Getty Image
Team USA spent most of the last six months as the prohibitive favorite to win the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.
Conventional wisdom was that big names like Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka and more could cancel out the European superstars of Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland.
Then the seemingly deeper back end of the US team would outplay players such as Sepp Straka and Shane Lowry.
But as the tournament neared, that sentiment became a bit more shaky. Hovland entered the event playing better than anybody on the planet, and young players such as Ludvig Aberg and Nicolai Hojgaard looked like rising starts.
Meanwhile, US captain Zach Johnson made the controversial decision to select Sam Burns and the struggling Justin Thomas over players such as Keegan Bradley, Dustin Johnson and Bryson Dechambeau, among others.
Johnson then doubled down on the bold moves when he sent Ryder Cup rookies Burns, Brian Harman and Max Homa out in the opening session while benching veterans such as Thomas, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth, each of whom have a winning record in the event.
That move appears to have backfired, at least in the early going on Friday morning’s foursomes session. Team Europe took early leads in all four the morning matches, with the Euros holding multiple-hole leads in two of the four matches.
American fans were quick to turn on Johnson, whom they’d already felt had not fielded the best team possible.
“Zach Johnson should be tried on war crimes and treason for this lineup,” one fan tweeted.
“Turns out the “Make sure everybody’s best friend gets to come on the trip” strategy of team construction wasn’t all that enlightened after all who ever could’ve seen this coming,” said another.
One fan even took to the using Kevin James/King of Queens meme to show his displeasure with Johnson.
Zach Johnson when it’s time to pick a good pairing pic.twitter.com/lyLgeVYMkF
— Arkansas Razorback Football Pallbearer JJ (@jjstrill) September 29, 2023
Ultimately, Twitter user @drive1n_manager said it best…
“This is an a**-kicking. No idea what Zach Johnson was thinking with these pairings.”
Yikes…