A Ryder Cup victory for Europe at Marco Simone in September will be long remembered without prompting for those involved in the triumph. But just in case anyone on the losing side might be starting to get over the disappointment of a 16½-11½ defeat, well Luke Donald was here with a reminder, courtesy of the DP World Tour social media team.

Do you hear what I hear? ?@LukeDonald | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/EeRhvkZtiD

— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) December 23, 2023

There’s something exquisite in the simplicity of this wondering message/troll. After polishing replica Ryder Cup trophies, Donald hears the famous cheers that rang throughout Marco Simone, capped by the call for two more years. The Englishman is excited to do that, having already been named a returning captain for the European side that will compete at Bethpage Black in 2025.

Donald wasn’t done with the Ryder Cup look back. On Christmas Day, he had another post to share with followers and make sure everyone once more got to appreciate how meaningful the victory at Marco Simone was for him and his family.

Merry Christmas from the Donalds ?? pic.twitter.com/dheIQV7Ubu

— Luke Donald (@LukeDonald) December 25, 2023

Something tells us that there is any article of clothing, desk accessory, etc., that has the Ryder Cup logo or trophy on it, the Donald family owns it. 

Main image: Richard Heathcote

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Suffice it to say, Rahm’s Thursday announcement changes the calculus on many, many things, some big and some small. That became evident within hours of Rahm’s appearance in his LIV bomber jacket on Fox News.

In an interview with Sky Sports, Rory McIlroy, who just a few weeks earlier confidently predicted Rahm was going to stay with the PGA Tour, explained he felt no ill will toward Rahm for leaving: “I’m going to miss competing against him week in and week out. He has got so much talent, he’s so tenacious and he’s a great teammate in the Ryder Cup. The thing that I’ve realised is that you can’t judge someone for making a decision that they feel is the best thing for them.’’

McIlroy’s reference to the Ryder Cup became even more notable when addressing whether Rahm’s defection to LIV would impact his ability to play for Europe in the future. Most LIV golfers from the continent dropped their DP World Tour membership, and thus were ineligible to compete at Marco Simone in September. At the time, McIlroy noted that the logistics made sense and that LIV players had to understand the possibility of being shut out of the team, going so far as to say: “They’re going to miss being here [Rome] more than we’re missing them.”

But with Rahm’s decision, McIlroy took a new posture. “Jon is going to be in Bethpage in 2025 so, because of this decision, the European Tour (DP World Tour) are going to have to rewrite the rules for the Ryder Cup eligibility,’’ McIlroy told Sky. “There’s absolutely no question about that … I certainly want Jon Rahm on the next Ryder Cup team.”

Rory McIlroy’s thoughts on Jon Rahm signing up to LIV pic.twitter.com/RsfkbFs7Mp

— Jamie Weir (@jamiecweir) December 8, 2023

The about face from McIlroy on the issue was something that was noted by commenters on social media.

Rory’s singing a different tune now that it’s Rahm. Didn’t hear this kind of chat from him about the others who joined LIV. “They are going to miss being here (Rome) more than we’re missing them.” https://t.co/PVhu0KowvU

— Tom English (@TEnglishSport) December 8, 2023

To which, McIlroy owned up to his changed viewpoint.

Rory’s singing a different tune now that it’s Rahm. Didn’t hear this kind of chat from him about the others who joined LIV. “They are going to miss being here (Rome) more than we’re missing them.” https://t.co/PVhu0KowvU

— Tom English (@TEnglishSport) December 8, 2023

Indeed, Rahm’s jump to LIV is going to change a lot of people’s thinking about a lot of things.

Image: Jamie Squire

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Luke Donald has been named as the European Captain for the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York.

The 45 year old Englishman returns to the role having led Europe to a 16½ – 11½ victory against the United States in the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome, Italy, earlier this year.

He will become Europe’s first repeat Captain since Bernard Gallacher performed the role in three consecutive Ryder Cups, in 1991, 1993 and 1995.

Donald will be aiming to become only the second Captain to lead Europe to victories both home and away, following Tony Jacklin who achieved the double at Muirfield Village in Ohio in 1987, retaining the Ryder Cup following his team’s victory two years previously at The Belfry, in England, in 1985.

Donald said: “I’m delighted and honoured to have been given the chance to lead Team Europe in the Ryder Cup once again. Great opportunities don’t come along very often in life and I’m a great believer that when they do, you need to grab them with both hands – this is one of these moments.

“I’ve been fortunate as a player to have had many amazing times in the Ryder Cup over the years and so to add being a winning Captain to that, to form bonds with the 12 players like we did in Italy and to get the result we did, was very special indeed.

Victorious Team Europe in Rome – Getty

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Here are seven critical reasons the Europeans managed to seize control of the competition on Friday, and—despite a brief moment of tension on Sunday afternoon—kept that control for the entire weekend.

1. They controlled the first hole

In the first three sessions of play, after which the Europeans led 9½-2½ and the outcome of the Cup was all decided, the home side had won the opening hole in five of the 12 matches. More astoundingly, the Americans won it zero times. That’s more important than you might think; teams that lead early win more often than they lose, to state the obvious. Those holes establish momentum and put pressure on the opponent. After the first hole, no European team trailed in those three critical sessions, and five of them led. The final tally after singles was Europe with 10 wins on the first hole, and America with just four.

You could explain this in a couple ways. Americans may have gotten into trouble with riskier club selection, or maybe Luke Donald’s policy of having his team play three-hole practice matches played off. Maybe the set-up benefited them—we heard endlessly on the broadcast that certain distances (180 yards was mentioned often) gave the Europeans an advantage, and they knew it. Whatever the case, their plan was better, and more than a few American players were beaten practically before the round had started.

