KEEGAN BRADLEY Rotted the dice with dangerous movements … and lost a lot

Farmingdale, NY – sometimes a captain makes a strange call. A intestinal decision. Something that really doesn’t make sense on paper but maybe it makes sense in vibrations.

Jimmy Walker knows it well. Yes, this Jimmy Walker -To times Ryder Cupper who was in Manhattan on Thursday night as the guest who speaks at a Ryder Cup celebration. We talked to the bar for a few minutes, just enough time for me to ask them something I have long wanted to create.

“Don’t forget in 2016,” I started, “When Davis Love paired you with Zach Johnson in Foursomes?”

Pairing made little analytical meaning-even if Walker won the PGA championship a month ago-in a stretched shade, to have Johnson hit with a short blow hitting a bunch of tee shooting and longer handcuffs.

“Yes,” Walker said, restoring the mind that week. “We were surprised by her.”

It happens! But these statistical errors are figurative door breaking that opens slightly wider for your opponent to traverse. And they happen to the American side much more than the analytical -minded Europeans who hire Edoardo Molinari -A player fixed from the data in his right -As an auxiliary captain to build almost any pairing.

So it was not at all surprised when Europeans violated their eight best players in Friday morning at essentially the most optimal couples possible. The Americans were not far apart except A Paling in particular. Going third, against the five main players in Rory Mcilroy and Tommy Fleetwood, Keegan Bradley paired Harris English and Collin Morikawa.

It was an obvious game of experience – Bradley choosing to sit down all three of his Ryder Cup novice and bend in a duo which played well during the last interior cup in Wisconsin. But when it comes to data after the current form of English and Morikawa, it was the less optimal pairing, According to Datagolf.

We are not talking Ah, I would go a different direction. We’re talking 132 out of 132 possible pairs. Datagolf gave English-Morikawa a 34.7% chance to win, the lowest of any of the first sessions matches.

And she lived until that billing.

Mcilroy and Fleetwood won 1st with a bird and never looked back. Those birds of birds 4 through 6 to win three others. English and Morikawa did not make an alternative Shota bird up to 9, at that point they were already 5 down. The match would end about an hour later, with Europe winning 5 and 4.

So Captain Bradley, remind us why you made that call?

“Collin Morikawa is one of the best ball strikers in the world,” Bradley said when he made his choices. “So is Harris. Harris is an extraordinary place. We really felt like they completed each other. They have similar behavior and they really like each other and they are extreme competitors. They enjoy the opportunity to play together.”

He is not wrong for any of that. But this event is difficult to chew like nothing else in the sport. And when you rely against the analytics, you open that door to criticism. According to DatagolfEuropean team pairs were optimized within one hundredth of a stroke, and after a session, they are leading on foreign land.

And given all this, there is still a very important thing to remember. When you join the two top five players in the world against two Top-30 players in the world, the numbers will not whisper. They will shout, maybe much higher than these good ones love them. But they will not be almost as vocal as those numbers that eventually take over the direction.

The ridiculous part about that 2016 match for Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson was European data analysts enjoyed that couple’s eyes that week. And about 15 hours later, they met one of the match golf bred at the highest level.

Walker and Johnson won easily, 4 and 2.