How home field advantage will decommission the American bombers

It is one of the privileges of being the home team at a Ryder Cup that you have the right to set up the host course your way.

And though the Europeans kindly marked out five potential hole locations on each green for their American guests on the Albatross Course at Le Golf National during yesterday’s practice rounds, United States skipper Jim Furyk is under no illusions that opposite number Thomas Bjorn has configured this weekend’s layout to take the driver out of the hands of the big bombers off the tee, the majority of whom are American.

Ireland’s Paul McGinley, Europe’s winning 2014 captain, believes the driver may not come out of the bag much more than four times around this 7,183-yard par-71 course and Furyk agreed.

“I know the exact four holes he’s talking about. In colder weather, there may be a few more. It is somewhat limiting off the tee for most players, even someone as short as I am on the PGA Tour, when I played here in July I only went around with seven drivers. The longer players, I could see three or four pretty easy.

I still think it’s a great golf course. I don’t think there’s a guy from either side of these teams from Europe or the US that would not say this is a great golf course. You’ve got to put the ball in the fairway.

“It very much is a positioned-off-the-tee golf course, and you can get aggressive. The better iron players, the better putters, the better thinkers are going to have an advantage around here.

“I still think the best players in the world on either side... you know, Rory McIlroy is one of the best players in the world and he bombs it, but Rory is going to find a way to play well on any golf course because he’s a good player. That’s what all these players are going to have to do.

“It does limit some of their length and the advantage that they have, but the best players on either side of the pond are going to find a way to play.”

There is no suggestion of skullduggery in any of this, just one of the advantages of playing at home, and equally in the gift of the Americans when they host the Ryder Cup every four years. What is striking coming to Le Golf National this time around, though, is just how different it is compared to Hazeltine National in Minnesota two years ago.

“It’s a completely different golf course, to be honest,” Bjorn said. “It’s tight. Hazeltine was wide. It was a long golf course. There’s a lot of rough. There’s no rough in Hazeltine. All the differences you can come up with, they are here. That’s it.

“That doesn’t make Hazeltine a bad golf course and it doesn’t make this one a bad one, either. They are both great golf courses in their own rights, and that’s what it is.

“But this is the course we’re playing this week, and all those 24 out there now trying to figure out how to play it the best way.

“I like the idea of a golf course that’s set up like a championship golf course. You’ve got to identify guys that are hitting the golf ball well. Identify guys that are playing good golf during the week.”

Bjorn does not see any set-up as particularly suiting one side or the other when a Ryder Cup comes along. What will separate the teams is their familiarity with the course. Le Golf National has been an annual stop for the European Tour with the Open de France played here since 1991. Yet American participants have been few and far between, with Bubba Watson’s visit in 2011 memorable for all the wrong reasons after he displayed a surprising lack of knowledge about the famous sights of the French capital. Even this summer, only Justin Thomas of this American team played the 2018 French Open while Furyk and other team members made a special trip to play here in July.

“In today’s world, these guys play the same golf courses,” Bjorn said. “They play the same tournaments; 25 years ago, they didn’t play the same tournaments, the same golf courses.

They are very much similar type of players, so you can put as much into the golf course as you want, but I think when you’ve got a venue like this and a course like this, you can only do so much. And I’ve said from the beginning, it’s difficult to grow water. It’s difficult to make those big changes.

“This golf course is very similar to what we are used to when we come here, and that’s probably more the thing that I like. There’s guys on this team that’s played a lot of French Opens. I don’t want them to show up and it’s a completely different golf course to what they are used to. This is very similar to what it is normally.

“It would be strange if it was anything different when you came here, so that’s where they are.”

Furyk said he had given his players as much information as he possibly could about Le Golf National and now it was up to them acclimatise.

We had six guys that had played the golf course. We had guys here in July playing it. They have relayed some of the information. For some of the guys that had not played the golf course, I had a couple that walked up to me yesterday and said, ‘Wow, you said it was going to be tight, it sure is’.

“Generally, they were prepared. They knew what to expect, and it wasn’t like it slapped them in the face all of a sudden where you show up sometimes to an event, you know, across the pond or to maybe an event when I’ve gone to foreign tours and played; you have no idea what you’re getting into before you get there, and you go, oh, ‘wow, this is hillier’ or this or that.

“They were prepared. They knew what to expect here, but it’s always going to be different.”