Did U.S. vice captain Kevin Kisner tell J.J. Spaun and his coach that he better earn an auto pick to the team? 'We tell everybody that'
Are Ryder Cup rookies going to get a fair shake as captain's picks for the U.S. side? It depends who you ask.
With his second victory of the season on Sunday at the John Deere Classic, Brian Campbell is making an impassioned push to be one of the 12 players to represent the U.S. team at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in late September.
Yet the 32-year-old Campbell, who played last season on the Korn Ferry Tour, still sits in 28th place in the U.S. Ryder Cup point standings, three spots behind Jordan Spieth, a five-time Ryder Cupper but who hasn’t won in more than three years. And that’s after Campbell jumped 18 spots from last week.
It brings up the age-old Ryder Cup debate of form vs experience. But golf instructor Adam Schriber brought up another wrinkle, which is just how much consideration rookies will get this time under the captaincy of Keegan Bradley?
In the aftermath of Schriber’s student J.J. Spaun winning the U.S. Open last month, Schriber already was looking ahead to Bethpage. “We ought to get that Ryder Cup now,” he said to a couple of journalists at Oakmont shortly after Spaun rolled in his clinching 64-foot birdie putt. “They said they won’t pick us. They said you got to get in the top 6. They’re not taking any rookies this time.”
Spaun’s victory coupled with five top-6 finishes on the season, including a playoff loss at the Players Championship in March, has Spaun looking to be a lock to make the team at third in the current standings. (The top 6, who automatically qualify, will be finalized on Aug. 17 after the BMW Championship.) Schriber didn’t specify who had told him that Spaun and other rookies better be in the automatic picks if they wanted on the team. A few days later, during a phone interview with Bradley discussing the Ryder Cup, I asked him about his approach to rookies being on the 12-man team this year.
“There is a lot of data that says rookies are great in the Ryder Cup,” he answered. “I know I played my best Ryder Cup when I was a rookie (in 2012). For me, when I won my PGA championship (in 2011), that was my first major tournament I'd ever played in and I didn't know what majors were like so like you go into it as a rookie and you don't know what to expect and I think that that can be an advantage sometimes.”
Indeed, Bradley has done his homework. According to 21 Club's stats guru Justin Ray, the U.S. hasn't had a year where rookies had a losing record since 2010. Rookies as captain's picks have a solid track record for the U.S., with an overall record of 20-17-8. In 2021, the most recent Ryder Cup on American soil, U.S. Captain Steve Stricker invested four of his captain's picks on rookies and they delivered on his faith in them going 8-4-1 for the week.
When I broached Schriber’s suggestion that rookies better make the team via the top 6, Bradley was quick to dismiss it.
“I don't know where that came from. That's not from me or us. That couldn't be further from the truth,” he said. “We want the 12 best players, I don't care how many Ryder Cups they've played in, where they play, if you're one of the 12 best Americans and we feel like you can help us win I don't care whether you're a rookie, LIV, PGA Tour, it doesn't matter to me.”
The following week, I bumped into Schriber in Detroit while he was watching his pupil Sam Ryder play in the pro-am and asked him who had made the comment about rookies. He said vice captain Kevin Kisner had relayed that sentiment to him and Spaun.
Reached by phone, Kisner confirmed it but said Schriber misinterpreted him and it was designed as a motivational tactic. “We tell everybody that,” Kisner said. “We’re telling all of them to strive to be in the top 6. That’s the way it’s always been.”
Kisner, who never made a U.S. Ryder Cup team, recalled Stricker giving him the same speech ahead of Whistling Straits. “That motivated me to play better,” said Kisner, who would win the Wyndham Championship just a few weeks before Stricker made his captain’s picks. “You see that with Ben Griffin. He’s playing just about every week because he’s trying to make the team. I see it as a positive thing.”
Despite Stricker telling Kisner he would have to earn his way on to the team, he ended up taking six rookies, passing on Kisner in favor of another first timer, Scottie Scheffler. The record of Scheffler and those six U.S. rookies the last time the Ryder Cup was played on home soil? 14-4-3 and a huge reason the U.S. won in record fashion in 2021. In the last three home Ryder Cups, American rookies have a mark of 28-12-3. (U.S. rookies went a respectable 7-6-2 on the road in 2023 during the beat down in Rome.)
According to “The Cup They Couldn’t Lose,” the fine book by Shane Ryan centering around America's victory in 2021, "Stricker had long maintained that he was happy to have so many first-timers – they came in with no Ryder Cup scar tissue.”
Spaun isn’t the only Ryder Cup rookie currently in the top 6. So, too, is Russell Henley, who is No. 4, though he did get some Cup experience last year at the Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal and made a winning pairing with Scheffler.
But those who may be motivated to make sure they get into the top 6 include Griffin, at No. 8, Maverick McNealy at No. 11 and Andrew Novak at No. 13. Lucas Glover, who won the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage, sits 16th, and Cameron Young, who won the 2017 New York State Open as an amateur with a then-record 64 at Bethpage, is No. 17. Next week's British Open at Royal Portrush includes double points and could go a long way to shaping the team.
Will Tour mainstays of recent U.S. team’s such as Spieth (8-7-3 since his debut in 2014), who is 25th in points, and LIV players such as Patrick Reed (7-3-2 lifetime in three Cup appearances), who won a PGA Tour event at Bethpage and recently claimed his first LIV title, and Brooks Koepka (7-6-2), who shot a course-record 63 at Bethpage en route to the 2019 PGA Championship there, be given greater consideration for their past successes at Bethpage and experience in the pressure cooker that is the biennial competition with Europe over unproven first timers?
Time will tell, but to hear Bradley and Kisner tell it, being a rookie won’t be held against them. Still, Griffin, McNealy and Novak may want to keep chasing an automatic pick just to be sure. In fact, if a captain is having second thoughts about fielding a team with several rookies, it might very well be Europe's Luke Donald as the Euro rookies combined match record in the last two Ryder Cup is a dismal 6-13-4.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Does the U.S. Ryder Cup team want rookies at Bethpage Black?
Category: General Sports
