FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
TRANSCRIPT – RYDER CUP & TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEW CONF. CALL (CHAMBLEE, FALDO, NOBILO)
ORLANDO, Fla. – September 13, 2016 – Earlier today, Golf Channel analysts Brandel Chamblee, Nick Faldo and Frank Nobilo participated in a media conference call to preview the TOUR Championship (Sept. 22-25) and Ryder Cup (Sept. 30-Oct. 2), both airing exclusively on Golf Channel and NBC. Attached is the transcript of the call. Combined, NBC Sports will carry nearly 50 live hours of tournament coverage over the course of the exciting two-week stretch.
Led by more than 25 hours of all-encompassing live action from the 1st tee through the final putt of each scheduled match on Golf Channel (Friday) and NBC (Saturday-Sunday), Ryder Cup coverage will be complemented by Golf Central Live From the Ryder Cup programming, making up nearly 90 live hours, and more than 170 total hours of Ryder Cup-themed programming Sept. 26-Oct. 2 on Golf Channel and NBC.
TOUR Championship Live Airtimes (All Times EST)
Thursday, Sept. 22 1-6 p.m. Golf Channel
Friday, Sept. 23 1-6 p.m. Golf Channel
Saturday, Sept. 24 10 a.m.-Noon Golf Channel
Noon-3:30 p.m. NBC
Sunday, Sept. 25 Noon-1:30 p.m. Golf Channel
1:30-6 p.m. NBC
Ryder Cup Live Airtimes (All Times EST)
Friday, Sept. 30 Day 1 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Golf Channel
Saturday, Oct. 1 Day 2 9 a.m.-7 p.m. NBC
Sunday, Oct. 2 Final Day Noon-6 p.m. NBC
NBC Sports Group Media Conference Call
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Brandel Chamblee | Nick Faldo | Frank Nobilo
THE MODERATOR: Hello, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join us today to preview the 2016 Ryder Cup along with next week’s TOUR Championship. NBC Sports Group will carry exclusive live tournament coverage of both events, totaling nearly 50 live hours combined over the exciting two-week stretch.
Joining us today on the call are Golf Channel analysts Brandel Chamblee, Nick Faldo and Frank Nobilo. Brandel and Frank both will be at Hazeltine as analysts for our Golf Central Live from the Ryder Cup primetime shows, while Frank also will work as the lead analyst for early-round and lead-in coverage of the TOUR Championship at East Lake next week alongside Terry Gannon.
Nick, on the other hand, will join Terry in the 18th tower at Hazeltine as a lead analyst during Golf Channel’s coverage of Friday’s Day One morning matches. Nick, as many may know, has more points than anyone in Ryder Cup history, 25, and represented the European team a record 11 times. He also captained the 2008 European Ryder Cup team.
In total, NBC Sports Group will dedicate more than 170 hours to Ryder Cup-themed programming, which will be led by more than 25 live hours of competition on Golf Channel and NBC.
Longtime sports broadcaster Mike Tirico will host NBC Sports’ coverage from Hazeltine all three days, and additionally he will conduct the trophy ceremony on Sunday. NBC Sports analyst David Feherty will be calling his first Ryder Cup as a broadcaster after competing in the famed 1991 “War By the Shore” as a member of the European team.
With that, I’d like to welcome in our analysts on the call. Guys, if you wouldn’t mind starting us off with a few words on what has your attention and certainly in reaction to U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III’s first three captain’s picks announced yesterday morning, along with the overall story lines for both next week at the TOUR Championship and the Ryder Cup in two weeks at Hazeltine.
NICK FALDO: Well, I’ll try and keep it under half an hour, Brandel.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: I’m just going to sit here and listen to you.
NICK FALDO: Once again, it’s a special time of the year. The Ryder Cup has grown and grown. I was involved with it 40 years ago when I was 20-years-old when it was Great Britain versus America, and it was just a non-event, and obviously I was involved with the transition through the ’80s along with Seve, Langer, Lyle, Woosie and others in the transition, which was a fantastic time, and wow, let’s fast forward to now. It’s now one of the most enthralling sporting events in the world. People, non-golfers, very much like the Olympics, will tune in to see 24 guys do battle, and it’s a great week, and I’m sure it’ll be another fantastic week with both teams wanting to win. America really does need to win after putting together their whole new approach and everything.
