In 2021, the Europeans were embarrassed at Whistling Straits to an overwhelmingly dominant American squad. But don’t expect the Europeans to put up little resistance in 2023. In fact, they stand an excellent chance at reclaiming the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone. Why, you ask? Here are three reasons why Team Europe will win the 2023 Ryder Cup.
Three Reasons Team Europe Will Win The 2023 Ryder Cup
1. Excellent Team Construction to the Golf Course
The Europeans heavily rely on analytics to both construct their team and make pairings. And they’re quite good at it. It’s one of the reasons why Team Europe has run laps around the Americans for most of the 21st century.
And this year is no exception. Because of their knowledge of how Marco Simone plays from the Italian Opens, Team Europe, backed with hard data from the DP World Tour, knows that the key to success at Marco Simone is through excellent driving, accuracy with long approach shots, and strong bentgrass putting.
And that’s exactly the team that the Europeans have put together. Sure, most of their decisions were served up on a silver platter due to a lack of options. But everyone on Team Europe is very good in at least one of these areas. And given how well Team Europe has done pairing players to their strengths and masking their weaknesses, having a team full of players who possess elite skill sets in these areas is vital to their chances of winning the Ryder Cup.
First, Team Europe has a collection of excellent drivers. Its top three players, McIlroy, Rahm, and Hovland, are some of the top drivers in the world. Their resumes off the tee speak for themselves with gaudy strokes gained figures.
But what makes Team Europe truly special is the driving prowess of its role players. Tommy Fleetwood drove the ball very well in 2023 and is currently 30th in Strokes Gained – Off-the-Tee on the PGA Tour. Shane Lowry also drove the ball very well this season and displays a great combination of length and accuracy. After a mid-season slump, Matthew Fitzpatrick has driven the ball excellently over his last handful of tournaments. Since turning professional, Ludvig Aberg has already established himself as one of the best drivers in the world.
Even the back end of Team Europe, thought of as a weak spot, contains some very good drivers. Sepp Straka possesses a great combination of length and accuracy off the tee. Nicolai Hojgaard (a former winner at Marco Simone), though a bit erratic, absolutely can bomb the ball. And even Robert MacIntyre (another former winner at Marco Simone) is sneaky long and is currently 14th in Strokes Gained – Off-the-Tee on the DP World Tour.
Next, Team Europe has several players who are elite with their long approach shots. Once again, their top three studs at the top excel in this category. And once again, so do the role players. Per DataGolf, everyone on Team Europe has gained at least 0.22 strokes on the field per 18 holes on approach shots greater than 150 yards in 2023. Role players like Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Sepp Straka, and Robert MacIntyre were elite from this range in 2023.
Lastly, Team Europe has a collection of very strong putters on bentgrass. Of every Ryder Cupper’s last 100 rounds on bentgrass greens, Team Europe fields seven of the best 10 golfers on bentgrass greens in the entire competition, including four of the top five.
The Americans might hold a slight edge in terms of raw talent. But the Europeans field a much better team in terms of matching strengths to what is necessary to do well at Marco Simone. This is a crucial reason why the Europeans stand an excellent chance at taking back the Ryder Cup.
2. Team Europe On The Rise, Team USA On The Decline
On top of being a great course fit for Marco Simone, Team Europe is firing on all cylinders heading into the Ryder Cup. All of them have kept their games sharp by competing on the DP World Tour over the last month. And almost all of them have had fantastic finishes in that stretch.
Here are the highlights for Team Europe competitors since the FedEx Cup playoffs ended:
- Rory McIlroy: 3rd heading into the final round of Irish Open, T7 at BMW PGA Championship
- Viktor Hovland: 5th at BMW PGA Championship
- Jon Rahm: 4th at BMW PGA Championship
- Tommy Fleetwood: 6th at BMW PGA Championship.
- Tyrrell Hatton: T2 at BMW PGA Championship
- Matthew Fitzpatrick: T3 at Omega European Masters (54 hole leader), T18 at BMW PGA Championship
- Shane Lowry: T3 at Irish Open T18 at BMW PGA Championship
- Ludvig Aberg: First professional win at Omega European Masters, T4 at Real Czech Masters, 54 Hole Leader at BMW PGA Championship, ultimately finishing T10
- Nicolai Hojgaard: 3rd at Real Czech Masters, 5th at Omega European Masters
- Sepp Straka: T10 at BMW PGA Championship
- Robert MacIntyre: T4 at Real Czech Masters
Only Justin Rose on Team Europe hasn’t recorded a top 10 over his last month of play. Everyone else at least has one.
On the flip side, the Americans haven’t done much of anything. And that’s a literal statement. Nine of the 12 members haven’t played in a competitive tournament since the Tour Championship a month ago. The only players with real reps under their belt recently are Max Homa, Justin Thomas, and Brooks Koepka.
Max Homa and Justin Thomas, to their credit, each played well at the Fortinet Championship two weeks ago. But Brooks Koepka had yet another lackluster performance last week at LIV Chicago, continuing his two month slump where he’s failed to finish better than T17 on LIV since the beginning of July. Can he turn it on like a light switch like he can for a major championship? That remains to be seen.
