Ryder Cup can end in huge Europe victory with repeat of sly 2018 tactics

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When the USA arrives in Rome next week to contest the 44th Ryder Cup, they will do so with the trophy in hand, on the back of a record victory margin last time out and with a 12-man team packed full of stars. Yet the chances of them leaving the Marco Simone Golf & Country club with the trophy are still stacked against them.

That’s because no American team has won a Ryder Cup on European soil in the past 30 years. You have to go as far back as 1993 to find their most recent triumph on this side of the Atlantic – a 15-13 victory at the Belfry, with Tom Watson the captain. He’s now 74.

Despite those damning statistics, Luke Donald is all too aware of the threat that the Americans pose and with three of this year’s four Major winners amongst their ranks, the bookies make the USA slight favourites to retain the coveted silverware.

But there’s a reason why the Europeans have been so dominant in their own backyard over the years and it’s not purely down to having the best players. The real secret to their success is course tactics.

There is no better recent example of this than when France’s Le Golf National hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018. The Americans were considered big favourites thanks to the presence of multiple Major-winning stars in their ranks like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Speith and Brooks Koepka.

But the European team had a plan and when they analysed huge amounts of data to work out how they expected the Americans to play, they set about making a large number of alterations to the course that would play to the hosts’ advantage.

Ryder Cup rules allowed the home team to make alterations to the golf course before and during the event. With the French Open staged at Le National months before it staged the Ryder Cup, the European team was able to gather masses of data from the event that provided an insight into how players of different styles performed over the 18 holes.

European’s pre-Ryder Cup analysis showed that US players tended to hit the ball further off the tee but more regularly missed the fairways. When they did miss, it was typically by around 30 feet. With this data, the European team decided to push back the gallery boundary away from the fairway. By doing this, when players missed the fairway, instead of being able to play from a favourable lie caused by the trampling of spectators underfoot, they were faced with nightmare shots out of thick rough.

The sneaky plan worked a treat, with four of the USA’s best players – Woods, Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed only winning two points out of a possible 14 over the three days’ play.

The European data also showed that the Americans were at their best when they were required to play approach shots from inside 125 yards. As a result, tee positions were moved forward and backward on different holes in an attempt to prevent the visitors from landing at their ideal distances.

Golf Digest has suggested that moving the tees backwards on the 1st and 15th holes could be something that happens at the Marco Simone course this year for that very reason, creating a narrow landing zone.

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The Euronerds also used their spreadsheets in 2018 to work out who should tee off on which hole when it came to foursomes matches. They worked out that the players who teed off on even holes could find themselves hitting the approach shot into the greens on the crucial 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th holes.

The findings resulted in the par 5 14th being lengthed to play as a three-shot approach and the par 3 16th shortened to give their best iron players a chance to chase birdies. Europe won six points out of a possible eight in the foursomes matches before going on to lift the Ryder Cup with a comprehensive 17.5-10.5 scoreline.

This year the European team is once again bolstered by hugely analytical players such as world No. 4 Viktor Hovland and Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick, so you can be absolutely sure that similar tactics will be at play once more.

The USA’s saving grace is that a tweak to the rules this time means that the host team cannot manipulate the course beyond this Sunday – five days before the action gets underway.

If Zach Johnson’s men are to finally end a barren three-decade spell on European soil, they must hope that the rule change finally works to their advantage.

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