So yeah, once again, it’ll be fascinating. We’ve still got a long way to go. We’ve still got a couple of weeks before we get started. The famous Friday morning is something special. I’m glad I’m there on the call with Terry Gannon early that Friday morning. It’s a very special morning. I’m just looking forward to that Friday.
FRANK NOBILO: To go Ryder Cup first, I think when Nick mentions the fact that the transition, and I think that’s what is always lost on people when they went from 32 matches to 28, it would also be better to speak about that, but I think that’s also what added the excitement alongside having Europe involved. Not only was it four less points, but it made things like captain’s selections that much more important. Who are you going to pick?
And I think it also became a problem for America because America always seemed to have 12 stronger players on paper from 1 to 12, but because Europe had that incredible nucleus that Nick was very much part of, they could nearly pick around for a couple of days so that they were always in contention come Sunday, and consequently we fast forward, and Europe is on the precipice of perhaps winning four straight Ryder Cups, but also the fact of the selection system I think has come to raise its head again.
Personally I think both teams should select at the same time. It’s quite obvious that Davis Love looked at the European side and its number of rookies and went very, very conservative, and the other thing that I think is completely overwhelming is how there can only be two players in the World Rankings that are ahead of Bubba Watson, American players that is, and it’s a complete dis. So even if a Bubba Watson were to win at East Lake this coming week and then become the pick, it was loud and clear that he wasn’t really wanted to be part of that team.
I think that’s a little bit of something that would have to be adjusted by the task force coming through. I think the additional pick really singles out personality issues.
There’s a lot at stake, so I think that also leads to what’s going to happen at East Lake. I think that’s one of the big things; should a Bubba Watson play well, be picked when there’s only American players ahead of you in the World Rankings, and it’s loud and clear what the message is there.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Well, I’m looking forward to the most combative week in golf every two years, I think in a lot of aspects the most interesting week in golf every two years, and given the acrimony that fell out at the end of the 2014 Ryder Cup, I think this one will be especially interesting given the fact that the United States has formed sort of a task force to try and figure out through a committee what Seve was able to imbue into this team, and I think if any event owes any one player a tip of the cap, U.S. side, European side, really anybody who sits down and enjoys this competition, it’s Seve. He changed the nature of this competition. He made it the most exciting competition in golf, and even though he’s no longer with us, his spirit really does live on. You know, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
The United States has got the home-country advantage, and that’s worth almost two points historically, so given the fact that their world rank is about, well, half of what the European side is, you would think that they have the advantage. But when you look a little deeper, the U.S. side is older and nowhere near the ball strikers that the European side is. You put all those out there, and it should be a great back and forth.
Q. Nick, I wanted to ask you, you were part of the 1987 Ryder Cup team that was the first to win on American soil that was captained by Tony Jacklin, and I know Jacklin also had a pretty good U.S. Open at Hazeltine if I remember correctly, and I wanted to get your thoughts on Tony Jacklin and kind of what he brought to the Ryder Cup and the rivalry now that is the Europeans against the Americans.
NICK FALDO: Well, with Tony being a major champion, the Open and the U.S. Open, had lived and played a lot in America, and had expanded, as well, his life, and I think that’s when he basically turned to the — back then it was the good old British PGA who were in control of it, and said, you know, this has got to change. You’ve got to treat the guys the same. If we go there with plastic golf bags, which we did moons ago, and part of our wardrobe was a raincoat, I mean, goodness me. We didn’t feel like golfers, and we got walloped all the time, and him finally saying after 1983 when we showed how close we could get that you’ve got to treat the guys equally. You’ve got to stand up on the first tee — you cannot afford to stand on the first tee feeling a couple down to your opponents. So I think that’s basically — he upped the standards.
We rolled up first at Muirfield in Columbus, Ohio, on the Concorde, which was pretty darned impressive, and then we came wandering down the stairs in cashmere jackets, and it created an atmosphere.
As Brandel said, everybody got on. It’s a special week. He kept everybody together. Nobody was allowed out. He wants the whole team to eat together. That was probably the first — rather than saying, well, I’ll disappear and eat in a restaurant and see you guys tomorrow, everybody ate together, we all stayed literally in the houses down the first hole at Muirfield Village, and he created that — you really do feel as one and 12 guys.
Then you select a partner, and I remember him on the plane saying, right, I want you with Woosie, and we came in as soon as we landed, and we said, well, let’s go and play nine holes, proper foursome, and we went out and played two foursomes for nine holes, no practice extra shots or anything, ran around and — so I was set. I got my partner for the week. I was happy.
