AMERICAN YOUTH BRIGADE WILL BE KEY AT WHISTLING STRAITS
KOHLER, UNITED STATES— The United States will be counting on six Ryder Cup rookies with impressive resumes as they try to wrest the coveted trophy from Europe at Whistling Straits.
The youth movement— against a veteran European side—is less risky than it might appear with the Americans counting the newcomers as RINOs—Rookies in Name Only— thanks to their accomplishments elsewhere.
“I have all the faith in the world in all the rookies,” said Justin Thomas, who made his own Ryder Cup debut in the loss to Europe in France in 2018.
“Your rookies are a twotime major champion in Collin Morikawa or a FedExCup Champion in Patrick Cantlay, and a [Tokyo Olympics] gold medalist in Xander Schauffele,” Thomas said. “When you’re looking at guys like that that are your rookies, that says a lot about your team.”
Hottest player of season
The other newcomers are Harris English, ranked 11th in the world, four-time US Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour winner Daniel Berger and 25-year-old Scottie Scheffler.
Scheffler may be the lowest-ranked player on the US team at 21 in the world, but only four of Europe’s players are higher in the rankings.
Cantlay’s late-season surge earned him Player of the Year honors on the US PGA Tour, where he stared down Bryson DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff to win the BMW Championship then edged world No. 1 Jon Rahm to win the Tour Championship and the $15 million FedExCup playoff crown.
Cantlay said he’s expecting the Ryder Cup to be a “more amped up version” of his playoff duel with DeChambeau, and he’s revved at the prospect.
“Playing in that environment, the idea of that, is really exciting so I’m looking forward to getting out there and experiencing it,” he said.
Cantlay, 29, and 27-yearold Schauffele, have already proved their match-play chops. At the 2019 Presidents Cup, they played together in all four team sessions, winning two foursomes matches and dropping two four-balls. Each won his singles match as they finished the week with 3-2 records.
The two prepped for the Ryder Cup with a joint holiday in Napa, California, and it’s odds-on that US captain Steve Stricker will put them together come Friday.
Useful insight
Cantlay said playing with a well-known partner is particularly helpful in the alternate shot format of foursomes.
“When you are playing and you hit a bad shot, you don’t want any sense of, ‘Oh, I wonder what my playing partner is thinking about the terrible shot I just hit,’” he said.
That kind of insight into the format will be useful, especially against an experienced European side that features just three rookies in Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry and Bernd Wiesberger.
And US veterans like Jordan Spieth along with Stricker and vice captain Phil Mickelson, have been advising the newcomers on managing emotions that always seem to be magnified in the Ryder Cup.