After the end of the Ryder Cup, the reactions and criticisms of important golf analysts immediately followed, who believe that the captain of the American team, Keegan Bradley, could have made different decisions. Namely, most were not satisfied with his moves, especially the decision to play foursomes first instead of fourballs.
Long-time analyst Mark Rolfing shared his opinion on Keegan Bradley's decision on the Straight Facts Homie podcast, apparently frustrated with Keegan's views.
He cannot understand why the experienced captain sent Europe's strongest format first.
The European team knew how to take advantage of this, and took a 3-1 lead already after the morning foursomes, and the afternoon fourballs won 2.5-1.5, which gave them a 5.5-2.5 lead.
The Europeans continued their excellent game and were dominant again on Saturday, winning the morning foursomes 3-1 and the afternoon fourballs 3-1, thus reaching a lead of as many as 7 points. This put the American team in a difficult situation, from which it was very difficult to get out.
Although the Americans were close to a miraculous turnaround, the Europeans remained calm and ultimately took the trophy away from America.
"I'll tell you where I think the Ryder Cup was lost," Rolfing said, as quoted by Golf Magic.
"I think it was lost a few months ago when Keegan Bradley failed to look at the format and say you know what, we need to start this thing with fourball and play the foursomes in the afternoon.
Look what happened in Rome. That format favours the Europeans, there's no question.
It's also a crowd quieting format. It's not nearly as electric as the fourball and I think he would have been much better off putting out fourball early on both Friday and Saturday and leaving the foursomes for the afternoon."
Keegan Bradley's expectations
As the captain of the team, Keegan could have expected strong reactions after this tournament, but he accepted to take on such a role anyway.
Although he did his best to make the US team celebrate in the wings of the fans, in the end the European team proved to be too strong for them.
Keegan is delighted that he could play such an important role in what many consider to be the most prestigious golf event.
