Farmingdale, N.Y. — Like the captain of the Ryder Cup, Keegan Bradley faced many decisions this week at Beth Page Black, from pairing to dinner. However, when it was all said and completed, he made it clear that his greatest regret was actually what happened before the event began.
Bradley’s team had a brave Sunday rally before losing 15-13, and was then asked if there was anything he would have done something different. Most golf fans assume he lists HR decisions (the disastrous Colin Morikawa Harris English pairing certainly comes to mind!)
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“I think the course is a little different,” Bradley said immediately. “They played better than us, they deserved to win, they’re a great team.
The captain of the Home Ryder Cup has been able to determine how the course is set since 1957. American captains tended to cut rough shorts to help longer batters.
This week certainly fits with Bethpage Black, the course that held two US Opens and a difficult PGA Championship in 2019. And that’s where Bradley’s main problem came from.
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“Yeah, man, green isn’t where we wanted it,” Bradley said Saturday night. “They are very soft. The greens are great. They are amazing. But you actually, you’re actually better than you actually have to, these bunches of flags, these bunches of pins.
On Sunday, he made a similar comment.
“We tried to set up a course to support our team,” Bradley said. “Obviously that wasn’t the right decision,” Bradley said. “Whenever you are the leader of a team, a captain or a coach, we talked about this last night, and you are trying to get praise, so you need to take responsibility when things go wrong.
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“I definitely made a mistake with the course setup. I should have listened a little more of my intuition. For some reason, it wasn’t the right way to set up the course. The green was as soft as I saw the green without the rain.
Again, there’s a lot you can do about the rainy course, but the greens may have been shortened to speed up. In fact, members of the US team heard on Friday that they needed to make the greens faster. There is one problem with that. The home captain will lose control over the Sunday course setup before the event begins. Here’s how it is spelled out in the Captain’s agreement:
It is recognized that the home side has the opportunity to influence and direct the setup and preparation of the Rider Cup course. You agree that such impacts, directions, and/or preparations will be limited to course architecture/course design, fairway width, coarse height, green speed, hardness and will be limited to the Sunday before the match (Sunday, September 24, 2023). From Monday, September 25th, 2023, it is the sole responsibility of the Match Committee to determine whether the green should be rolled to select the tee and pin position, maintain all daily decisions, speed, stiffness and smoothness related to course preparation/setup, including the frequency and height of the mowing tees, fairways and greens. The match committee consists of representatives from both the Ryder Cup Europe and the American PGA. This is done to maintain the integrity of the rider cup.
Did cutting out the less rough grasses change Sunday’s results? We never know. But Bradley probably shouldn’t see the dry weather forecast for Long Island next week.
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