With the TOUR Championship in the books, there’s only one PGA Tour event left on the 2016 calendar: The Ryder Cup.
Let’s find out below who’ll emerge victorious from this timeless, biennial match-play tournament at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota between the best golfers that the United States and Europe have to offer.
Afterwards, click here to also find out how the experts from the internet weighed in on the PGA Tour’s last hurrah for the year.
After having enough of the three-straight losses at the Ryder Cup, Team USA pulled out all the stops to make sure there won’t be a fourth-straight loss on the horizon.
The Americans re-enlisted Davis Love III as team captain after the utter mismanagement by Tom Watson in 2014. DL3 even has an 11-man “task force” behind him to help motivate the gang and provide strategies on how to finally beat the Europeans, with Tiger Woods (for better or for worse) being one of the more infamous names on that unit.
Regardless of all the hubbub surrounding this task force, the United States is still armed with a bevy of golfers that can end the Red, White and Blue’s misfortunes at the Ryder Cup. Dustin Johnson, most notably, can very well single-handedly vault his troops to victory. Johnson had a magnificent second-half to this season, with all three of his victories having been attained after mid June, which includes his first-career major title at the U.S. Open and the BMW Championship from just a couple of weeks ago.
Joining DJ will be two other standouts in match-play: Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed. The two proved to be a force to be reckoned with as a pair from the 2014 edition of the tournament and can definitely give a scare to the young Europeans this year. In addition, team USA’s morale will receive a huge boost as they play in memory of the the late, great Arnold Palmer, who passed away this Sunday at the age of 87.
The Euros have dominated the Ryder Cup for what seems like an eternity already, so it might be a bit too overzealous on their part to go really young with their team this 2016.
Six European rookies will see action at Hazeltine this week, and that’s basically half of the team’s roster with relatively meager experience playing with the big boys of the PGA Tour. Do names like Thomas Pieters, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Andy Sullivan ring any bells? Nope, we didn’t think so.
Team Europe also took a huge blow with Henrik Stenson entering the tournament still dealing with his lingering back and knee issues. Stenson, who had a banner 2016 by winning his first-ever major title at The Open Championship in July, has been a key cog to this finely-tuned corps of golfers from across the Atlantic, and his lack of or hindered involvement in Minnesota may further scrutinize team captain Darren Clarke’s audacity of not including more veterans to the team to win a fourth-straight Ryder Cup title.
Then again, having Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia as main anchors for the Europeans may be more than enough firepower for the Americans to handle once more. McIlroy is fresh off his season-capping TOUR Championship victory from Atlanta this past week for his second win in September, while Garcia had a nice bounce-back campaign this year himself. Both have been equally integral to Team Europe’s success at the Ryder Cup of late, and they both have rather cocky personalities to back up their strong game and intimidate the Americans all over again.
Writer’s Prediction
The Americans (-185) overcome the immense amount of pressure and expectations laid unto their team and finally beat the Euros with a narrow two-point margin of victory.
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