2. By the way, they controlled the second hole, too

The tally on the second hole this week was eight wins for the Europeans, two to the Americans. That’s how you snuff out hope early.

RELATED: Rickie Fowler conceded the Cup-clinching putt and the golf world had questions

3. Foursomes, foursomes, foursomes

To read my magnum opus on foursomes, and how the home team dominates this format and pretty much wins the Ryder Cup on its back, go here. In short, though, the last five Ryder Cups have followed a very specific formula in which the fourball and singles matches are roughly even, and the foursomes matches are a slaughter. That was the case once more in Italy; take foursomes out, and the U.S. “won” this thing 10½-9½. In foursomes, the Europeans won 7-1. That’s it! That’s the ball

Ramsey Cardy

The baseline argument here on why the home team just keeps running up these ridiculous numbers is that the statistical revolution has made leaps and bounds in the last decade—both teams now operate with sophisticated data support—and foursomes is the format in which you can have the most influence as the home team with course setup. That’s the only explanation, but it’s a decent one, and it’s so critical.

RELATED: The Ryder Cup is broken, and there’s no easy fix

4. Dodo’s statistics

One of the big red flags before this Ryder Cup is that the European team moved away from the 21st Group, their statistical consulting partners, to the operation run by vice captain Edoardo “Dodo” Molinari. (The U.S. stuck with Scouts Consulting, the outfit which has been with them in some capacity since 2016, and it was inevitable that they’d be prepared.) As it turned out, Molinari wasn’t some dilettante statistician; Matt Fitzpatrick, one of the great data nerds in the game, retained him for consultation/analysis, and he was more than prepared for the job ahead of him. As always, the actual nuts and bolts of this work are tightly held—neither side wants the other to know exactly how the sausage is made—and journalists are necessarily light on specifics. But you can judge by the final score, and by how certain holes were won and certain partnerships formed, that whatever made up the magic sauce, Molinari, a former U.S. Amateur champion, knew what he was doing when he was crunching numbers for match play.

Andrew Redington

5. The crowd

There is no underrating the significance of a rowdy, partisan crowd in the Ryder Cup. We’ve said it before: They are vociferous by any standard. But by the standards of golf—where galleries always cheer for players and almost never against them—being taunted for three days by hundreds of thousands of people is a jarring experience. Open Championship winner Brian Harman admitted in the lead-up to the week that he had occasionally been overwhelmed the crowds at Royal Liverpool, and this is the Open on steroids. Additionally, they’re closer to the players at many moments than they are in most any other sport, where there’s at least a divide more significant than a thread of rope.

Luke Walker

The influence of the fans is, unfortunately, something we can’t quantify in terms of actual numbers, but again, for at least the fifth straight Ryder Cup, they proved in the abstract to be a massive influence on the result.

6. Chemistry

The U.S. bent over backward to ensure everyone that theirs was an incredibly close team—particularly after questionable reports emerged about Patrick Cantlay’s attitude in the locker room. But in the final press conference, only one of the two captains received a unanimous endorsement from his players to return for Bethpage in 2025, and that was Luke Donald. The word from Team Europe behind the scenes was that he was hitting all the right notes in preparing for this Ryder Cup, and it’s clear that work paid off in the team room. The Europeans were cohesive without needing to shout it from the rooftops. When they were challenged in the bizarre scene on the 18th hole Saturday night, they came even closer together to put together a 6-6 singles session in the face of arguably greater talent to close the door.

Patrick Smith

One small example of how players bought into Donald’s message came through Justin Rose. Rose is a legendary Ryder Cupper and a major winner who even at 43 might have demanded special treatment. Instead, Donald intended to play Rose in just two fourball sessions—not even his strongest format, which is foursomes—and to pair him with Bob MacIntyre, who came in with perhaps the worst form of any player on either team. Rose answered the bell, heroically carrying the partnership to 1½ points the first two days, and then giving Patrick Cantlay the fight of his life before ultimately losing singles. He put his ego aside totally, and in that you can see the positive influence of Donald’s communication and preparation.

7. The veteran/rookie partnerships

Like the U.S., Donald had four rookies to integrate into his lineup. He got them all in on Friday with veteran partners, and collectively they went 2-2-0. Not only did he dial up the proper partner for each rookie—Viktor Hovland for Ludvig Aberg, Rose for MacIntyre, Jon Rahm for Nicholai Hojgaard, Shane Lowry for Sepp Straka—but he picked the perfect sessions for them to debut. They cooled off as the Cup wore on, but by then the damage had been done. In the end, those rookies finished 5-6-3, but considering how raw they were—America’s rookies were significantly better players, and only finished at 7-6-3, not much better—Donald passed one of the big tests of his captaincy and staved off disaster with his inexperienced players.

That was a common theme: There weren’t many tests Donald—and his victorious team—didn’t pass.

Main image: Naomi Baker

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What Greller witnessed was a microcosm of what went down in Rome. Though a spirited Sunday charge was entertaining, it proved to be nothing more than the scenic route to the inevitable, as the Americans once again fell big on the road and were left wondering where to go from here.

“You know, right now everything is extremely surreal and almost foggy. For me to come up and devise some sort of plot of how to change or alter or whatever you want to call it, I wouldn’t even know where to start right now,” Johnson said after his team’s 16½-11½ defeat. “I know I’ll reflect. It’s natural when you have something of this magnitude.”

Make no doubt, this was a tour-de-force performance from Europe. Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood were who we thought they were and more, and any player with a question mark next to his name delivered an answer with vigour. Captain Luke Donald and his assembled crew have earned their flowers. And yet, as the sun dances behind the skyline of the Eternal City to send this match into the past, this feels like a Ryder Cup that was lost as much as it was won.

