Even if we won Clarke has to be up there with Faldo as one of the worst ever captains. Poor wild card picks in kaymer and Westwood (Knox and Donald would have done so much more)
Then he compounds the mistake by keep picking his two mistakes rather than players like Fitzpatrick and Willet who earned their spot.
And what the hell was breaking up the two amigos partnership?!!!!
Can never be forgiven for selecting Westwood. The has been that never really was.
Very easy to say that with hindsight.
You have five rookies qualifying automatically, three of whom (Willet, Wood and Sullivan) lost their form after a great early 2016. Pieters is going to be a great, but Knox as well would have been a bold choice. On form, you would have Casey, but that was very recent.
mumbles87 wrote:Fitzpatrick and Willet would have been a better shout than Westwood and Willet
I would have played Fitzpatrick again but Willet was the problem as much if not more than Westwood.
I don't really see much Clarke has got massively wrong. You could argue picking another rookie was the wrong plan on paper but Pieters has been fantastic. With 6 rookies though i can see the sense of a hugely experienced head in the team. McGinley got away with Poulter last time Clarke hasn't been so lucky with Westwood, although i would say willet didn't win a hole and put himself out of the last 2 holes while Westwood gave himself putts.
There isn't much between the 2 teams but the Yanks have produced a bit more top to bottom than we have.
SammyLeeWasOffside wrote:
I would have played Fitzpatrick again but Willet was the problem as much if not more than Westwood.
I don't really see much Clarke has got massively wrong. You could argue picking another rookie was the wrong plan on paper but Pieters has been fantastic. With 6 rookies though i can see the sense of a hugely experienced head in the team. McGinley got away with Poulter last time Clarke hasn't been so lucky with Westwood, although i would say willet didn't win a hole and put himself out of the last 2 holes while Westwood gave himself putts.
There isn't much between the 2 teams but the Yanks have produced a bit more top to bottom than we have.
Clarke has done lots wrong.. picking them in first place was the first mistake.. then playing kaymer and westwood so much when they out of form is a further mistake.. finally breaking up the spanish due was outrageous
Chicken Run Supreme wrote:I rather suspect the Yanks are going to win this by a greater margin than any of us predicted.
I have always liked Darren Clarke but he has made some poor decisions as Captain.
I predicted 17-11 in my post team comments, I didn't want to put it as my real prediction because I don't want to bet against Europe as the Ryder Cup is probably my favourite sporting event.
They have much better players than us currently. Some of our team are barely top 50 in the world.
nickkarkie wrote:
I predicted 17-11 in my post team comments, I didn't want to put it as my real prediction because I don't want to bet against Europe as the Ryder Cup is probably my favourite sporting event.
They have much better players than us currently. Some of our team are barely top 50 in the world.
Looking like a good prediction.
The bottom line is we have too many rookies who qualified early in the season and subsequently lost form. Add the Willett debacle and we would always struggle. I don't blame Clarke at all. I am not sure what he could reasonably have done differently.
Clarke made quite a few errors. Picking Westwood you can understand but after his first showing he should have been sidelined. Not playing wood after his great first performance, same splitting cabrera-bello.
Not much Clarke could do with fitzpatrick and sullivan, both are very streaky players, Willet too and even Kaymer, but Clarke should have seen that they were out of form and not picked them in the foursomes and fourballs.