And I think that’s all the sort of — it’s keeping it simple. It’s that. Find a guy’s partner, you’re not going to mess around, and he was honest, he said, I’ve probably really got eight guys, I’m going to work you to death, you’re going to play eight matches, get used to it. We said fine, and we went and played. It was as simple as that.
Q. With respect to the United States team and the task force specifically, do you think that we’ll be able to measure the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of it purely based on the results of whether the United States wins at Hazeltine, or is there more to it than that?
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: I think it’ll take some time to measure the effectiveness of a task force, so you’re talking a decade from now you can look back and decide whether or not there’s been a consistency and a winning tradition.
Again, I’m not exactly sure what the task force is trying to do. It’s not — the implication is that it’s the picks that are winning and losing the Ryder Cup, and that’s not the case. It is whether or not the leaders or the best players on the team perform up to their world rank, and they haven’t been doing that on the United States side.
You go back to 1997 to now, and the two best players, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, have been a huge disappointment. They’ve played consistently year in and year out underneath their world rank, and everything has fallen out from there. So I’m not exactly sure what the task force is tasked with doing.
But as it relates to the picks for Davis Love, I think he did a nice job in rounding out his team with, as I mentioned earlier, some ball strikers and some players who have a history of being on some winning teams as it relates to J.B. Holmes. He’s played on a Palmer Cup, a Walker Cup, a Ryder Cup and a Presidents Cup, and every team he’s been on has won. Even though Rickie Fowler caused a few eyes to be raised because he wasn’t on great form, he is the best ball striker on this team. They needed to get some guys that could hit some good shots, because if they didn’t, they’re just going to get boat raced by Europe, because Europe has Rory and Stenson and Fitzpatrick and Rafael Cabrera Bello and Garcia and Rose and Kaymer and Westwood.
The U.S. side is some just — they really struggle off the tee with diving accuracy. The entire team that they have right now is 134th on average in driving accuracy. So if there’s any rough at Hazeltine, the U.S. Team is going to have a really hard time.
I think Davis Love put some good ball strikers on the team and some popular players and some players that have a good history, and it just remains to be seen the effect of those picks and the task force.
FRANK NOBILO: I’ve got to concur in the sense that we have to wait a little while. I know Nick was involved in it, but when the European Tour took possession, for want of a better description, of the Ryder Cup from a European point of view from the British PGA and Tony Jacklin ascended to captain, they tried to put the needs of the players first and foremost. There’s no surprise that the American side really is under the auspices of the PGA of America.
So the task force, I think, to be honest is to try and wrestle a little bit of that power away so that the decisions are made closer to the heart of the American team, and I think that that has come across.
There’s always going to be some growing pains with that, hence I’ve already referenced some of the personality issues. If you can get away with that — I was always amazed on how Europe could get — I know I struggled and we struggled from an international point of view on the Presidents Cup. You could take five or six of the toughest players in the world, which Europe had their nucleus, Nick being one of those that hailed from different countries, and yet you could cement them into a team, and they played like one, and yet all these players in America come from the same country and are allowed to be very, very different.
But the one thing I’ll probably differ with, when you look at the World Rankings there’s no question that the American players are strong enough and good enough, and Brandel has already referenced the details that it’s the top that’s always the issues. When Europe have won and played well, their best players have played well, and Americans — the American best players have not played well.
I think that’s the same in any sport, whether it be soccer or NFL or whatever. You need your stars to perform. If they don’t, it’s very, very hard for the team, for a player that’s seventh, eighth, 10th, 11th, to perform like world beaters week in and week out, let alone for one of the biggest events in the world, so it’s tough. Somehow that task force has to have some consistency in captaincy and putting players in a position to excel.
Rumor has it already that Davis is going to mow some of the rough down, to Brandel’s point of straight drivers, but these guys play courses week in and week out all over the world, and their World Ranking says that they’re better than their counterparts across the Atlantic. That’s always a head scratcher, but the task force will take a little time.
NICK FALDO: I’ll just add that the one thing everybody talks about is the passion of the Ryder Cup and what Europe has been able to do, and it’s very simple. You know, the Ryder Cup absolutely changed and transformed the European Tour. The players are playing actually for their future. American Tour has always been cash rich, always been. Sometimes it was triple the prize money of Europe.