RELATED: Rickie Fowler conceded the Cup-clinching putt and the golf world had questions

The first knock was delivered before the matches began with an undisclosed virus making its way through the US locker room and knocking out several players something fierce. That could partially explain why the US stumbled in foursomes Friday morning, and by “stumbled” we mean getting swept for the first time ever in the opening session. There was a window Friday afternoon where the Americans had a chance for a 3-1 session victory; instead in every potential winning match the US watched their opponents celebrate on the 18th green, leaving with just 1½ points. Saturday morning was more of the same, lowlighted by Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka—arguably the two best American players—suffering the worst loss in Ryder Cup history, 9 and 7. Entering Saturday afternoon the Europeans held a seven-point advantage.

Richard Heathcote

Through the first three sessions, Johnson was no cheerleader. He tried to play it cool, or as cool as Zach Johnson can appear. He stressed he wasn’t worried, that he had faith in his guys in his room, that they are not a bunch that needs encouragement. That Johnson was gone and in his place was a captain insisting their fate had not been decided. He clapped, he cheered, he shouted. It was the type of frenetic energy one has when buying a couch too wide to fit through the front door, refusing to acknowledge a truth that can’t be adjusted.

The thing is … it kind of worked, the Americans finally winning a session. Yet it was undercut by Johnson relaying, in his words, “data” to Spieth on the 16th tee, and though Spieth is responsible for ultimately hitting the shot, Johnson’s ploy backfired. It was far from the only instance where Johnson’s strategy failed.

RELATED: The Ryder Cup is broken, and there’s no easy fix

There were the captain’s picks, perhaps one of the most consequential responsibilities of the job. Johnson’s six selections went 4-12-4 on the week. He inserted Rickie Fowler in the Friday morning lineup, which looks curious given rumours that Fowler was under the weather and made worse by the fact he didn’t play at all Saturday. Johnson went with Sam Burns and Scheffler despite their rough Presidents Cup together and that analytics don’t paint them as the most compatible grouping. In the end, the buddy-buddy pairing produced unfriendly results. Meanwhile, Johnson kept riding Spieth despite Spieth looking lost with his game and himself.

On Sunday night Johnson chalked up most of the carnage to sticking to his pre-week game plan rather than adjusting to how the Ryder Cup was playing out. He then admitted he “should have listened to his gut” more yet also didn’t know what that would have meant.

“There’s something to be said about observing and witnessing that helps your decision process, and then you include everything else and you try to find every possible scenario so that you can score points,” Johnson said. “I would say that it’s pretty evident that the other team did a better job of that, certainly the first two or three—first three sessions. I think it’s really that simple.”

RELATED: Ryder Cup 2023 updates: Europe closes out 16½-11½ win at Marco Simone

It was a confusing end to an uninspiring captainship.

Jamie Squire

The blame is not Johnson’s alone. Putting continues to be the bane of Scottie Scheffler’s existence but the rest of his game wasn’t particularly great en route to a 0-2-2 record. The World No. 1 was outscored by Europe’s Robert MacIntyre, who according to DataGolf’s true strokes gained has been worse than several Korn Ferry Tour players over the past six months. Xander Schauffele was supposed to be one of the rocks for the US; instead, Schauffele’s game was crushed to pieces, failing to log a single point Friday or Saturday. Wyndham Clark was second in automatic qualifying but was statistically the worst player this weekend. Justin Thomas failed to prove his critics wrong, finishing 21st out of the 24 players in strokes gained. Fowler conceded the winning putt to Fleetwood, which, depending on your perspective, is either a lack of competitive fire or recognition of the moment.

The problems extended past the playing roster. Europe was surgical with its vice captains, utilizing a mix of peers and elders and heroes as their helping hands. The US went with the same uncles they trot out at every team event, voices while respected are essentially of the same voice. The lack of cohesion by the PGA Tour and PGA of America—which has not improved in the months since the surprise framework agreement between the tour and Saudi Arabia—continues to be an issue, with most American players having five competitive weeks off before Rome while their European counterparts played less than 14 days ago.

“You know, clearly our start Friday, the entire day Friday, was not what we were looking to do. And it’s really hard to come back in an away game when you fall so far behind,” Spieth said. “I’ve been a part of that before. So I would say like, you know, I think if you ask—I think maybe if I rephrase the question, if you asked us when we would like to play the Ryder Cup relative to our schedule, I think we would probably say, give us a week after the Tour Championship or two weeks after and then go, instead of five.”

It’s fair to wonder how bad the result could have been had the Americans not received a jolt of life thanks to a report about team fracture and protest staged by Patrick Cantlay, a report the Americans denied and rallied around. And to their credit, the Americans made it interesting on Sunday and seemed to give a damn. But these are professionals and the stakes are too high and emotions are too invested to take solace in moral victories, and “interesting” doesn’t mean much when the final result is still a blowout.

Worse, it is an outcome that lends itself to the same existential questions that have been recycled for the better part of three decades. Variations of the above could be said for almost any away loss since 1993, give or take a post-match mutiny or two. The characters change but the story remains the same, task forces be damned. It is an outcome that threatens the integrity of the event, because instead of asking why the US can’t solve its road problem perhaps the ask should be if it can be solved. The home team has now won eight of the last nine and 11 of the last 13 Ryder Cups, with an average winning scoring margin of five points.

Johnson and his boys made plenty of mistakes, but it’s fair to wonder if they even had a chance. Because winning on the road requires the road team to be flawless and golf isn’t a game of perfect.

Should the trend continue there will be a storm on the horizon. At times each side has held the conch of power, but for it to swing so dramatically and conclusively every two years is not a rivalry; it’s the byproduct of a broken apparatus. Which will be fine for United States fans, because 2025 will be at Bethpage Black, and the result will make many believe the team has finally figured it out. Then it comes back to Europe in 2027, and the same crisis will return because the Ryder Cup is trapped in a perpetual time loop. This doesn’t mean the Ryder Cup lacks excitement or importance or heart. It just means it’s not a sporting event, because in sporting events the outcome is always in doubt. The Ryder Cup is proving itself to be nothing more than an exhibition, and that’s the most dispiriting problem of all.

