Report: European Ryder Cup Team Had Last Minute Issues With Their Balls

You’d swear this couldn’t be real but then, we know Ryder Cuppers and their (golf) balls can be an issue, particularly when players are with different companies.

Still, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of pairings changed up last minute over golf balls of the same brand. That this took place on Ryder Cup Wednesday suggests the “plan” was not so ironclad.

From James Corrigan with the Telegraph exclusive:

However, Telegraph Sport has learnt Harrington’s best-laid plans were ultimately forced to be ripped up on the Wednesday, the penultimate day of official practice, when it was discovered that Lee Westwood and Paul Casey played different balls and, so too, did Matt Fitzpatrick and Viktor Hovland. Harrington felt obliged to make a hasty switch in the quartet of duos he named 24 hours later, with Westwood partnering Fitzpatrick and Casey teaming up with Hovland. Both partnerships lost.

Hovland and Casey did not appear together again, but Westwood and Fitzpatrick also went out in the Saturday foursomes, which they again lost. 

“Maybe they should have thought about the ball issue earlier, as it is always part of the equation of putting two players together in a foursomes,” an insider said. “But all four play Titleist and you might have thought it would be fine. Yet there are different sorts of Titleist balls.” 

Yes you’d think they’d have (A) worked this out on Tuesday…of the BMW at Wentworth, (B) could suck it up and make a 2019 ProV work when the other guy is playing the 2021 ProV, (C) been content to go with the Ryder Cup rule using the rule allowing players to switch balls at the end of each hole.

Here’s the best part of this first world folly: the Europeans were acting like…Americans. Even our most spoiled would get on the Trackman and figure it out. But not these Euros!

Next up: Brexit is somehow to blame for the 19-9 loss.

Speaking of…that’s going well.