And I think the best analogy I can give is when I came on Tour, approximately say 18 events were in Britain, about six were around Europe or just the national opens. Now that is completely the opposite. There’s like six events in Britain, and now many countries have more than just a national open, and obviously Europe is spread far afield, obviously no turkey are not involved, the true Europe, but part of the European Tour is events in Asia, as well.
So that’s what has happened. So the guys played for the passion of actually their future, the future of their Tour, and I think that’s why — sure, and there was plenty of fiery attitude from Seve and others, but if they felt downed by either players or media from America, there was that passion in the team room, as well.
But I think that’s the real transition — you should really get to Ken Schofield to comment. He’d give you real numbers of how the transformation in Europe happened and almost how quickly it happened. I bet from us winning in through those ’80s, by the time we got to the ’90s, Europe was really — well, Europe was Europe. The European Tour was expanding all the time, rather than just being the British Tour, British PGA. That’s when I started.
So I think that’s the bottom line for me is that the passion was really to pay it forward for us right there and make our Tour better each year, and obviously we paid forward to the European Tour now being on a good path to the American Tour.
Q. There are players on both sides who are ranked really high in the World Ranking. We talked about Bubba being No. 7, but Russell Knox also on the European side, and they didn’t make it on the team automatically. Is there more of a problem with the World Ranking or the Ryder Cup ranking, or was it just an add occurrence?
FRANK NOBILO: I don’t think it’s an odd occurrence. Russell Knox, I think it was more about commitment to the European Tour if you just heard what Nick Faldo said, and he talked about how important it was to the European Tour itself. Obviously Russell didn’t know he was going to win in China. I was at that event last year. I think if he had signaled his intention at the start of the season, which is only a couple of weeks before that, that he was going to join the European Tour, and perhaps played another event, maybe opposite Greensboro would have been an example, he could have played over there, that would have signaled an intent to the Tour that he hails from Inverness in Scotland, and that’s exactly where his heart is.
Obviously he has opportunities that are pretty large in America. So the fact that he joined the Tour, everybody talks about the fact that the points from the WGC event in Shanghai didn’t count. Well, that’s purely because he wasn’t a member. He signaled his intention afterwards.
I think that was taken into consideration by their captain Darren Clarke, that they try their nucleus together extremely close, and that he really wasn’t part of that lead-up going into it. No one doubts his ability or the quality of a player he is.
The Bubba Watson one is a little bit of a head scratcher because he plays the same Tour that they all do here. Nick, I know you were down at the Olympics, and Bubba was one of those ones that committed to the Olympics to play for red, white and blue from the beginning, so there’s no doubt he’s very patriotic. That’s more of the head scratcher.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: You know, to Frank’s point, it’s definitely not unique to this year with the World Rankings precluding some players. I’ll give you a pretty good example. I’m sure Nick Faldo can speak to this. In 1991, Nick Faldo and Jose Maria Olazabal were the second and third ranked players in the world at the time the Ryder Cup came around, and they had to be picked by the captain to be on the team. Remember that, Nick?
NICK FALDO: In ’91? Is that true?
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: It was you and Jose Maria Olazabal were the second and third-ranked players in the world, and you needed a pick to be on the team.
NICK FALDO: Well, that was back because of — yeah, if you came and played in America, they didn’t join the points, and they wouldn’t be playing both tours, and I think if you committed to go back to play in the States, then maybe you believed you could get your points on the six or eight events you played, or more, in Europe, yeah.
Yeah, I think it’s a good system. The points system is a good system, but I think Frank explained it very well there as opposed to Russell Knox, yeah.
Q. What will the backlash be from the Russell Knox decision in the European side?
NICK FALDO: I don’t think there will be any backlash. As Frank explained, he didn’t, wasn’t totally committed to the European Tour. Then he was right there. He’s a pretty darned good 13th man. The team has come together in Europe. Yeah, the biggest thing that Europe had to think about is having six rookies. This could be deemed as another transition time in the teams, when you get a team where it hasn’t quite got the — it’s got pretty good backbone. Obviously you’ve got Rose and Stenson and McIlroy, and if you look at Westwood or Willett as your next backbone, you’ve got Kaymer, Garcia, so they’re pretty good for a backbone, but that’ll be interesting — but they’ve got to perform. That’s the bottom line. Everybody has to step up. Everybody has positives, everybody has a negative to them, whether they’re on form, whether they’re fit, whether they’re physically, mentally tired or whatever. The big boys have got to perform, and then you’d better hope you get a couple of star rookie combinations that have an awesome week. That’s really the — that’s the crux of it all at a Ryder Cup. That’s just got to happen for you to win.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Europe, they’ve done such a great job of rallying around the decisions of their captain. In 2010 Colin Montgomerie didn’t pick Paul Casey who was seventh in the world, and the team came together. You know, there was at least nothing that I can remember open criticism of Colin Montgomerie’s decision, and in the end, Europe won.