Main image: Ramsey Cardy

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In reality, while the final score remained unclear until the late afternoon at Marco Simone thanks to a series of desperate survival acts by the American side, the outcome was never actually in doubt. In fact, for a full decade, the outcome has never been in doubt.

We come today to mourn the soul of the Ryder Cup, but make no mistake: This is not an obituary. The Ryder Cup will survive in its current state of atrophy. It will be held every two years barring global catastrophe, rotating between Europe and the United States, attended by thousands of fans and months of hype and heaps of salvation money. But this weekend, in the Eternal City, on land from which once rose a great empire, we bid solemn farewell to the institution as a competitive, or even interesting, event. To borrow a Zach Johnson-ism, we’ve lost the Ryder Cup.

I’ve seen enough, and only fools let themselves be deluded for more than a decade. The fact of the matter is that the Ryder Cup has evolved into a malfunctioning affair in which the script is pre-written. The home team reigns supreme and have done so for five straight Ryder Cups, winning by gaudy margins. This will continue into the future — and there appears to be no practical solution that doesn’t involve removing the Ryder Cup from its host nations — an obvious impossibility that wouldn’t be desirable even if it could be done without hemorrhaging money (which it could not). In modern sport, there is nothing as predictable as a Ryder Cup; the drama is dead.

The current circumstances have been evident since 2014, when the Europeans won by five points in Gleneagles. But in the wake of the Medinah fluke, we weren’t ready for the truth, and Tom Watson was a poor enough captain that you could plausibly blame bad leadership.

It became slightly clearer in 2016 at Hazeltine National, when the Americans won by six points, then again in Paris, when Europe bounced back with a winning margin of a seemingly ridiculous seven points. After Whistling Straits in 2021, when the Americans triumphed by a frankly embarrassing 10 points, the last pair of closed eyes should have been pried open to the cold truth of reality that the situation wasn’t just dire, but was actively spiraling out of control.

Instead, the romance of the Ryder Cup prevailed one last time. I am not the foremost Ryder Cup scholar in the world, but as the author of a book on the subject, I’m not at the bottom of the hierarchy either. But though I saw the Whistling Straits blowout with clear eyes, some combination of hope and naivete and perhaps desperation led me to predict a narrow American victory in Italy. When I say “hopeful”, I don’t mean any kind of hope for my home nation. I mean hope for a close Ryder Cup — the oxygen we needed. The prediction went against history and statistics and common sense, but as someone with a great deal of love for this event, I wanted to see it revived from the coma.

Of course, I was wrong. Here in Italy, the situation became so preposterous that for a moment Saturday morning, it was vaguely possible that Europe might clinch before the day was done. Then Patrick Cantlay dropped three miracle putts just before sunset to call forth another regular Ryder Cup tradition — the hollow glimmer of false hope. That brief renaissance — along with the buzz surrounding a spat between Rory McIlroy and Cantlay’s caddie Joe LaCava — lasted the night before Europe snuffed out the last cinders Sunday and the Cup limped to its dull finish. We’ve reached rock bottom; who but the most fervent European partisans can actually think any of this is good?

We’ve fallen far. In the golden age of this event, from the moment Tony Jacklin resuscitated the European team in 1983 to the American comeback at Brookline in 1999, an incredible eight of nine Ryder Cups were decided by two points or fewer. Things changed in the 2000s, as Europe dealt the Americans a series of embarrassing losses, and our first taste of what was to come arrived in 2008, when Paul Azinger broke a long spell of clueless American leadership and led an underdog team to a resounding victory at Valhalla. Davis Love III reprised many of his lessons on a brilliant opening two days at Medinah, just before a historic European comeback gave us our last tight Ryder Cup. But after the Gleneagles massacre, America’s eyes were opened for good, and starting in 2016 we saw the advent of both teams operating with an impressive level of competency.

Ironically, the American Strategic Awakening and the growth of the event into a golf juggernaut had the unintended side effect of ushering in the modern era, in which hordes of fans in a three-day lather watch smart captains exploit their home-course advantage to a devastating degree, to the extent that by about noon on Sunday, the matches are effectively decided, and the final singles matches risk playing out in utter, disheartening irrelevance. You can almost see the gaudy scores of the future laid out in a zombie procession, one after another, in a numbing pattern.

The mechanisms behind this phenomenon are not quite as easy to understand as they should be. Nothing matters more today than home-course advantage, and nothing is more predictive and definitive, as Joel Beall and Luke Kerr-Dineen chronicled ahead of the start of play this week. But what does that actually mean? Granular, logistical advantages are discussed, the most prominent being course setup. Maybe, the theory goes, the home team should no longer have control. It would be lovely to think that the solution lies there, because it’s something the governing bodies could fix, and in fact I’d bet a hefty sum that they’ll try at some point in the near future. But I’m sorry to say that a change like this is no more than cosmetic; the golfers are good enough, and similar enough, that the effect of a course tailored to one or the other team is always going to be marginal. To remove course setup from home hands is like firing a BB gun at a fighter jet; satisfying, maybe, but fruitless.

But if not the course, what’s the true engine of the blowout era? For mysterious reasons, the actual lopsided margins tend to be a function of the foursomes sessions specifically, and perhaps there’s a novel solution in eliminating this format from future events. It would be a bizarre fix, to be sure, and an unfortunate one, but maybe the only one actually supported by the numbers. Failing that, the only conclusion to draw is that with the advent of competent leadership in both camps, as captains turn into CEOs and accumulated wisdom mitigates the errors of the past, the big, overwhelming difference between the teams is the partisan crowds.

