New faces carry no scar tissue

KOHLER (Wisconsin) • Dustin Johnson finds himself in a unique position as he prepares for his fifth Ryder Cup, which starts today.

He is the oldest of the 12 players in the United States team. It is an irony not lost on the 37-year-old who is also the top-ranked American at No. 2 in the world and still in the prime of his career.

"It's a little strange for me just that I've never been the oldest," he said. "I always felt like I was one of the younger guys on the team.

"Still feel that way, but obviously I am, I guess, the veteran on the team really."

Johnson has been part of only one winning US team, on home soil at Hazeltine in 2016. He has suffered three defeats, including a surprising rout by Team Europe in Paris three years ago.

US captain Steve Stricker went with a decidedly younger team for this week's event at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. The US squad includes six rookies - Daniel Berger, 28; Scottie Scheffler, 25; Collin Morikawa, 24; Patrick Cantlay, 29; Xander Schauffele, 27 and Harris English, 32.

The team are significantly younger than their veteran-laden opponents, who have four players over 40. The Europeans have won nine of the past 12 editions, including three of the past six on US soil, but Johnson feels that experience will not matter much.

"The teams I've been on the past, I feel like we've had tons of experience and it hasn't worked out so well," he said. "So maybe this is kind of an obviously different generation of golfers coming up, and we've got some really talented players, young guys that maybe don't have all the memories of losing all these Ryder Cups.

"Maybe this is the recipe."

The youth movement is less risky than it appears thanks to the rookies' recent accomplishments.

"Your rookies are a two-time Major champion in Collin Morikawa or a FedExCup champion in Patrick Cantlay, and a (Tokyo Olympics) gold medallist in Xander Schauffele," said Justin Thomas, whose first Ryder Cup was that loss to Europe in 2018.

"When you're looking at guys like that that are your rookies, that says a lot about your team."

Scheffler may be the lowest-ranked American player at 21st in the world but only four of Europe's players are higher in the rankings, while nine of the world's top 11 golfers are in the US squad.

Cantlay could be key this week.

His late-season surge earned him Player of the Year honours on the PGA Tour, where he stared down Bryson DeChambeau in a six-hole play-off to win the BMW Championship, then edged out world No. 1 Jon Rahm to win the Tour Championship and the US$15 million (S$20.2 million) FedExCup play-off crown.

Cantlay and Schauffele have already proved their match-play chops. At the 2019 Presidents Cup, they played together in all four team sessions, winning two foursomes matches and dropping two fourballs. Each won his singles match as they finished the week with creditable 3-2 records.

Both prepped for the Ryder Cup with a joint holiday in Napa, California, and it is odds-on that US captain Steve Stricker will pair them together today.

Cantlay said playing with a well-known partner is particularly helpful in the alternate-shot format of foursomes. "When you are playing and you hit a bad shot, you don't want any sense of, 'Oh, I wonder what my playing partner is thinking about the terrible shot I just hit'," he said.

That kind of insight into the format will be useful, especially against an experienced European side that features just three rookies in Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry and Bernd Wiesberger.

Morikawa, the world No. 3 who won the 2020 PGA Championship and this year's British Open, is relishing a long-awaited chance to do well in a team after missing out on the Presidents Cup.

"Just missing that team kind of just pushed me," he said. "I want to be on these team events, and these events are just so memorable that you don't really want to miss any."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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