FRANK NOBILO: Yeah, and consequently Paul Casey is no longer a member of the European Tour. But probably just a bookend on Russell Knox, from a positive point of view, I hope that motivates him and that he continues to be a member of both tours. I mean, he’s good enough. There’s no doubt. That decision also might have been forced on Darren Clarke’s hands by the new head of their Tour, Keith Pelley. We don’t know that. We won’t know that for a little while. There’s a lot of things that might have also assisted that decision. But we’ve all seen Russell Knox play, and we all know how good he is. So hopefully he takes that as just more fuel on the fire to become even better.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: It was a bit of an eye raiser, though, when the two best finishes for Europe last week [at the BMW Championship] were Paul Casey and Russell Knox, and neither of them are on the team.
NICK FALDO: We’ve got great depth in Europe now, you know.
Q. Nick, what was the most important thing you did to try and influence what you keep referring to as a team room, whether it was a team-building activity or something else that influenced the atmosphere there?
NICK FALDO: No, I think it’s the fact that everybody got on. Everybody helped each other. You’re all competitive every week, and you’re suddenly together, and if Seve needs a putting lesson, you give him a putting lesson. I remember playing with Costantino Rocca, and you’ve got to help him with his swing. I remember giving Mark James a putting lesson, things like that. You know, you just want the guys to play great, hole every putt.
But for me the most important team member was your partner. To me it’s a team of two, and that’s why you play four times, so it’s looking at your partner, and I think that’s what Europe have done very well on. I think all our famous partnerships, Seve and Ollie, I had great partnerships with Langer and Monty and Woosie, and they had other ones. We create partners which are so rock solid. It’s a great base. When you’re sending Seve and Ollie out the door first, that’s a pretty good feeling because you can almost bank a point. I mean, that’s the way you’re thinking. There’s no way somebody is going to beat them, and their record just about proved it.
I think when you’ve got that — so for me, I always call it a team of two. Yeah, you have a good time with everybody else and you know it’s the one week of the year you’ve got 12 other guys pulling for you while you’re standing over a putt, and you know that’s not true any other week, so you can feel good about that, but you’ve still got to do it.
But as I said, the most important thing was either being the wing man to your partner, I mean, I had young guys in Monty who he was young, Lee Westwood when he was young, Peter Oosterhuis was my wing man when I’m on my first two Ryder Cups, so I think that’s really important. That’s where Europe have shown so much backbone and strength. It’s finding the right partnerships to basically last for a couple of Ryder Cups.
Q. Guys, if you were captain, obviously, Nick, you’re been in this position, would you rather be in Darren Clarke’s position having a month knowing your team, having them start working together, working on pairings and all that, or would you rather be able to make a last-minute pick like Davis Love just in case somebody gets hot?
NICK FALDO: No, I like Davis’s one because it shows what happened. The [Billy] Horschel pick, it’s now come forward. Yeah, you would love to have that last opportunity, because hey, you don’t have to use it. You can say, I’m quite happy with the 12th man. He’s had a great season, but oh, my goodness, this guy has just come in the last month, he’s just won, whatever, won or second place, he’s the hottest guy on the blooming planet. Like Paul Casey could have a good claim of being one of the hottest guys on the planet, and you miss out. So yeah, I like the Davis pick thing, and you don’t start working on your picks. You have some ideas of your pairings. You’re looking to have some of those. But once you get there and start practicing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, that’s when you start to juggle pairings.
And again, you’re going to wait right until then, suddenly you hear a couple of guys who are really on who you didn’t think were on, and you then make your decision as a captain, do you go with a couple of names because they’re hot, the feedback is that they’re playing great in all their practice rounds, and do you go with it, or do you go with your so-called rock-solid four, eight guys on the first morning, or do you go with the guys you think are hot. That’s the toss-up for the captain to choose.
Q. If you were in Davis Love’s position with the final pick on September 25th, can you make a case for who you think is the most deserving for the final spot? And secondly, is that the same player that you believe will actually receive the final pick?