In other words: It’s the fans, stupid. In a sport where the players aren’t used to away games, the effect of having 50,000-plus fans vociferously endorse your opponent on a daily basis is apparently impossible to overcome. It may be that in 500 years, as the field of quantum physics blossoms, that we learn about an actual invisible atomic energy transfer between fans and golfers, wherein the will of the crowd influences results. This would explain the ridiculous, repeating phenomenon where the home team sinks long putt after long putt, sticks irons to gimme distance, and responds to any wayward approach by chipping in, while the visiting team seems to be magnetically drawn to every hazard on the property.

If I’m right that the crowds are the insurmountable hurdle to a competitive event, well … in that case you’re basically screwed, because they’re not moving this thing to a neutral venue. “Ryder Cup: Argentina” or “Ryder Cup: Moscow” isn’t happening. That means we’re in the age of impasse, and there’s no extracting ourselves from this quagmire.

That quagmire leads us to an inevitable pronouncement: The Ryder Cup is boring. Which is a great irony, because the lead-up to the Ryder Cup is about as intriguing and interesting as any subject in golf. Analyzing this thing is truly fun, and a parallel bummer of the evolution toward predictability is that you can’t really go deep on the subject anymore. Sure, you can pick apart the course setup and the pairings and the strategy and various other logistics, but beneath it all is the sense that none of it actually matters. It all gets swept aside in the tidal wave of home-course advantage. Why waste time arguing? The home team is always going to win! Fatalism abounds!

I don’t know the solution. I’m not sure anybody knows the solution. Or if we do, it lies down paths we can’t travel. It bears saying now that the Ryder Cup has been on death’s door before—after the Second World War, when an obscure American businessman revived it, at the advent of the European era when large sponsors were lost and Jacklin applied the defibrillator paddles, to name two—and has always found a way to survive. It must do so again, or this latest requiem, this eulogy for the soul of the dead, will become the definitive one. As they say just down the road from Marco Simone, requiescat in pace.

Main image: Richard Heathcote

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The issue for the Americans, however, is that no team has ever rallied from that big a deficit to actually pull out a Sunday win since the match’s inception in 1927. Miracle? That might be extreme, but historic performance is a very accurate description of what Zach Johnson and his squad must pull off for the 30-year road victory drought to finally come to an end.

It will all play out amid the drama that closed Saturday’s action and had golf fans buzzing. On the final hole in the final match of foursomes play, Patrick Cantlay pulled out an impressive win with a clutch birdie (his third straight), then unloaded a day’s worth of pent-up frustration toward the constant heckling he was receiving from the crowds as a reaction to a report on why he wasn’t wearing a hat. But when Joe LaCava, Cantlay’s caddie joined in, it touched off a series of emotional exchanges—including a fiery video of Rory McIlroy needing to be held back by fellow teammates—that instant infused the otherwise lopsided affair with buzz.

RELATED: Every player’s final record and point allotment at Marco Simone

As was the case then the previous two days, Day 3 of the 44th playing of the biennial event comes packed with its own intrigue and drama. Below you’ll find everything you need to know to follow Sunday’s opening play in sunny and warm Italy. Check back throughout the day for updates and insight as golf’s most compelling event continues.

• • •

WHERE THINGS STOOD STARTING THE DAY

Europe started Sunday’s play with a five-point lead, 10½-5½. No team with this large a lead entering singles play had ever failed to win the Ryder Cup. A total of 28 matches (points) were on the line this week, with the U.S. needing to win 14 to retain the Cup (having won it last time) and Europe needing 14½ to win it back.

• • •

SUNDAY SINGLES TEE TIMES (all times EDT)

5:35 a.m.: Scottie Scheffler (U.S.) vs. Jon Rahm
5:47 a.m.: Collin Morikawa (U.S.) vs. Viktor Hovland
5:59 a.m.: Patrick Cantlay (U.S.) vs. Justin Rose
6:11 a.m.: Sam Burns (U.S.) vs. Rory McIlroy
6:23 a.m.: Max Homa (U.S.) vs. Matt Fitzpatrick
6:35 a.m.: Brian Harman (U.S.) vs. Tyrrell Hatton
6:47 a.m.: Brooks Koepka (U.S.) vs. Ludvig Aberg
6:59 a.m.: Justin Thomas (U.S.) vs. Sepp Straka
7:11 a.m.: Xander Schauffele (U.S.) vs. Nicolai Hojgaard
7:23 a.m.: Jordan Spieth (U.S.) vs. Shane Lowry
7:35 a.m.: Rickie Fowler (U.S.) vs. Tommy Fleetwood
7:47 a.m.: Wyndham Clark (U.S.) vs. Robert MacIntyre

• • •

HOW THINGS SHOOK OUT

It’s tricky to get a real sense of how the session would play out too early, but after all the matches got through at least five holes, some clarity appeared. Europe needed four points, and got one early when Hovland beat Morikawa, 4 and 3.

Soak it in Viktor, you deserve it! ?#TeamEurope | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/1SYGxzeYnQ

— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) October 1, 2023

Meanwhile, McIlroy was in control in his match with Burns, so Europe’s point there seemed assured—and was locked in when McIlroy closed out the match on the 17th, winning 3 and 1.

That meant the first match off between Rahm and Scheffler, a repeat of their singles clash in 2021 (won by Scheffler), turned pivotal in terms of the comfort level for either team as the remainder of Sunday played out. It was a see-saw affair throughout, Rahm going 2 up after five holes but Scheffler fighting back to take a lead after 11, then Rahm coming back, then Scheffler coming back to take a 1-up lead through 15 holes with this birdie.

