At the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills, the US skipper Hal Sutton said during his Opening Ceremony speech that he wanted to thank his three kids for their support. His wife held up four fingers to remind him he had forgotten a child.
Sutton’s captaincy was remembered for that and for his calamitous attempt to get the best out of America’s two Alpha males, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who harboured a visceral loathing for each other, by pairing them together.
That went as well as you might think and the US fell to a record 18.5 to 9.5 defeat. It was hard to imagine that a captaincy would ever plumb to those depths again but give Keegan Bradley his due; he is having a damned good go at it as he and his team career towards humiliation at Bethpage Black.
Sometimes, it is a gaffe that defines an American Ryder Cup captain. Sometimes, it is a disastrous pairing. Sometimes, it is crass behaviour. Sometimes, it is all three. Bradley, sadly, is rushing headlong towards his own version of the Grand Slam.
Not content with thanking Justin Rose, instead of Justin Leonard, for winning the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline in the Opening Ceremony on Wednesday, Bradley ran down the 18th fairway, holding aloft an American flag, in a deranged attempt to whip up the crowd.
As the first stages of the US humiliation here began on Friday morning, Bradley watched Air Force One flying over the course bringing President Trump to the course and interpreted it as divine intervention. ‘I think things are going to turn here,’ he said.
Keegan Bradley has had a disastrous few days as USA captain at this year’s Ryder Cup
No one thought it was possible to find a US captain worse than Hal Sutton in 2004
But it was his insistence on pairing Collin Morikawa with Harris English on Friday morning, watching them get thrashed 5&4 by Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, and then blithely repeating the error on Saturday morning, that may be the thing which damns him most.
DataGolf, a widely respected analytics site, had published data early in the week that strongly suggest English-Morikawa was the worst possible American foursomes pairing among 132 potential combinations.
‘There were red flags and they were waving hard,’ Golf Digest magazine pointed out. English had never even played foursomes before, even though the alternate shot format demands mutual understanding and clear strategy.
Morikawa was the most out-of-form player on the American team and was better suited to fourballs. Added to all that, neither Morikawa nor English is long off the tee, a glaring shortcoming at a course where driving prowess is critical.
It is not as if observers were being wise after the event, either. On Friday afternoon, after Morikawa and English’s beating had contributed to what would be a horribly sobering day for Bradley and his players, Sports Illustrated drew obvious conclusions.
‘Bradley now knows he can send Justin Thomas and Cam Young out early,’ they wrote, ‘and Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay out late. He can also send Collin Morikawa and Harris English out to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is open all day on Saturdays.’
Except Bradley did not send Morikawa and English to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He sent them out into the line of fire together once more, where the draw decreed that they should face McIlroy and Fleetwood again and meet the same grisly fate.
This time, they only lost 3&2 but the scoreline only disguised the fact that McIlroy and Fleetwood spent most of the back nine 4up and that this was another crushing victory. Bradley had used the same strategy and reaped the same result. To expect anything else was madness.
He’s made many bad decisions, including pairing Harris English and Collin Morikawa together
Bradley made a bizarre attempt to whip up the crowd by running with the American flag
The contrast between Bradley and European captain Luke Donald could hardly be more striking
It was hard not to feel some sympathy for Bradley, although that was tempered by the fact that his pathetic attempts to rile the crowd and fawn over President Trump undoubtedly contributed to the scale of the abuse aimed at McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick, in particular.
He is not only an ineffectual leader but he is a classless one as well. He might be good at dancing in front of the president but he is not very good at winning and the longer this humiliation of the US goes on, the more evident it has become that his appointment was a horrible mistake.
The contrast between the two captains could hardly be more striking. Luke Donald, the European skipper, who is taking charge of his second Ryder Cup, has been once again the very personification of meticulous planning and flawless strategizing.
His management of the team has been close to perfect. He has got the best out of McIlroy and harnessed his talent to allow him to lead the team by example despite the abuse that has been showered upon him.
The USA’s best player, world number one Scottie Scheffler, had played three and lost three before Saturday afternoon’s fourballs. Bryson DeChambeau, who was supposed to get the team off to a flying start, lost both his Friday matches.
The unavoidable impression is that Bradley, who dithered until the last minute about whether to include himself in the team as a player as well as captain it, has come into this competition under-prepared and under-cooked.
How else to explain some of his pairings? How else to explain some of his antics? Sometimes, it has appeared as if he thinks wrapping himself in the flag, trying to inflame the crowd and bowing to the president would be enough to swing it the American way.
The bankruptcy of what he had to offer was there for all to see. To be in close proximity to him at Bethpage Black was to watch a man who could not conceal the horror of what was happening to him and his team.
Eyes dancing and limitations exposed, all that is left for his cursed captaincy is to try to minimise the margin of Europe’s victory and regain a little pride. As for his dignity, it will take considerably longer to get that back. His first step should be an apology to Donald and to McIlroy but let’s not hold our breath.
