Greatest under and over performers at the Ryder Cup?

[Hankshank]

On 9/23/2021 at 8:48 PM, J_Tizzle said:

I mean Phil has played in the most matches and also holds the most losses (which you'd kinda expect) so I'd think he's probably underperformed.

 

I think everyone agrees with Poulter being an over performer, but I'd also think Sergio to some capacity.

Wouldnt say Sergio really, because he didnt have to hit all the putts himself when in the RC team... Tee to green he has been top notch from the el nino days uptil now. Westy is a little that too.

[Dave230]

Yeah I wouldn't really say Sergio despite his great record...if anything Sergio underachieved in majors. Sergio should have 4-5 majors, I'm glad he got one at least. But ability wise, he's easily top 10 players in the world of the past 20 years.

[KennyP]

57 minutes ago, Hankshank said:

Now there was a young fellow who one expected to be one of the really greats. Saw him playing live,  was the kind of most promising englishman at the time. What made his career go down?

Not sure Hank. He wasn't the longest so maybe another victim of the 460cc driver power era.

[The Pearl]

The only Ryder Cup record with any validity is a golfer's record in singles matches. An individual's record in foursome's or four ball is basically worthless.  The only exception is for those teams that have been parterned together over a significant number of matches.  Seve's and Jose's 11-2-2 record is probably not random in nature.  

 

 

[randywildman]

On 9/23/2021 at 9:53 AM, Medson said:

Is there a way to look up single matches records?

 

I wonder how under/over performance still holds with single match records. I'm sure Ian Poulter is probably still awesome on single matches. 

5-0-1 and he is so damn humble about Ryder cup except, this year when he has done nothing. I have not even seen half a bulge out of his eyes, which makes me really happy, so far.🥰

[grm24]

On 9/23/2021 at 12:53 PM, Medson said:

Is there a way to look up single matches records?

 

I wonder how under/over performance still holds with single match records. I'm sure Ian Poulter is probably still awesome on single matches. 

I know you already got the RC players records you wanted however here is a link to the official 2021 RC Media Guide. Goes into crazy detail on every RC competition and also has all players records for both sides. You can save it as a PDF. It's just a ridiculous resource for all things RC related.

 

https://rydercup.brightspotcdn.com/22/2b/2af874ab4a51821474742cc03610/2021-rc-final.pdf

[JRS1939]

Sergio is looking pretty good all time. Especially if he can win his match tomorrow! 

[imakaveli]

Rory suddenly in the conversation since we will have to see him for the next 10 years.

[KennyP]

Biggest underachiever, Bubba Watson.

With all that power and shot making ability, you would think he was perfect for the Ryder Cup. His record of 4-10-0 proves otherwise, with a singles record of 0-4-0.

[ColinKelvin]

20 hours ago, The Pearl said:

The only Ryder Cup record with any validity is a golfer's record in singles matches. An individual's record in foursome's or four ball is basically worthless.  The only exception is for those teams that have been parterned together over a significant number of matches.  Seve's and Jose's 11-2-2 record is probably not random in nature.  

 

 

 

I disagree with this.  Sergio is an obvious exception to your rule - he has had many different partners over the years and yet has achieved the following, so he deserves a load of credit for his play in all formats:

• Foursomes (W-L-H): 10-4-3 
• Four-balls (W-L-H): 8-4-3 

[golfandfishing]

3 hours ago, ColinKelvin said:

 

I disagree with this.  Sergio is an obvious exception to your rule - he has had many different partners over the years and yet has achieved the following, so he deserves a load of credit for his play in all formats:

• Foursomes (W-L-H): 10-4-3 
• Four-balls (W-L-H): 8-4-3 

Agree. Foursomes and Four Ball make up 16 of the 28 available points, those two formats are the most valuable pieces of the Ryder Cup. I don’t see how folks can say it’s not indicative of how a player performs in the Ryder Cup when it’s almost 60% of the format. 

[The Pearl]

8 hours ago, golfandfishing said:

Agree. Foursomes and Four Ball make up 16 of the 28 available points, those two formats are the most valuable pieces of the Ryder Cup. I don’t see how folks can say it’s not indicative of how a player performs in the Ryder Cup when it’s almost 60% of the format. 

 

It maybe 60% of the format but it is irrelevant and would be irrelevant if it was 100% of the format. Each individual player's contribution can range from 0% to 100%  This should not be a hard concept to grasp.  You could play perfect golf in either format and still lose the match. You could play crappy golf in either format and still win the match. This is even more pronounced in alternate shot where your partner could literally win or lose the match with one or two shots. 

 

You play crappy golf in singles and the probability of getting beat is extremely high.  You play great golf in singles and the probability of winning is extremely high, 

 

You bring somebody else into the matches and the number of "expected" potential outcomes increase as two more golfers are added to the statistical equation. 