FRANK NOBILO: That’s a tough one. I mean, it’s more who he picked away from, as we sort of detailed earlier. By not selecting Bubba Watson in his first three picks means that I think the irony is as I said at the start, what would happen if Bubba Watson won at East Lake. Is that what he has to do to get the pick? It’s obvious his mind is on something else. Daniel Berger, that type of thing. And I think that’s where he’s looking, at the other 11 members of the team, which Brandel and Nick have sort of talked about where you’re trying to cement the chemistry and persuade the other 11 guys to roll the dice perhaps on a younger guy, whether it be a Kevin Na, whether that be a Daniel Berger, that type of player. But I don’t have one player specifically that I would think is specific right now.
NICK FALDO: If those are the names, between Bubba and Na and Berger, you’ve really got to go with Bubba because he’s been there and he’s got the experience, and as long as he’s got the chemistry for somebody to play with him, that’s the issue, I think, who wants to partner with him.
FRANK NOBILO: Or a Ryan Moore. That’s the other one that was mentioned.
NICK FALDO: Ryan, I was just going to say — I was going to ask Brandel who’s the best putter, and Ryan Moore, wow, that man can putt. The Ryder Cup as we know it all comes down to you’ve got to have the bustles to keep knocking in those four-, eight-, ten-footers or whatever, so that’s a very interesting one. He may — you may want the powerhouse because at Hazeltine power helps, doesn’t it, on quite a few of those long 4s and 5s I remember. So I’d be surprised if — well, I don’t know. I’d be surprised if it’s not Bubba, but I really don’t know. Really, really don’t know.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: I mean, I think Nick was alluding to it. You’ve got to make the putts. Statistically Bubba would be the worst putter on the team. He’s almost the worst putter on the PGA TOUR. You know, it would be hard to be a captain and look that direction at a player that didn’t make the team, to pick who’s been that poor on the greens. It would be very hard to make that pick. I couldn’t imagine making that pick.
I would go more with a Ryan Moore, who’s got a wonderful history in match play. He’s twice finished in the top 5 in the WGC Match Play. He’s got one of the best amateur match play records in history. Or I would sort of look towards youth and power and form in a Daniel Berger. I really wouldn’t be looking anywhere else besides those two players unless something pretty surprising happened at the TOUR Championship.
But that’s probably where I’d be looking.
Q. As a bit of a follow-up, Frank, you’ve alluded to it a few times with Bubba, but do you think that how the different members of the team get along with and match up with one another should carry as much weight as the actual credentials on the golf course that players bring to the table?
FRANK NOBILO: Yeah, it does. Both guys have talked about that, as well. The assumption there is Bubba has done something wrong or whatever. You can always look at a player’s weakness. But there’s only two American players that are ranked higher than him in the World Rankings, which is based on two years. He’s a two-time major champion who’s won on a ferocious set of greens. He’s won World Golf Championship events, so it’s weird. You know, like if you point the spotlight at Bubba Watson and his weaknesses, there’s no question, they are, and Brandel detailed his putting. But the thing is there’s going to be either nine or ten players on their team ranked him behind in the World Rankings, which is a body of work. So it means their deficiencies are greater. It depends on where you want to shine that spotlight. You can make an argument for anyone, driving length, driving accuracy, chipping, bunker play. You could point in each direction, but there’s a two-time major champion, and last time I looked at the American team, they don’t have a lot of those. It’s a head scratcher.
NICK FALDO: I agree, Frank, yeah.
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: There’s been many, many instances of captains picking over the next player on both sides, but some very notable ones on the European side. The first time Europe won on U.S. soil, the captain, the very next person to be picked, Tony Jacklin, should have picked Mats Lanner, and he didn’t. He picked Lyle and Jose Maria Olazabal and Ken Brown, and then the very next year, the next person to be picked was Philip Walton and he didn’t pick him, he picked Bernhard Langer. There’s tons and tons of examples, captains looking at the very next person and not picking them to fill out a personality, to fill out some statistical issues, so none of us can sit here — I don’t know. If you’ve been following what Davis says, he said he’s captaining this team completely different than he captained in 2012. In 2012 he did it by gut, and this one he’s looking deep into the metrics and he’s trying to match statistically strong people in one area with statistically strong people in another.
You know, we don’t know what Davis Love and his assistant captains are looking for, so I’ll be curious to hear the picks.
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