Scottie ?#RyderCup | #GoUSA pic.twitter.com/nfcFIJnsgb

— Ryder Cup USA (@RyderCupUSA) October 1, 2023

They tied the drivable par-4 16th hole with birdies and the par-3 17th with pars.

On the par-5 18th, Scheffler missed the green right with his second shot while Rahm hit the green in two, 90 feet from the hole. Scheffler, however, hit his chip over the green, while Rahm nearly holed his eagle try. When Scheffler failed to hole his birdie pitch, Rahm won the hole, tied the match … and grabbed a half-point.

For American fans, there were positives coming. Specifically in the play of Cantlay, who continued the momentum he built on Saturday to close out Rose with a 2-and-1 win (Rose making things sort of interesting on the back nine after being 3 down through 11 holes).

At this point (10:01 a.m. Eastern), Europe was leading 13-7, needing 1½ points for the win. The question was where would they come from. Hatton eventually got one, winning his match over Harman, 3 and 2, to claim his first ever Ryder Cup singles win.

Yesssss @TyrrellHatton!! ?

We need just half a point to win the Ryder Cup. #TeamEurope | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/0Gm4k7KKSK

— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) October 1, 2023

So then the attention went to the Homa-Fitzpatrick match, Homa 1 up with one hole to play. If Fitzpatrick could win the 18th hole, that’s the half-point needed to clinch the Cup for Europe. And it became a much bigger possibility when Homa’s second shot on the par-5 home hole ended up in a crazy spot next to the greenside bunker, forcing him to take an unplayable lie.

ANDREAS SOLARO

To Homa’s credit he played a solid flop shot leaving himself eight feet to save par. Fitzpatrick had a birdie try from 15 feet to win the hole, tie the match and win the Cup, but missed. So then Homa had to make the par putt to keep the European win from happening. And, well, just as he had all week, he came up clutch.

The definition of clutch. @maxhomapic.twitter.com/eIN4sxNhXo

— Golf on CBS (@GolfonCBS) October 1, 2023

OK … now where would the last half-point for Europe come from? The Americans grabbed two more points with wins by Koepka and Schuaffele to get the score to 14-10. The remaining four matches were all tight. And if the U.S. somehow pulled out them all out for wins? Well, that would mean a 14-14 tie and the U.S. would retain the Cup.

But that possibility ended on the 16th hole when Fowler, 1 down to Fleetwood, hit his tee shot on the drivable par-4 hole into the water. When Fleetwood drove the green, he was able to win the hole—with a surprising concession from Fowler—and guarantee a tied match with the American. That guaranteed that last half point for Europe …

The moment @TommyFleetwood1 secured the half point that guarantees we win the Ryder Cup ?#TeamEurope | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/45MHGfK516

— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) October 1, 2023

… which became a full point when Fleetwood closed out the match on the 17th hole, 3 and 1.

Thomas gave the U.S. its 11th point when he closed out his match with Straka on the 18th hole, 2 up. And Europe got another full point in McIntyre’s win over Clark. When Lowry and Spieth tied the last match, the final result was in.

Europe is the winner, 16½-11½.

• • •

TWO MORE YEARS?

Luke Donald was pressed into service a little more than a year ago to be a replacement captain for Europe when Henrik Stenson jumped to the LIV Golf League. Needless to say, Donald proved a more than capable leader, organizing an efficient structure with his vice captains and then allowing his 12 players to thrive at Marco Simone. Not surprisingly, then, his players appreciated what Donald did for them to succeed, and offered this show of support for a possible second captaincy in 2025 at Bethpage Black.

Two more years, @LukeDonald ?#TeamEurope | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/YmB5IOtt6m

— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) October 1, 2023

• • •

HUGGING THINGS OUT?

The question on Sunday morning was whether the drama of Saturday night would carry over. If you listen to the reports on NBC, however, the vitriol has simmered. Steve Sands reported that on Saturday night Joe LaCava was in touch with Rory McIlroy and his camp via text to try to work things out. According to Sands, LaCava asked to meet with McIlroy face-to-face on Sunday morning, and after that meeting, the powderkeg had been defused.

The problem? McIlroy after winning his match with Sam Burns, 3 and 1, told NBC’s Cara Banks that he DID NOT meet with LaCava in the morning.

We’ll see too if the crowds allow this storyline to become reunited. Their support for McIlroy was evident on the first tee Sunday as he prepared to play Sam Burns.

Biggest cheer of the morning goes to @McIlroyRory.

He takes on Sam Burns in Match 4. pic.twitter.com/Z79UqMEO3b

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) October 1, 2023

• • •

MORE HATLESS GOLFERS

Whether a sign of solidarity with Patrick Cantlay or not, Collin Morikawa decided not to wear a hat during his Sunday singles match with Viktor Hovland.

Richard Heathcote

And Justin Thomas didn’t have his cap when he teed off in his match with Sepp Straka.

Darren Carroll/PGA of America

Main image: Richard Heathcote

The post Ryder Cup 2023 updates: Europe closes out 16½-11½ win at Marco Simone appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Despite a furious charge from the U.S. squad, Europe hung on to win by a final score of 16.5 to 11.5, extending its streak of victories on home soil to seven, a run that will now span 34 years (the next Ryder Cup in Europe will take place in 2027). For those who caught Europe at great odds, congrats to you.

As for the prop bettors out there, below you’ll find the final records and point allotments for every player in Rome.

