U.S. needs to bust up buddy culture at Ryder Cup

Two numbers confer stature among elite golfers. World ranking is one, despite the mutterings of LIV loyalists. Europe’s Ryder Cup team boasts the second, third and fourth-ranked players in the game, so captain Luke Donald had them lead off Friday’s opening session at Marco Simone. Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland each returned a point. Major championship victories also separate top players. U.S. captain Zach Johnson’s starting line-up combined for four major wins. The guys he benched have 11, including two this year.

If pressed, Johnson can probably offer reams of analytics and statistical profiling to support his decision-making, but then many a dubious position can be defended by data that confirms what we wish to believe. If the U.S. goes on to lose for the tenth time in the last 14 Ryder Cups, the calls Johnson made before lunchtime on day one will be picked over mercilessly. Yet, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, it may be his responsibility but it is not his fault. Or at least not entirely.

The American skipper has been consistently transparent about how much influence he grants his players, and during a Tuesday press conference essentially acknowledged that the U.S. captaincy is crowd-sourced. “I can say this in full confidence with our six guys that made this team: Those guys were, you know, adamant they wanted those six other guys to help complete their team,” he said.

“Adamant.”

So the locks for the team decided who would get the picks.

Scottie Scheffler (lock) and Burns (pick) are close friends. They played together three times at the Presidents Cup last year and didn’t win a match, losing two and halving one. Advocacy for a pairing with that record ought to be dismissed by a captain, not indulged. And certainly not sent out first in alternate shot when one guy is struggling to find fairways and the other has issues finding the hole from short range.

Much will also be made of who didn’t work the early shift.

Like Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas. Sure, neither has played well recently, but the former is a talismanic figure with a winning record in foursomes, while the latter is a .500 and unlikely to be intimidated by the raucous opening-day environment. Or Brooks Koepka, a current major title holder, who blistered Marco Simone in the last practice session on Thursday.