But even when the Americans were playing golf, a lot of it wasn’t all that good. Scottie Scheffler’s putter woes continued to get the best of him, and he was very mediocre in two of the three FedEx Cup events. Jordan Spieth looked dreadful in his last two events.
Rickie Fowler looked terrible for the entire FedEx Cup playoffs. Both Wyndham Clark and Sam Burns showed how terrible they could be at a golf course that penalizes errant tee shots with their disastrous showings at TPC Southwind. And Brian Harman seems like he’s regressing back towards his career baselines as an above average journeyman on the PGA Tour and nothing more.
It’s possible that the time away from the game was a necessary reset for several of these slumping Americans. And they’ll certainly be well rested ahead of what looks to be a grueling walk across the hilly Marco Simone. But time away from competitive golf normally isn’t a net positive.
The Europeans are at the top of their games while the Americans have sat on their butts. That could be a key difference maker towards the Europeans winning the Ryder Cup in 2023.
3. The Americans Aren’t Road Warriors
30 years. That’s the last time Americans walked onto European soil and won the Ryder Cup. Since then, competitions on the European Continent have been a house of horrors for the Americans. Despite often enjoying a significant talent advantage, the Americans have been outplayed, outwitted, and outmatched against their more cerebral opponents.
More often than not, the Americans have been their own worst enemy while overseas. Starting right at the top with the captains. Tom Watson’s “my way or the highway” attitude at Gleneagles rubbed players the wrong way. Corey Pavin allowed pre-tournament distractions with the media, and his wife’s contribution to faulty team rain gear, sabotage the American’s best chance at claiming a Ryder Cup on European soil this century. Jim Furyk was unable to control the inflated egos of the 2018 team that was thoroughly embarrassed in Paris.
The American players themselves are certainly to blame for their failures at Ryder Cups in Europe, too. Too often, when things start to go sideways in Europe, the Americans begin to rip apart at the seams. When the going got tough in Europe, the Americans tucked their tails between their legs.
But it’s not just at Ryder Cups, where recent American teams have struggled overseas. Even the last two Presidents Cups, where the Americans traveled behind enemy lines, didn’t go all so swimmingly for them:
Despite the Internationals having the best player in the world on their 2015 team, they were woefully outmatched by a superior American team at the 2015 Presidents Cup. The back half of their team was incredibly weak, while the American’s first eight players were very strong.
And considering the Jack Nicklaus style course in South Korea suited their game, it was widely expected that the Americans would trounce the Internationals once again, so much so that they were -200 favorites to win outright.
But the Americans struggled mightily against their inferior opponent. They were rattled by an upstart International squad energized by the enthusiastic South Korean crowd trying to will their boys to a win.
The Americans held only a slight lead heading into Sunday singles, and if it weren’t for Sangmoon Bae flubbing a chip on the 18th hole before getting sent off to the 38th parallel, the Internationals would have tied the Americans in the competition. While the Americans would have retained the cup, it would have been perceived as a massive win for the Internationals and a massive failure for the Americans.
Once again, the Americans entered the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne with a massive talent edge. All 12 members of that team were ranked inside the top 35 in DataGolf’s rankings leading into the event. Conversely, only five of the 12 International members were ranked inside the top 35. And five were ranked outside the top 50.
But like in South Korea, the Americans seemed rattled by a hostile Australian crowd. It didn’t help that a week prior to the event, Patrick Reed had his now infamous “shoveling sand” scandal at the Hero World Challenge that caused a giant distraction. And the Australian crowd let him have it, culminating with his caddie getting into a fight with a patron during the competition.
In addition, Captain Ernie Els ran circles around Captain Tiger Woods in terms of his course management and pairings. He was able to take a young, unproven International team and make the likes of Sungjae Im and Abraham Ancer unlikely match play heroes (the 72 hours where Abe Ancer was the next Match Play God was fun). His decisions over the first three days were a big reason why the Internationals held a 10-8 lead heading into Sunday Singles.
But thanks to Player Tiger Woods, along with a fantastic debut performance from the dynamic duo of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, they were able to keep the Americans afloat through the team portion of the Presidents Cup. And on Sunday, the overwhelming talent advantage of the Americans finally reared its head. They won 8 out of 12 points in singles to fight off yet another bid for the Internationals to pull off an improbable (and embarrassing) upset.
Though they prevailed by the thinnest of margins, the fact these competitions were even remotely close despite a massive talent edge suggests that maybe there’s a deeper problem at the core of the American team. Maybe the stereotype that American golfers are more individualistic in nature means that when the going gets tough, it’s harder for them to rally around each other to mount a comeback. They rely too much on their individual talent. And when seeds of doubt seep into their consciousness, suddenly, they’re not so invincible anymore.
If they don’t have the support of the home crowd or a golf course tailor made to their strengths, they’ve folded time and time again. And while the likes of egomaniac team tankers like Patrick Reed and Phil Mickelson aren’t anywhere to be found, there are still a few members of the American team whose mental fortitude certainly can be called into question. If they get down early in the Ryder Cup, things could go south very quickly.