 

Nobody on this forum would ever want their job performance, pay, or reputation reliant on a partner.  In fact, 100% of this board would demand a new partner or raise holy hell if their record and subsequent pay was continually mediocre as a result of a "teammate".  

 

Now Sergio may indeed have the magic potion in terms of team play, but in order to make that claim you would need to statistically evaluate his % of contribution in each match throughout his entire career in order to make any claim above and beyond pure randomness.  Likewise with every single player to ever play in the Ryder Cup. You would also have to adjust for a whole host of other factors to find any statistical significance.  I suspect if anybody ever embarked on this undertaking that you would see a few outlier players. 

 

For example, Sergio won 3 points this week, all with Rahm, the number player in the world.  And he got handled easily by BDC. BDC won 1 1/2 points in team competition with....Scott Scheffler....#21 in the world.

 

In terms of Sergio being an exception to the rule, this is never unusual in any statistical series.  There is always an outlier in any data set.  If you run a simulation forecasting Ryder Cup points with faceless golfers you are probably 100% guaranteed to get a player having the same results of Garcia, as well as Seve/Jose for that matter.

 

You can't have it both ways with Sergio given his singles record.  He can't be the overwhelming contributor in a team format, but play mediocre in singles.  In fact, his poor singles record could easily lead to the conclusions that he has contributed far less to the team format, not the other way around.

 

Does he not care anymore when he plays singles?  Has his single parings been against stronger players?  Etc. Etc. Etc.

Edited September 27, 2021 by The Pearl

[Blade Junkie]

Only Reg Haliburton (1961/63) and Alf Padgham (1933/35/37) who were both 0-6-0, have a worse Ryder Cup record than poor old Matt Fitzpatrick, who is now 0-5-0, tied in the hopelessness stakes with John Panton (1951/53/61).

 

Given that young Matt has pretty recently been as high as #16 in the world (April 2021), which is way better than either Haliburton, Padgham or Panton would ever have been, he must be the biggest under-achiever in the history of the competition. Hopefully he can remedy that in subsequent Cups, if he qualifies or is selected 🙂 

[MattyO1984]

15 minutes ago, Blade Junkie said:

Only Reg Haliburton (1961/63) and Alf Padgham (1933/35/37) who were both 0-6-0, have a worse Ryder Cup record than poor old Matt Fitzpatrick, who is now 0-5-0, tied in the hopelessness stakes with John Panton (1951/53/61).

 

Given that young Matt has pretty recently been as high as #16 in the world (April 2021), which is way better than either Haliburton, Padgham or Panton would ever have been, he must be the biggest under-achiever in the history of the competition. Hopefully he can remedy that in subsequent Cups, if he qualifies or is selected 🙂 

 

Blade, we have talked about this, that can never happen again! 😂

[OldCuss]

Assuming similar structure of all Ryder Cups (which is not the case [!] thus adjustments), different analyses for foursome, fourball, and single would be interesting. For, say, foursome, what is the probability of winning a match?

 

A few, initial, scattered thoughts (mostly all I have these days) to generate reflection rather than to finalize it:

 

Can't have a massive number of variables and retain power given the data set will comprise only 43x4x2 pairs or 43x8x2 individuals (Given individual performance is nested within the pair, multilevel modeling is probably better advised than a binomial logistic model but I will work with logistic regression here).

 

A few variables to consider (and operationalism of some will need to be worked out) for model development:

 

1. As suggested, contribution is interesting, thus what are, say, four good indicators of such that might be scaled? Thinking  .50-ish will be more consistently associated with winning (see #8).
2. Rank of competitors 
3. Rank of partner
4. Rank of player
5. Course rating and slope or some similar measure to represent a pro set-up
6. Timing of match (an #10 consideration or indicates more?)
7. Age of players
8. Score relative to competition (needed to help interpret #1)
9. Outcome (win, lose but can be discerned from #8 for subsequent coding)
10. Course condition variables (and match to players?)
11. Day n of competition (or match sequence number)
12. Record of last, say, 6 events for player and partner and competitors 
13. 1 - GolfWRX chance of winning 😉
14. Team work/spirit measures (probably works better with multilevel modeling)
15. Performance of first, say, three holes.
16. Home, away
17. Prior RC experience
18. Psychological capital

19. Wife and girlfriend in close proximity on course 😉
20. Etc.

 

Good chance (?) of finding a statistically significant model, perhaps a few new insights, but the amount of explained variance will likely not satisfy (i.e., maybe more unexplained than explained) - as they say, the intangibles - and I wonder if such a model would tell us anything much different from what, say, ten very knowledgable people of these events and players could reasonably frame via conversation? I'm open.

