 rookies. There’s been Tiger/JT chatter recently, and obviously the Tiger/Bryson pairing has been speculated on since it became obvious both were going to make the team, but we’ll see. The earlier chatter was that Tiger/Reed could be a thing so they could break up Spieth/Reed and get Spieth with JT. Despite the success, Spieth and Reed don’t seem to want to play together again.

The middle pod seems straight forward. Phil/Rickie, DJ/Finau.

Brooks/DJ seems like a pairing that would make sense, but the idea is that he doesn’t give a shit who he plays with, so can handle some of the tougher guys to play with. Maybe they go Bryson/Brooks and then Webb/Bubba who have played together in the past.

We’ll find out if these pods are accurate in the next few days.