10 Things the US Needs to Do to Fix Ryder Cup in the Future

No matter what you think of the Phil Mickelson/Tom Watson difference of opinion, the statements made it clear that the U.S. team is in need of a fix for Ryder Cup losses that have plagued teams since 1995. Where to start? That's the question. What are the issues to be solved for 2016? Here are 10 ideas for the PGA of America to consider.  

One answer, as Tom Watson said, was that the players needed to perform better on the golf course. Performance at that level is—they tell us—more mental than physical, so paying attention to what's going on inside a guy's head is important. If we can believe Mickelson, and he has no reason to make it up, there were decisions from the top made with a lack of consensus from the troops. The head and the heart of players are immeasurables, and they are vital to building team chemistry. If players aren't consulted about partnerships and schedules for play, their heads and hearts are ignored.  Granted, some of this always happens on the fly because of the overlap of the morning and afternoon sessions, but it can be planned to reduce that.

Mickelson, after being asked for his opinion, gave it. Maybe he should have said he preferred not to answer, but for some reason he wanted to. We don't know why. Some would call it Phil being Phil. Most of the time when he does this stuff, he has a point, but he doesn't always say what it is. In passing, he even offered up two captains that had inclusive styles at the Ryder Cup and at the Presidents Cup. He mentioned Paul Azinger by name and Fred Couples by inference. 

If Watson did not have a sharing style and if Azinger and Couples did, and if players prefer the latter, perhaps management style needs to be the No. 1 item reviewed by the PGA of America when selecting captains in the future. You almost have to be a palm reader or the Long Island Medium to get this one right.

Second, Europeans don't just have one captain. They often bring in past captains to get collective knowledge and input. Jose Maria Olazabal, for instance,  victorious captain in 2012 was doing his cha-cha move on the first tee.  Colin Montgomerie and Nick Faldo were on site.  They have five assistants, and you can almost imagine their great discussions over glasses of red wine while determining the best approach to take, and you can bet that they discuss it way in advance of Ryder Cup week. They will start now to figure out how to best showcase Victor Dubuisson's talent for 2016 and who might be the five or six most likely candidates to partner with him should McDowell not be up to the task.    

Third, consider the matchups. Europe doesn't let their rookies or less experienced players go at it alone. As Seve Ballesteros famously said to Jose Maria Olazabal in his rookie outing, "just play your game, and I'll do the rest." And he meant it and did it. If Olazabal made a mistake, somehow Ballesteros got them out of trouble. The European approach has been to take the pressure off the newcomers by giving them someone to lean on.

While the US rookies showed they didn't need guidance, the question is would the rest of the team have done better if they had provided more guidance. When you know you are responsible for carrying the burden, you are more likely to step up and do what needs to be done, just as Phil Mickelson did in the past with Keegan Bradley.  

Graeme McDowell had Victor Dubuisson's back. Lee Westwood had Jamie Donaldson's. Ian Poulter had Stephen Gallacher's. With the Europeans, it's always an older golf brain out with a new guy to help when things get tough and mistakes are made, because it's going to happen. Inexperienced players are going to get into situations and panic for a couple holes, and by that time, they may not be able to recover. With an experienced partner, panic is slowed down to a manageable level.

Fourth, we need to rediscover the foursomes magic. The surprise of this match was that the U.S., which usually excels at foursomes, was almost shut out. Foursomes is an excruciating format for those who are not great at accuracy. Yet even Mark Calcavecchia, Fred Couples, Davis Love III, Dan Pohl, won foursomes matches with partners who were not quite as likely to hit it off line.

The U.S. started going downhill in foursomes in the early 1990s. Of course, the U.S. used to have players who focused on fairways and greens, and now it's a stable of guys who want to hit the ball 360 yards, gimme a wedge. No concern for fairways. Not a great recipe for foursomes. We shouldn't be surprised about the result. Our players need to rediscover the short grass, even if they take 15 yards off their drives just for the Ryder Cup.

Europe, on the other hand, has guys like McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Martin Kaymer and Westwood who are both long and straight. Even Sergio Garcia can be both. They can play foursomes with that group all day, all night, all month. They just have to partner those guys up with someone who can drive it mostly reasonably straight.

It's worth asking our guys what they have to do to keep their ball in play for a partner so the U.S. can win some foursomes matches.

