It´s hard enough predicting one City game, let alone 12 Ryder Cup singles, but here goes anyway, EU 10 USA 6 McDowell to beat Spieth - 11 - 6 Stenson to halve with Reed - 11½ - 6½ McIlroy to halve with Fowler - 12 - 7 Rose to beat Mahan - 13 - 7 Gallacher to lose to Mickelson - 13 - 8 Kaymer to halve with Watson - 13½ - 8½ Bjørn to lose to Kuchar - 13½ - 9½ Garcia to lose to Furyk - 13½ - 10½ Poulter to beat Simpson (Ryder Cup safe and sound) - 14½ - 10½ Donaldson to halve with Bradley - 15 - 11 Westwood to beat Walker - 16 - 11 Dubuisson to lose to Johnson - 16 - 12
Well I can safely say that I did appallingly, only 3 correct, however, only half a point out on the final score isn´t bad, if I say so myself. Great day, great event, great win!
Just been down the seafront in Rabac for one and now having another sat in my hotel room! AWESOME display by the European team and will find to USA for making a match of it!
Wonderful result and althouh it became close at one point Europe were always in control - just about! Forecasting results is very hard RBF and in many ways your predictions were as good as any. I think that GMac turning it around was the key and Rose was imperious, what a comeback against a top player in Mahan. Great enertainment as ever but Radio 5 coverage left something to be desired with trailers for their own programmes and Liverpool v Everton taking priority when they could have used Sports Extra. BBC tw*ts!
And there was me thinking McIlroy would halve with Fowler - I don´t think I´ve ever seen such a ´perfect´ start to a singles match by anyone, at any time, as McIlroy´s first 5 or 6 holes yesterday, totally faultless, brilliant stuff. But as you say G-Mac´s win was critical, 3 pts out of 3 for him, but I was never in any doubt there, Reed surprised me though, bit of a tough cookie. Still a 5 pts win is pretty conclusive, now gone 20 odd years since US last won in Europe.
Hi RBF, I agree with your comments about McIlroy. Sometimes I have felt that he hasn't given his all to the Ryder Cup, indeed he has said as much in the past, but his performance on Sunday was unreal because Fowler is a top player and would have beaten most of our team. Speith and Reed were the soul of their team and without them the overall score would have been a near walkover sadly. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the big debate over there as Mickelson looks to be digging and Watson is looking increasingly defensive about his overal strategy and 'gameplan'. That is a shame as Tom Watson is one of the all time greats and a true gentleman.
It´s always easy to slate the captain, THURNBY - but can´t see that he could have done very much differently. The only real surprise to me, was not playing Bradley and Mickelson at all on Saturday, the fact is, they lost it on the 4-somes, which they don´t usually play well, ´tis true, but here they were awful, losing 7 - 1 over the two days.
Thanks Dave - very interesting, I hadn´t seen that. McDowell certainly wasn´t the only one to praise McGinley for his captaincy, just goes to prove, that in golf, as in other sports, you don´t have to be a great player to be a great captain, or dare I say, manager.