Ryder Cup Preview – Marco Simone Golf Club, Italy (September 29 – October 1)
Posted by Jamie Martin on 2nd Oct 2023
Ryder Cup 2023 - Tournament Result
History will show Europe won the 2023 Ryder Cup convincingly, but it proved to be an extremely nervous and sweaty Sunday for the home side at Marco Simone.
After a 4-0 European whitewash in the Friday morning session, the US was on the back foot from the outset.
It took until Saturday morning for the Americans to claim their first full point of the contest and heading into the Sunday singles matches, Europe needed only 4½ points to claim the cup.
But the US finally turned up and showed some grit on Sunday.
The leaderboard was awash with red for much of the final day and a miracle upset was a distinct possibility.
However, it was Europe’s best players who would turn the tide of the contest.
In the crucial lead-off match, Jon Rahm halved his match against world No.1 Scottie Scheffler after the American hit a poor pitch shot on the final green to relinquish his lead.
Dominant victories by Viktor Hovland and Rory McIlroy were timely given the US held the advantage in five matches and it left Europe needing just 1½ points from the remaining seven matches still out on the course.
England’s Tyrell Hatton went on to defeat Open champion Brian Harman to claim a point and his Englishman, Tommy Fleetwood, guaranteed the win after hitting one of the best drives of the week at the 16th hole.
Fleetwood’s foe Rickie Fowler conceded the hole, which guaranteed Europe the half point they needed to win back the Ryder Cup.
FINAL SCORE
Europe 16½ – 11½ US
PLAYER POINTS
Europe
4: Rory McIlroy
3½: Tyrell Hatton. Viktor Hovland
3: Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm
2½: Robert MacIntyre
2: Ludvig Aberg
1½: Shane Lowry, Justin Rose
1: Matt Fitzpatrick, Sepp Straka
½: Nicolai Hojgaard
US
3½: Max Homa
2: Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman
1½: Wyndham Clark, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas
1: Sam Burns, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth
0: Rickie Fowler
The biennial grudge match between the US and Europe is about to kick off and after a record loss last time, Europe will be hoping to bounce back on home soil.
The Ryder Cup will be held at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club just outside Rome, Italy, from September 29 – October 1.
Here’s how the 44th edition of the time-honoured match play event is shaping up.
THE TEAMS
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THE FORMAT
There are 28 points up for grabs at a Ryder Cup, with the first side to reach 14.5 points winning the Ryder Cup trophy.
One point is rewarded for a win, half a point if a match is tied.
Here’s the Ryder Cup schedule of play:
Friday: Morning session of 4 x foursomes matches (alternate shot) and an afternoon session of 4 x Fourball (better ball) matches.
Saturday: Morning session of 4 x foursomes matches (alternate shot) and an afternoon session of 4 x Fourball (best score) matches.
Sunday: 12 singles matches.
THE COURSE
Located in the rolling Italian countryside on the outskirts of Rome, Marco Simone Golf and Country Club is the host venue for the 2023 Ryder Cup.
The course opened for play in 1991 but underwent a total rebuild in 2018 to prepare it for the Ryder Cup.
While the new layout has been optimised for match play, boosting spectator capacity was also a priority (270,00 people attended when the Ryder Cup was played at the Le Golf National course in Paris in 2018).
Every par five is reachable in two while a number of risk-reward holes on the back nine will increase the excitement level for match play.
The Italian Open has been played at Marco Simone for the past three years.
At around 7300 yards in length, the course is not overly long but a “special” Ryder Cup set-up should see it play significantly harder than it has in Italian Open trim.
THE CAPTAINS
Zach Johnson and Luke Donald will be very busy men at this year’s Ryder Cup.
While two-time major winner Johnson has been in charge since early last year, his European adversary in Donald was a late ring-in.
Affable Swede Henrik Stenson was sacked as European captain after joining the LIV Tour a year ago, prompting Donald to get the gig.
Both Johnson and Donald have served as assistants in previous Ryder Cups, so they should have a fair idea of how to foster team unity and draw up the all-important pairings during the event.
While they won’t hit a ball, one thing is certain: one of them will be feted as a genius in victory, and the other will be blamed for defeat.
ITALIAN HOSPITALITY
This year’s Ryder Cup is the first time the event has been held in Italy and only the third time it’s ventured to continental Europe.
