“Should probably give credit for the fact that that author admits in the midst of an episode that there’s no discipline or rhyme/reason to the podcast. It’s not planned, there’s no set order of the episodes or even structured storyline, and pretty much no production value or editorial decision making (music, design, archival audio, heck even re-created audio, etc etc). And I absolutely love the Ryder Cup.
You also don’t necessarily have to include any of those aforementioned “production values” to be a good podcast…but this is just 90 minutes of one guy talking, essentially just an author in love with his own thesis rambling word vomit into his tape recorder. It’s not good, at all. The book that results from this project is almost certain to be very good, but simply hearing the rambling uncut musings of its author does not make for an entertaining listen. Desperately needs a co-host to actually bounce ideas off of and actually counter some of his assertions, not to mention somebody who could function as a story editor and pare down the episodes to a coherent package of around 1 hour.
Additionally, and again this is all just opinion making, I completely disagree with the thesis of the project. Shane has fallen so hard for what another really good book dubs “The Captain Myth”, i.e. that the Ryder Cup captaincy carries with it special voodoo powers that can either uplift or hex the team, depending of course entirely how they play. I’m a little mystified on how a direct line can be drawn between captain decision making and making a 45 foot putt, but here we are.
The Americans have been on the losing end of the Ryder Cup because the European team plays better. That’s it. There is no Moneyball equation to figure out here but Ryan is hellbent on finding it - and it’s actually to his benefit that what he’s looking for has nothing to do with data, that way he can pick only the examples which support his thesis (like Seve in 1997) or prove it by way of failure (Tom Watson in 2014). Why ascribe to reality what can be more magically proven thru mysticism?”
Gipper22785 via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
08/20/21