Just my two cents from the Ryder Cup.
So we had a nice lead going into the final day of singles match-ups, 10-6.
All we need is 4½ points among 12 matches.
It's a big lead.. one of biggest leads going into Sunday singles that the USA has ever had.
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OK, you've got to figure Olazabal's thinking is to put his hottest guys first, right? But some will say that since we only needed 4½ points, Davis should put our hottest guys out first. But why would he do this? Didn't he think ahead as to where Olazabal was gonna put his big guns? And if nothing else, mix it up a little, and make it tough for Olazabal to predict - even if he wanted to!
Going into Sunday singles:
Bradley & Mickelson were both 3-0
Dustin & Kuchar were 2-0
Bubba was 2-1
Simpson was 2-1
Zach was 2-1
Dufner was 2-1
Furyk & Snedeker were 1-1
. . . .
Tiger was 0-2, and Stricker was 0-3.
I'm not gonna predict the order in which Olazabal would've played them. Not now, and not necessarily if I were captain, other than the fact that I know he's GOT to put his weaker players at the end, right? For this event, that would be Molinari, Kaymer, and Hanson. You've gotta realize Rose, McIlroy, Donald, and Poulter are going near the beginning!
That's why you set it up this way:
Jason Dufner
Zach Johnson
Webb Simpson
Bubba Watson
Tiger Woods
Steve Stricker
Jim Furyk
Brandt Snedeker
Matt Kuchar
Dustin Johnson
Keegan Bradley
Phil Mickelson
I'll be back later after having the time to do a little more stats to determine if my lineup would've done better on Sunday. The hole by hole thing is a little more time-consuming than I anticipated.
The European team played lights-out on Sunday, and I give them a ton of respect for it, but I think our team went into Sunday a little too relaxed, and expecting an easy win. Davis is a good captain, and I'd like to see him return, but things could've been so much different on Sunday. I'd like to know what Freddie's input was.
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