RELATED: Ryder Cup 2023 updates: Europe closes out 16½-11½ win at Marco Simone

Team Europe

Rory McIlroy (4-1-0, 4 points)

Tyrrell Hatton (3-0-1, 3.5 points)

Viktor Hovland (3-1-1, 3.5 points)

Tommy Fleetwood (3-1-0, 3 points)

Jon Rahm (2-0-2, 3 points)

Robert MacIntyre (2-0-1, 2.5 points)

Ludvig Aberg (2-2-0, 2 points)

Justin Rose (1-1-1, 1.5 points)

Shane Lowry (1-1-1, 1.5 points)

Matt Fitzpatrick (1-2-0, 1 point)

Sepp Straka (1-2-0, 1 point)

Nicolai Hoojgaard (0-2-1, 0.5 points)

Team USA

Max Homa (3-1-1, 3.5 points)

Brian Harman (2-2-0, 2 points)

Patrick Cantlay (2-2-0, 2 points)

Brooks Koepka (1-1-1, 1.5 points)

Justin Thomas (1-2-1, 1.5 points)

Wyndham Clark (1-1-1, 1 point)

Sam Burns (1-2-0, 1 point)

Collin Morikawa (1-3-0, 1 point)

Jordan Spieth (0-2-2, 1 point)

Scottie Scheffler (0-2-2, 1 point)

Xander Schauffele (1-3-0, 1 point)

Rickie Fowler (0-2-0, 0 points)

Results

Top overall point-scorer: Rory McIlroy

Top European point-scorer: Rory McIlroy

Top United States point-scorer: Max Homa

Top European rookie point-scorer: Robert MacIntyre

Top United States rookie point-scorer: Max Homa

Top European captain’s pick point-scorer: Tommy Fleetwood

Top United States captain’s pick point-scorer: Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas

Main Image: Andrew Redington

The post Ryder Cup 2023: Every player’s final record and point allotment at Marco Simone appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The biennial match is filled with territorial tension, drama and plenty of testy three-footers that most hackers just scoop up in their normal weekend games. But when there’s actually something on the line, golfers must wait for a two-word phrase that’s more delightful to the ears than anything Shakespeare ever penned: “That’s good.”

Through the years, these gimmes—or perceived gimmes—have created some memorable moments in the Ryder Cup, and the 2023 event was no different. The Europeans extended a three-decade-plus home winning streak on a three-footer that didn’t even have to be struck.

Tommy Fleetwood wins the 16th hole to go 2UP vs. Rickie Fowler and @RyderCupEurope is on the cusp of victory. #TeamEurope

?: @NBC and @peacock | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/C6nDnOOrsb

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) October 1, 2023

The moment @TommyFleetwood1 secured the half point that guarantees we win the Ryder Cup ?#TeamEurope | #RyderCup pic.twitter.com/45MHGfK516

— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) October 1, 2023

This time, Tommy Fleetwood was the beneficiary of a generous concession from Rickie Fowler that clinched the cup for Team Europe on Sunday at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club. OK, so technically, it was listed at two feet, eight inches, and it’s a putt that Fleetwood normally makes without thinking. But with the entire Ryder Cup on the line? Well, Paul Azinger among others would have liked to see Tommy make it.

It’s also very likely Europe, which wound up winning 16.5 to 11.5, would have walked away with the cup anyway. Still, this one will go down in Ryder Cup lore. And although this example nor anything else has quite reached the level of controversy of the 2015 Solheim Cup’s “Gimmegate” involving Suzann Pettersen, there have been some awkward situations. Here are five others that still stand out years—and, in some cases, decades—later.

1. Jack Nicklaus vs. Tony Jacklin (1969)

Uncredited

Of course, any list involving concessions has to start with THE Concession that ended the 1969 Ryder Cup in a tie. It was Nicklaus who magnanimously gave Jacklin a two-footer on the final hole to halve the match, a move that instantly put the American in the Sportsmanship Hall of Fame (if there was such a thing). So why is this controversial? Because many of Nicklaus’ teammates were NOT happy about the Golden Bear getting all warm and fuzzy in the heat of battle—especially during what had been a particularly testy event. While the US retained the Ryder Cup with a 16-16 tie, the move prevented the squad from potentially winning that year’s matches outright—and no one was more upset than US captain Sam Snead. “When it happened, all the boys thought it was ridiculous to give him that putt,” Snead famously said. “We went over there to win, not to be good ol’ boys.”

2. Nick Faldo vs. Paul Azinger (1993)

David Cannon

Azinger is arguably the biggest Ryder Cup pest—and certainly one of the event’s biggest hotheads—but in this case, he seems to have a good, um, case. With the Americans already guaranteed to retain the Cup, Faldo convinced Zinger to give him a five-foot putt on 18 in what had been a tremendous singles match highlighted by a hole-in-one by the Brit on No. 14. Azinger contends Faldo incorrectly claimed the US had also won outright. “I can’t tell you how irritating that was,” said Azinger, who found out from teammate Davis Love III that the competition was still tied. Moments later, Faldo also didn’t return the favour for Azinger’s final par putt. Azinger holed the putt then said after that giving it to him “would have been the gracious gesture.” Speaking of gracious gestures …

3. Payne Stewart vs. Colin Montgomerie (1999)

Craig Jones

With the final Sunday singles match in a similar situation six years later after the US had wrapped up a dramatic comeback victory at Brookline, Stewart conceded a tied match to Montgomerie with both putting for birdie on the 18th green. It was a classy move that received almost as much praise as Stewart’s “You’re going to be a dad” talk to Phil Mickelson after beating him at Pinehurst earlier that year to win the US Open. And it meant even more to Monty due to the heckling he had received from the American crowds all day. “He’d had enough, I’d had enough, and he picked my ball up at the last,” Montgomerie said. “I’ll never forget that. Not all the memories [from Brookline] are fond. But that match I will always think of with fond memories, of that game with him.” Sadly, it would be one of Stewart’s last acts on a golf course of any kind as he died in a plane crash a month later.

