As of Sunday morning, the Europeans had very little chance at retaining the Ryder Cup. They trailed 10-6 after trailing by as much as 10-4 on Saturday, which put the Americans in complete control of their own destiny heading into singles match play on the final day of the event. Thanks to Europe’s refusal to win and America’s inability to close, the European squad was able to pull off an improbable comeback.
And actor Norm MacDonald saw it coming. After the matches were revealed on Saturday night, MacDonald took to Twitter and predicted the outcome of every match before concluding that the Europeans would make “the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history.”
“The American team is much better,” MacDonald wrote. “It would be the greatest comeback ever. And yet, it somehow seems likely.”
MacDonald was not right about every match, but he nailed the end result. He questioned U.S. captain Davis Love III’s playing order, saying that Davis knew what European captain Jose Maria Olazabal was going to do. He predicted wins for Europe in the first three matches and was spot-on as Luke Donald defeated Bubba Watson, Ian Poulter defeated Webb Simpson and Rory McIlroy beat Keegan Bradley — despite the fact that Rory almost missed his tee time.
The actor and comedian then rattled off a series of inaccurate predictions before getting back on track. He predicted ties between Justin Rose and Phil Mickelson and Graeme McDowell and Zach Johnson. Rose and Johnson won outright. He said Brandt Snedeker would beat Paul Lawrie with ease, but it was the other way around. He also predicted Nicolas Colsaerts would top Dustin Johnson, but Johnson prevailed.
But MacDonald became Nostradamus when calling the rest of the matches. He said Sergio Garcia would defeat Jim Furyk, and it looked like Norm would be wrong until Furyk blew it by bogeying the last two holes when two pars would have earned the Americans a point and one par would have earned a half-point. Jason Dufner over Peter Hanson? Check. Lee Westwood over Matt Kuchar? Check. That would leave the score tied at 13-13, and MacDonald predicted Stricker would continue to play poorly and Tiger’s match wouldn’t matter. That’s exactly how it played out.
This man deserves some serious credit. He may be a funny guy, but Norm obviously knows his golf (perhaps a little better than he knows boxing). It’s one thing to just predict a European comeback for the sake of hoping for a dramatic finish, but MacDonald took it a step further by explaining how Europe was going to pull it off. As far as predictions go, you can’t get much better than that.
H/T Justin Hokanson