 

Still, if one is interested in outliers (e.g., presumably Sergio is such), perhaps a DEA approach (frontier analysis) is of greater utility? Such is often used for benchmarking.

 

Old Cuss

[MUNIGRIT]

Is Furyk the worst Ryder Cup player of all time?

[golfandfishing]

9 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

Is Furyk the worst Ryder Cup player of all time?

Europe’s MVP 4 or 5 times. 

[drbonesvt]

On 9/23/2021 at 7:33 AM, golfandfishing said:

Tiger, Jim Furyk, Curtis Strange and Stricker were all terrible in the Ryder Cup as a rule. Weird how we make them all captains (I’m sure Tiger will be soon). 

European over performers tend to be 1 or 2 year guys like David Howell, Pieters, Phil Walton or whoever that make a team, beat a US heavyweight in a pivotal match. Although Poulter might be a career RC over performer. 

 

 

Colin Montgomery 🤮

[drbonesvt]

On 9/23/2021 at 11:33 AM, elwhippy said:

Larry Nelson had a superb RC record. And three majors yet hardly gets a mention. 

Vietnam Vet ; rarified tour air 

[mark m]

Sergio is obviously an exceptional teammate in Ryder Cup team formats. The key to understanding it is looking at the hole scores. I am not sure if there is a website which shows the hole scores for all past cups? But if there is one, you will see he and his partners consistently played good golf and put up good scores (birdies and very few bogeys). You don’t compile a record like that by getting lucky or riding a partner. You may get a rare win or tie with poor scores, but this won’t be the case over a 20 year time frame. He is nails IMO. He was a top ranked player for many years. What a short game. I recall recapping past cups here, and for instance, the US would have teams shooting even or over par in Foursomes through the holes completed and losing. No surprise there! I understand it’s match and not stroke play, but you better know where you likely need to be in terms of score/performance to be in most matches. 
 

This year - Friday Foursomes- all US teams were under par. Good job! Spieth and Thomas were -3. (4 birdies and 1 bogey) through 17. Rahm and Garcia were -5 through 17 and won. If you consistently play good you will win points. That is what Sergio has accomplished. (In years past, the top US players did not play consistently well. It’s a mystery why they didn’t play better.)

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by mark m

[Nels55]

On 9/23/2021 at 5:24 AM, Ferguson said:

Brian Barnes.  

 

Circa 1975, beat Jack 2x in the same day.

 

 

 

Nicklaus in 1975:

 

1975 Ryder Cup Winner, Match Scores, Player Records

The 1975 Ryder Cup was the 21st time this tournament was played. Following Team USA's victory, the all-time standings to this point were 17 wins for the United States, three wins for GB&I, and one tie.

Final Score: United States 21, Great Britain & Ireland 11

Dates Played: September 19-21, 1975

Golf Course: Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania

Team Captains: Bernard Hunt for Great Britain & Ireland, Arnold Palmer for the United States

Team Rosters:

• GB&I — Brian Barnes, Maurice Bembridge, Eamonn Darcy, Bernard Gallacher, Tommy Horton, Brian Huggett, Guy Hunt, Tony Jacklin, Christy O'Connor Jr., John O'Leary, Peter Oosterhuis, Norman Wood
• USA — Billy Casper, Raymond Floyd, Al Geiberger, Lou Graham, Hale Irwin, Gene Littler, Johnny Miller, Bob Murphy, Jack Nicklaus, J.C. Snead, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf

Match Notes: The 1975 Ryder Cup was the last one played with a 32-point format. That format — which included morning and afternoon sessions of foursomes, fourballs and, on the final day, singles — was first used in 1963.

Team USA swept the opening foursomes, 4-0, and never looked back. The American side's 9-point lead (12.5 to 3.5) after Day 2 is the second largest Day 2 lead in Ryder Cup history.

Day 3 was a formality — but not for Brian Barnes, who was twice drawn to face Jack Nicklaus. In the morning singles, Barnes beat the Bear, 4 and 2. When the afternoon draw was announced, Nicklaus vs. Barnes again was in the anchor position.

When the two golfers reached the tee for the start of their second singles encounter of the day, Nicklaus told Barnes, "... there ain't no way you're going to beat me again." Then Barnes went out and beat Nicklaus again, winning 2 and 1.

In an interview many years later, Barnes described entering the locker room the two teams shared following his second win. The USA and GB&I sides were separated by a partition. On the other side of the partition, Barnes could hear Nicklaus slamming his shoes and other equipment, cursing to himself, muttering. Barnes peeped over the partition and innocently asked, "Something wrong, Jack?" Nicklaus burst out laughing.

 

Read the full story here: https://www.golfcompendium.com/2020/05/1975-ryder-cup.html