The thrust to secure the Ryder Cup for Italy came from fashion scion Lavinia Biagiotti, owner of the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club and daughter of the late fashion designer Laura Biagiotti (mother and daughter pictured below).
The Biagiotti family bought the acreage that Marco Simone sits on in the 1970s, with the construction of the golf course commencing in the late 80s.
With over 200,000 spectators expected to descend on Marco Simone for the Ryder Cup, Lavinia Biagiotti will be welcoming them personally.
She lives in the restored castle (pictured below) that sits between the sixth and eighth holes — pioneering astronomer Galileo Galilei is also believed to have lived there — and has worked diligently to preserve the history of the area.
Several holes in the redesign had to be rerouted after excavations unearthed Roman ruins and the remains of a Roman villa, featuring mosaics dating back to the first century, sits adjacent to the 10th hole.
CAPTAIN'S PICKS
With half a Ryder Cup team now selected via a captain’s pick, deciding who makes the final cut is the most important decision a captain will make during his tenure.
This year the captain’s picks turned out to be a more controversial than usual.
For US captain Zach Johnson it was selecting US PGA champion Brooks Koepka, a contentious pick only because he plays on the LIV Tour, and Justin Thomas, an experienced Ryder Cup hand who has been out of form all year.
However, his European counterpart Luke Donald faced a much tougher call.
Poland’s Adrian Meronk was considered a lock for the European team, especially after winning the Italian Open at Marco Simone earlier this year.
But Donald opted to go with Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg and Nicolai Hojgaard, the young Dane who finished 20 spots behind Meronk on the European points list.
It was a heartbreaking decision for Meronk and the Pole admitted he was sad, shocked and angry after missing out.
But it appears that Donald is prepared to back in recent form with his captain's picks this year.
GLENEAGLES 2014: A CAUTIONARY TALE
Zach Johnson and Luke Donald will do well to learn from what transpired at the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, Scotland.
Tom Watson, an eight-time major winner, was captaining the US team but seemed to lose his team after offering some curious “pep talks”.
Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley won their opening Fourball match on Friday but dug themselves a hole in their Foursomes match against Victor Dubuisson and Graeme McDowell after driving it poorly.
Watson approached the pair and growled “When are one of you guys actually going to hit a fairway?”
On Saturday Watson benched Mickelson and Bradley for both sessions and the US faced a 10-6 deficit.
With the players hoping for some inspiration from their leader heading into the Sunday singles matches, Watson started his Saturday night speech with “you guys suck at Foursomes.”
It all ended in a 16.5-11.5 defeat for the US side and at an awkward post-match press conference after the event, Mickelson led a one-man mutiny against Watson when seated just a few seats away from his captain.
Mickelson threw Watson under the bus in a blunt and humiliating assessment of Watson’s authoritarian approach to captaincy.
Memo to Johnson and Donald: don’t tell players they suck and don’t sit anyone out for an entire day’s play.
LOOK OUT FOR…
The heart and soul of the European side are without doubt Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, but last time out at Whistling Straits they were stung badly.
McIlroy, who lost the first three of his matches before winning his Sunday singles match against Xander Schauffele, was in tears afterwards as he admitted he should’ve done more.
Meanwhile Rahm got spanked 4&3 by Scottie Scheffler on Sunday after teaming brilliantly with countryman Sergio Garcia to notch three wins on Friday and Saturday.
On the US side, expect Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay to fire up.
The pair were unbeaten when teaming up at Whistling Straits and Cantlay dominated Shane Lowry in his Sunday singles match with a 4&2 victory.
VIKTOR HOVLAND
Viktor Hovland has been at his devastating best the past few weeks.
The Norwegian superstar won the FedEx Cup title amid the hottest run of his golfing life and looks poised to make his presence felt at this year’s Ryder Cup.
Hovland made his Ryder Cup debut at Whistling Straits in 2021 but only managed to scramble a single point courtesy of a couple of halved matches.
But in the past two years, he’s improved to the point that he is arguably Europe’s best player behind McIlroy and Rahm.
Expect to see him come out firing at Marco Simone.
BROOKS KOEPKA
This year’s Ryder Cup sets up perfectly for Brooks Koepka to show why he’s one of the most feared opponents in match play.