RELATED: Europe closes out 16½-11½ win at Marco Simone

4. Tiger Woods vs. Francesco Molinari (2012)

Jamie Squire

Woods’ Ryder Cup record has been greatly criticised through the years, but he might have been viewed differently had he been given a chance to play the hero at Medinah. Playing Sunday singles against Molinari it appeared the outcome of the entire match between the US and Europe might come down to this final duel until a series of things broke Europe’s way, including Martin Kaymer delivering a clutch Cup-winning putt. Molinari could have pulled a Payne Stewart with this match not winding up deciding who would win the Cup, but he decided to press on, hoping to win the event outright for Europe. Then he could have pulled a Jack Nicklaus when Woods’ birdie chip lipped out to about four feet, but he didn’t, even with the European fans at Medinah starting the celebrations early and causing disturbances. After Woods missed for par, he conceded Molinari’s putt of a similar length to halve the match and give Europe a 14½-13½ victory.

5. Great Britain vs. Steel Shafts? (1929)

And finally, we’ll stretch the definition of “concession” to include Europe not making one to the U.S. in regard to their equipment for the second-ever Ryder Cup. You see, the Americans arrived at Moortown Golf Club in England with steel-shafted clubs that were already approved for play by the USGA. But because the R&A hadn’t ruled them legal yet, Europe refused to let the Americans use them. The Americans wound up losing 7-5, and the R&A wound up allowing steel shafts the following year.

Main Image: Andrew Redington

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It should have been a special train ride. Adrian Meronk and his girlfriend were sitting in a carriage on the way from Crans-Montana in Switzerland to Geneva, hours after Meronk had finished T-12 at the Omega European Masters, when the call from Luke Donald came in. The European captain delivered to them what was unfortunate news: Meronk was not one of his six captain’s picks.

“I was in shock,” Meronk said. “I was expecting I had pretty decent chance.”

The 30-year-old from Poland had won three DP World Tour events in the past 14 months, two of them during the European team qualification period and the second of those wins coming in May in the Italian Open at the site of this year’s Ryder Cup, Marco Simone outside Rome.

Instead, Donald chose Shane Lowry, Ludvig Aberg, Tommy Fleetwood, Nicolai Højgaard, Justin Rose and Sepp Straka as his captain’s picks. It would appear that Aberg’s late push (T-4 at the Czech Masters and a win at the European Masters) and the strong late play of Højgaard likely left Meronk the odd man out. (Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Robert MacIntyre, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton and Matt Fitzpatrick were the six qualifiers.)

“I heard it was tough for [Donald] as well,” Meronk said. Asked if Donald gave a reason for the omission, Meronk couldn’t remember. The phone call was a blur. “When he said I wasn’t going, I stopped listening, to be honest. He said someone had to stay home. I wouldn’t want to be in his position; it was tough for him.”

Rubbing salt in the wound is the fact Meronk arrived at this week’s Irish Open at the K Club as the defending champion. The DP World Tour revealed Donald’s picks on Monday, while Donald, as well as team members McIlroy, Lowry and Hatton, are in the Irish field.

Needless to say, the past 48 hours have not been fun for Meronk.

“It’s an emotional time for me to be honest,” he said in his press conference Wednesday at the K Club. “[I’ve gone] from shock to sadness to anger to now … It’s a hard one to swallow … I thought I had done enough to be on that team.

“The first half of the day [Monday] was sadness and disbelief. The last year and a half I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. It was my goal. I realized it’s not going to happen this year.”

Meronk’s team was also saddened by the news, excited to celebrate the fact the tour pro would have been the first Polish golfer to play in a Ryder Cup.

“People didn’t take [the news] well; everyone was disappointed,” he said. “A couple people [said] they’d already bought tickets because they were sure I was going to be there. But a lot of players and tour caddies, coaches, staff, have been very supportive.”

When Adrian Meronk closed out the win at the Italian Open in May, on the course where this year’s Ryder Cup will be held, it seemed like he was going to make the European team. But ultimately he became the odd man out. Naomi Baker

Many former observers took to social media suggesting Højgaard’s pick over Meronk was the head-scratcher.

Adrian Meronk won the Australian, Irish and Italian Opens, has 5 other top 10s, is 3rd on the Race to Dubai and has won at the host venue, yet he hasn’t received a captains pick for the Ryder Cup in Rome. Regardless of your opinion, it’s been an incredible breakout season for… pic.twitter.com/j0XYuYqLJM

— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) September 4, 2023

Meronk would appear to have been more in-form than the Dane; he sits higher in both the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai (3 vs. 15) and the Official World Golf Rankings (51 vs. 78). Many pointed to the fact Højgaard has also won the Italian Open at Marco Simone. But that was 2021, and Højgaard’s most recent win was in the Middle East 18 months ago.

Meronk said there wasn’t much else he could have done. He played seven PGA Tour events outside the majors, which caused him to miss out on some chances to earn qualifying points. The DP World Tour runs the European side of the Ryder Cup and set the selection criteria for this edition as six qualifiers—three on World Points and three on European points—along with six captain’s picks.

“I don’t regret that. I wanted to grow my game and get comfortable playing in US,” countered Meronk, who will likely secure one of 10 PGA Tour cards through the season-long DP World Tour standings under the two tours’ strategic alliance. “Next time, I’ll focus more on getting that spot through qualifying and not lean on a pick. I’ll be more focused on playing more counting events. That’s the only thing I could have think of.”

Which leaves the question, how does he focus on his Irish Open title defence this week?

“It’s not easy. I haven’t experienced it before,” he said. “I’m fighting emotions inside of me. This is a great venue, great tournament, but [the Ryder Cup] is still somewhere in back of my mind. Hopefully, I’ll be ready. I wish them [European team] good luck, and I’m going to focus on my game and move forward. I’m trying to turn it into motivation coming into this week.”

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