Fifth, the U.S. has relocated the fourball gene, so let's take that in and feed it and get it healthy. Fourball was historically so bad for the U.S. that in 1989, the U.S. team had one session where they earned zero points. Zero. In 1991, 1997, 1999 and 2004, during one session, the U.S. had only a half a point. (Source: PGA Media Guide.) That doesn't even make sense. You could probably win bar bets for a year on that stat.  

Sixth, there's practice. Maybe we need more pre-Ryder Cup practice with partners, which U.S. players are typically loathe to do. The Europeans are probably loathe to do it also, but McDowell found time this year to play a round or two with Dubuisson according to post match television interviews given by McDowell and McGinley on Golf Channel. It developed into a great foursomes pairing, the hardest format in golf. Mickelson plays many practice rounds with Keegan Bradley, and they have been a strong fourball pairing perhaps as a result.

Seventh, old guys sit one session each day, Friday and Saturday. Period. No exceptions. We need rested legs on Sunday. While it's clear to everyone else, for age and arthritis reasons, Phil Mickelson should never have gone 36 holes on Friday. Tom Watson should not have put him through that. No good player likes to sit, and Mickelson would probably have played until he dropped. But that does utilize him most effectively for the team at this stage in his career. Phil's Phorte is Phorball (and singles). Quick somebody write that down and take it out and look at it in 2016 should he somehow make the team as a 46-year-old.

Eighth, pairings should always be based on style of play and current play. Two guys who haven't been good at finding fairways lately are not going to suddenly light it up at alternate shots.  Pick somebody else. The Mickelson/Bradley team won fourball on Friday and mysteriously played foursomes Friday afternoon. That format is not their strength. Watson admitted he made an error playing them twice on Friday. That decision alone may have cost the U.S. a point Friday afternoon and another point Saturday morning by not playing them. We'll never know.

Ninth, rest everybody at some point if your team is deep enough. Sending out players too often can be a blessing at the time but a curse later. Eventually they are going to hit a wall. Could it have been a better use of Jimmy Walker and Rickie Fowler to give them a rest Saturday afternoon after going three matches? Walker won his singles, and anybody drawing McIlroy was going to face tough competition, but why make it harder by wearing Fowler out? He and Walker played five matches each. Jimmy Walker's singles point came after the event was already decided.

Tenth, and no one ever listens to this: Stop picking major championship venues for the Ryder Cup. No player sees the course more than once every 10 years. Pick a course that the U.S. team sees often. All the veteran Europeans had played Gleneagles in the past. Who knew the member bounces? The Europeans played many times at Valderrama. Granted they have a new venue in France, which is where the French Open is played every year. They pick sites that their players know.

If the Europeans don't play in the U.S. until March, pick a course that's used between October and the end of February. Even Torrey Pines will do. We need to get smart about this. We are not doing our players any favors with course selection. That is something the PGA can control and chooses not to.

Whether it's delaying the Ryder Cup until the weather cools down a little in the south and playing at Quail Hollow or Harbour Town or Sea Island or Greenbriar or playing at Riviera or Pebble Beach or waiting until November and playing at the TPC Scottsdale after overseeding, the PGA of America needs to find a golf course with home-field advantage instead of pretending they are staging the PGA Championship twice in a year.

We don't know what kind of golfers we will have on the team in 2016, but if they have seen the course five to 10 times already, they will at least be prepared.  

We need a golf course where the local knowledge the PGA Tour players have does the U.S. team some good. Give them a place that can be set up for some scoring, not a course where the dart throwers can't hold a green. The rough was long at Gleneagles because the Europeans know the U.S. players don't like it. They know Phil Mickelson injured his wrist in the rough at Oakmont. How to take out Phil? Grow the rough.

We have no way of knowing if the game plan Tom Watson started with is the one he ended with. We don't know what was inside Paul McGinley's head. But we know the results, and we can see over time what has worked and what has not worked. We need to just plain stop doing the stuff that we can all see hasn't worked. If those things don't change, then the result is unlikely to change.

There are many things out of the control of decision makers. There's no accounting for a talent like Rory McIlroy, just as there was no stopping Seve Ballesteros, a healthy Fred Couples, a young Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson. Every year or two or five, new talent emerges and prior talent ages up. That's out of everyone's hands. But there are some parameters that make sense no matter what generation is playing, and the U.S. has not paid enough attention to those lately.