Insights

10 Legendary Ryder Cup Shots — Scored with Clippd Shot Quality

Words by
Josh Coles
10 Legendary Ryder Cup Shots — Scored with Clippd Shot Quality

Over the years the Ryder Cup has produced a wealth of iconic shots. Using Shot Quality, Clippd’s powerful new metric that scores each and every shot, we can now calculate just how good (or bad) some of those shots were.

Shot Quality takes into account distance, lie, end result, weather and many other factors that impact the difficulty of each shot. A Shot Quality score of 0 denotes the worst possible outcome (such as lost ball or OB); 100 represents the expected score of the average male tour player; and 200 represents statistical perfection, such as a hole in one or holing out from long distance. 

We have not included any of the six holes-in-one recorded in the Ryder Cup because they all score the maximum 200 for Shot Quality. Find out more about Shot Quality and the layers of context Clippd factors into our calculations.

These 10 iconic shots from the last 35 years have been put through Clippd's Shot Quality algorithm, which factors a wide range of all-important context, such as course difficulty, course conditions, elevation, green speed, rough length and so on.

Click on the links below to watch videos of the shots and see what they scored for Shot Quality

1. Bryson DeChambeau's 1st tee rocket at Whistling Straits

2. Christy O'Connor's unerring 2-iron at The Belfry

3. Justin Leonard's 45-foot zinger at Brookline

4. Tommy Fleetwood's cup-clinching drive at Marco Simone

5. Bernhard Langer's agonising miss at Kiawah Island

6. Justin Rose's monster putt against Mickelson at Medinah

7. Jordan Spieth's miracle chip at Whistling Straits

8. Rory McIlroy's 'I can't hear you' putt at Hazeltine (and Patrick Reed's response)

9. Jamie Donaldson's cup-clinching wedge at Gleneagles

10. Seve Ballesteros' miraculous fairway bunker shot at PGA National