Brooksy, the only LIV Tour player to get the call up, is never more motivated than when playing on golf’s biggest stages.
And majors aside, it doesn’t get any bigger than a Ryder Cup on foreign soil.
No-one seems to carry a chip on their shoulder better than Koepka but his Ryder Cup record up to this point is just so-so.
At his debut on home soil at Hazeltine in 2016, he went 3-1 but struggled to have an impact in Paris in 2018 when he recorded just one win from four matches.
And at Whistling Straits in 2021, Koepka broke even with two wins and two losses.
Could Brooksy be the man to step like Dustin Johnson did last time (5-0 record at Whistling Straits)?
MAKING THEIR DEBUT
This Ryder Cup will see each team field four rookies.
On the European side, it’ll be Ludvig Aberg, Nicolai Hojgaard, Sepp Straka and Robert MacIntyre teeing it up for the first time while the US team will be represented by Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Sam Burns and Max Homa.
Two of the US team’s rookies were major winners this year (Clark and Harman) while Homa and Burns both played in the US Team that blitzed the International side in the President’s Cup last year.
The Euro rookies, however, are much less seasoned. Especially Ludvig Aberg.
The Swede only turned pro in June but his phenomenal college golf record and a win at the Omega Masters in Switzerland this month convinced captain Luke Donald to throw the 23-year-old in the deep end.
Aberg graduated directly to the PGA Tour after he was crowned the No.1 player in US college golf and Donald is expecting big things.
LAST TIME AT WHISTLING STRAITS
The Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, Wisconsin, two years ago ended in a record victory for the American team.
The final margin was 19-9 and the US team, captained by Steve Stricker, were clearly the better team.
They raced to a 6-2 lead on the first day then extended it to 11-5 on Saturday, meaning they only needed 3.5 points from the 12 singles matches on Sunday to win the cup back.
On paper, the US team again looks like they should win but that’s not always how the Ryder Cup works out.
The last time an American team won the Ryder Cup on foreign soil was back in 1993.
But could Italy be the drought breaker?
HORSES FOR COURSES
Much like an Indian cricket pitch, expect Marco Simone to be set up to suit the home side.
Back in 2018, Le Golf National in Paris was tricked up to suit the Europeans.
The greens rolled at a sluggish 10 on the Stimpmeter, much slower than what's considered normal on the PGA Tour.
Then there was a mowing line that made the fairways ultra-narrow and were surrounded by dense, thick rough.
And nearly every water hazard was in play whenever players opted for a driver off the tee.
The course set-up was designed to thwart the US side’s “bomb and gouge” approach by limiting the American's power and strength advantage.
While the Paris set-up was borderline absurd, expect Luke Donald to have suggest some subtle conditioning and set-up hints to Marco Simone’s green's crew to benefit the European team.
THE MIRACLE AT MEDINAH
The most famous European victory in Ryder Cup history, now known as the Miracle at Medinah, came in 2012 and still rates as one of the most astounding turnarounds in sport.
Europe were down 10-4 at one point late on Saturday, with the Ryder Cup destined to be won back by the US, but Ian Poulter closed with five birdies to win his fourball match with Rory McIlroy and it somehow shifted the momentum of the contest.
On Sunday, Poulter was again in the thick of the action, winning his final two holes to beat Webb Simpson, and Europe claimed the first five matches.
With the other matches evenly split 2-2, Germany’s Martin Kaymer, playing in the second-last match, secured the final point Europe needed to hit the front.
Staring at a six-foot putt on the final green to win his match against Steve Stricker, Kaymer calmly drained the putt to retain the Ryder Cup and complete one of the greatest comebacks in sport.
GET A GRIP
Display your Ryder Cup allegiances with a special edition SuperStroke Ryder Cup putter grip from GolfBox.
Available in SuperStroke Pistol 1.0 or Tour 2.0, you can get behind the Stars and Stripes or just let everyone know you're supporting the underdogs with a blue and yellow Euro team grip.
RRP is $79.99.
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Written by Jamie Martin Jamie Martin is currently locked in a battle to keep his handicap hovering around the mid-single digits. Despite his obvious short-game shortcomings, Jamie enjoys playing and writing about every aspect of golf and is often seen making practice swings in a mirror. |