Edoardo Molinari, the secret weapon of Europe in Rome for Ryder Cup 2023

Viktor Hovland won his first PGA Tour event at one of this season’s biggest events. And more.

Hovland won the Tour in all four of his last seasons, but Edoardo Molinari who is also Hovland’s performance coach noted that some of these wins had something in common.

All of his Tour victories before 2023 were on tropical islands, including Puerto Rico, Mexico near Cancun and two unofficial titles won in The Bahamas. Ironic, given that Hovland was born in Norway.

Molinari joked: “Sometimes, I tease that it’s time for him to win on a real golf course and not a tourist spot.”

Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio is a course that Jack Nicklaus designed near his childhood home. It hosts the Memorial every year. Olympia Fields in Chicago, where Hovland won the BMW Championship with a final round 61 in August, also qualifies. Hovland’s second win came at East Lake in Atlanta where he won the Tour Championship as well as the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Hovland’s Memorial victory was special because of the way he did it. He didn’t have his best game from tee-to-green, but he had a shortgame that made huge strides and a putting stroke that kept him in the game.

He also credits his improved course-management. He played a practice session at the U.S. Open in 2016 with Molinari. The brother of the 2018 British Open champion Francesco won that tournament. A week later, Hovland used some of Edoardo’s tips to win the BMW International on the DP World Tour.

Hovland said, “I was very impressed with his way of thinking.” In a separate interview he described him as a “genius when it comes stats.”

Number cruncher

Hovland, 42, hired Molinari to help him with his strategy. It has paid off handsomely. Hovland said Molinari crunched the numbers before his win at Jack’s Place and found that Hovland was short-siding 30 percent of the times when he attacked greens using a pitching wedge or 8-iron. This is higher than the Tour average (20 percent).

Hovland explained that he was a good iron-player and therefore, he should have a score of 15 percent or less. “I put too much pressure on the short game because I was too aggressive.”

Hovland, at the winner’s conference in June, said: “It would kind of be a double-whammy.” “But I told myself this week that if I was out of position I should just aim for the fatter portion of the green. If I missed the green I could still roll the ball or slow it down to get close to the pin.

Imagine what Molinari could do for the 11 other players, including Hovland who will form Team Europe in Molinari’s native Italy, at the Ryder Cup.

Molinari is a former U.S. Vice captain Molinari is a former U.S. Molinari, an engineer by profession, has become a pioneer in using data analytics to improve golf. This has also led to the establishment of a company that helps some of golf’s best players to learn about their strengths and weakness, course management, and strategy. Along with Hovland and Thomas Pieters, other students who use his data analytics are 2022 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick.

“He opens his laptop and has these Excel spreadsheets. He works on them for hours and hours at night,” Pieters said about Molinari. “By then, he has identified all the things I need to work on. Whether it’s 6- to 8 foot right-to-left putsts or certain yardages that I can get up-and down with my wedges.”

Henrik Stenson, the captain of the European team, was originally named by Stenson in March last year. A week later, Stenson called Molinari and asked how he planned to use data for analyzing all possible pairings and picks before determining the optimal course layout. Stenson replaced 21 Club, a sports intelligence company that had handled data analytics for the European team at the previous three Ryder Cups, with Molinari. Stenson and Molinari discussed the qualifying criteria a month later, after which Stenson asked Molinari if he would be one of his assistants.

Stenson lost his position as captain after joining LIV Golf. Donald called Molinari immediately after he was announced as Stenson’s replacement in 2022. Donald told Molinari how he was impressed by what Molinari had already done for Stenson. Donald asked Molinari if he would continue to play this role.

Molinari tested his methods in January at the Hero Cup, an event where one team represented Great Britain and Ireland, and the other Continental Europe. He played with live stats and paired players.

“Some of the previous (Ryder Cup captains) came to me and told me that this was so fantastic, it’s going to be such a helpful thing,” Molinari added.

Statistics has come a long ways since Donald played in his first Ryder Cup back in 2004. It’s not surprising that the former Northwestern golfer makes math a key part of his decision-making. Mark Broadie was the first professional to request a personalized evaluation of his performance statistics. Broadie has been a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business since 1983. He is also the father of Strokes Gained, which allows golfers to better understand where they gained or lost on the leaderboard. Donald reached World No. 1 shortly after winning the 2011 PGA Tour Money Title. He sent Broadie a note of thanks and a case of his signature red wine.

Even Molinari, before Broadie, had tracked more traditional statistics: fairways, greens in Regulation, and number of putts. Each year, he would crunch numbers for a new category. He sent Broadie a blind email asking if they could get together after hearing of Broadie’s breakthrough. The two spent a couple of days in Orlando, Florida playing golf as Broadie taught Molinari the Strokes Gained system.

Mark said he was not sure if the players or public would like it. I told him, “This is revolutionary.” You should publish it all. It has changed the golf world and the data.” Molinari said.

Fitzpatrick is the first player who sought Molinari out and remains the player most dedicated to Molinari’s data analytics method. Molinari is gaining followers by word-of-mouth.

“I thought that some players would ask for it. I thought I could only manage 10 players. “I thought that in three or four years, if I could manage 10 players I would be satisfied,” Molinari stated. “Within three month, we had ten players signed up. I hired a part-time guy, then another. “Both are now full-time.”

Molinari was able to spend time during COVID-19 to rebuild his platform for tracking on-course performances, which made it easier to manage players and enter data.

Molinari stated that “we have 10 clients on the PGA Tour, another 20 on the DP World Tour as well as a few on the Champions Tour and LPGA.”

Molinari could be Europe’s secret weapon for the Ryder Cup as they try to extend their winning streak in Europe, which dates back to 1993 and spans six matches. Donald believes that data analytics will give his team a competitive edge.

Donald stated, “It is a great way to see how to set up the golf course. It’s also a good method to determine the best pairings and the strength needed by Marco Simone.” “(Molinari has) great expertise in this field. It’s invaluable, really.”

As it was for Hovland’s rise to become a top-5 world player. He compares the new focus he has on course management with the game of Poker and making smart bets based on the cards he is dealt.

Hovland stated that “anytime you can use math to your benefit, it can be enormous.” If you play blackjack you will lose money to the house over time. Why not? If you can count the cards and make it profitable over time, why wouldn’t that be worth it to you?

Team Europe is hoping to win again with Molinari.