US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley has received plenty of criticism for his decision-making at Bethpage Black last week.
Some of the calls that Bradley made were real head-scratchers and as a result, Team Europe were out of sight by the time the Ryder Cup singles matches teed off.
Bradley admitted he made a mistake with the Ryder Cup setup at Bethpage Black, after he instructed the rough to be cut down and essentially turned the competition into a putting contest.
It was a putting contest which the Europeans won handsomely, and while the scoreline was close in the end, that should not paper over the cracks of Bradley’s incompetence as captain.
However, Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley choosing to take the even and odd tee shots respectively was a call which may well have cost the US the Ryder Cup.
Incredibly, Scheffler admitted that his caddie advised him and Henley to switch the holes they teed off on for the Saturday foursomes.
Henley taking the odd numbered tee shots on Friday was something which the US captain should not have allowed in the first place.
What Team Europe did when Russell Henley hit first instead of Scottie Scheffler
It may sound harsh, but the truth of the matter is that Bradley made one unforgivable decision after another at Bethpage last week.
His decision to pair Collin Morikawa and Harris English together twice was a really poor one, and allowing Henley to take the tee shots on the odd numbered holes rather than Scheffler was equally as bad.
In fact, the Scheffler and Henley debacle was so bad that it gave Europe an instant leg-up in proceedings.
Brandel Chamblee has been speaking on his Favorite Chamblee Podcast and started off by grading Bradley’s performance as US captain.
He said: “I would give him a B. Luke Donald is A+. Keegan said he thought he was the greatest ever captain of the European Ryder Cup team and I tend to agree with him.
“I thought his captaincy in Rome was extraordinary and his opening remarks in Rome was extraordinary and his speech this year was extraordinary. It’s clear he’s very good at that and very smart and has a knack for setting the right tone and right vision to play the best golf they can play. Paul [McGinley] tells me he has never had a captain as good as Luke.
“But with Keegan, most people are fairly nervous to get up and talk to a massive audience. I think making it more uncomfortable for Keegan was the fact they moved the opening ceremonies. He thought he had one more day to prepare, so maybe he put that off and it caught him off guard.
“But I’m not saying he was bad by any means. Luke was just extraordinary in his opening remarks. I think Keegan did, on the whole, from start to finish a nice job. I really did. It’s hard to do something for the very first time with so much pressure on you.
“Having said that, I think there were mistakes made. I think Keegan would admit that. The set up of the golf course was far too soft. I don’t know how much it rained during the week, when I was out there, it only sprinkled while I was out there and I didn’t hear it storming at night. I don’t know exactly what the rainfall was. But I didn’t see the reason for the golf course to play that soft.
“More than that he widened the fairways and cut the rough. So that was the template for past US Ryder Cup teams, because they used to have players who hit everywhere so they would cut the rough, so they could hit it everywhere and still light the place up.
“But when you have players like JJ Spaun and Collin Morikawa and the longest, straightest driver in the game in Scottie Scheffler you should set the golf course up in a way where your stars have the ability to go out there and separate themselves. There was no difference between a drive in the fairway or the rough. You could even argue the drives in the rough were better as they weren’t spinning back off the greens.
“So that mitigates a huge strength of Scottie Scheffler and the fact that players could then hit great shots out of the rough mitigated his ability to hit great shots from the fairway, and because the greens were so soft it didn’t necessarily differentiate between great struck iron shots and poor iron shots.
“Then there were the problems with the foursomes. Rumour has it when Russell Henley hit first off of one, and your short hitter is not supposed to go off of one, so when he hit off one I could not believe it.
“And apparently the data team when Russell Henley hit that off of one they said that is one point won for us.“
Keegan Bradley used Bryson DeChambeau as an ‘Instagram moment’ at the Ryder Cup
Bryson DeChambeau was clearly given the task of being the US cheerleader at Bethpage Black.
However, one specific way that Bradley used him made no sense whatsoever according to Chamblee.
And interestingly, it involved the LIV Golf star taking the odd tee shots despite them suiting players who fade the golf ball.
Chamblee explained: “When Bryson DeChambeau hit off one, I felt like Keegan made that choice for an Instagram moment. Even though there was a bias of distance on the odd number holes, there was a big bias on right to left shots on even number holes.
“Bryson primarily hits right to left shots, so him going off of one was a head-scratcher.
“And then I think Collin Morikawa and Harris English, not just for one foursomes day when they lost, came back the next day!“
As Chamblee explained there, Bradley made a whole multitude of baffling decisions at Bethpage, and having DeChambeau tee off on the first was just one poor call among many.
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