Week(s) In Review, Sept. 16-30: The Ryder Cup
Some of the highlights from Ryder Cup week, starting with the opening ceremony.
JPB writes: Well, the Americans won the battle of clothes. The Euro outfits were pimptastic and fit in with the Al Czervik development. He did do the condos at the K Club right? It is good to see midcentury Miami golf hustler come back in style. I didn't see the whole thing so I missed the entertainment and whatnot. The sppeches I heard could have been worse. So all in all better than I expected.
Once the matches got going, JPB also noted the painful pace of play: Horrifying that a match could take over 5 hours. Something needs to be done. Even if you are playing for your life, it might not be worth living any longer if a round, especially in match play, takes 5.5 hours. And the Ryder cup is an exhibition, not life or death.
As the rout developed, DAW noted: Is it not possible that the explanation for the current result is simply that the Europeans are just a tiny bit better, particularly on a familiar course and with the crowd behind them? Why do we have to go through the usual finger-pointing exercise? Is it really that hard for the press to come up with another angle?
And once the rout was complete, Hawkeye wrote: I would just like to say something positive about the US team that has been almost completely overlooked - the fact that the four rookies have scored points in five of the seven matches they have played. Compare that to #1 & #2 in the world scoring points in just three of the eight matches they have played, with two wins and a halve.
LEFTY: In 2008 at Valhalla, Captain Azinger will lead America to a dazzling display an incredible 10 points, five of them scored by crusty, old veteran Tiger Woods, fourth oldest member of a team that also includes Furyk, Chris DiMarco (a captain's pick despite falling to 168th on the OWGR) Mickelson, Ryan Moore, Lucas Glover, Sean O'Hair, Kyle Reifers, Michael Putnam, Anthony Kim, J.B. Holmes and Billy Horshcel. I'm excited already...
F.X. observes: One thing I notice about younger better players is that they aren't interested much in match play with handicaps, as if it is somehow unmanly to put their game to the test except in stroke play. If the very best players we produce are inculcated with this mindset at a young age, what hope do they have of competing in match play at the highest levels? They simply don't perceive it as "real golf." It's just nuts since the whole handicapping system is designed to let players of unequal skill compete as equals at match play. One suggestion: start a movement among high schools to play at least half their matches in Ryder-Cup formats. Get the best young teens tasting fourball and foursomes.
Tim Liddy: Why is it so hard for us to realize that the US does not have the best golfers (as a group) in the world anymore? Why can't someone say it publicly instead of their putts dropped, they play better as a team, etc. They have a better team!
ScottS: There is always discussion around this time about golf being an "individual sport", and that "medal play is the truest test", but it stands out rather strikingly that when those seemingly cardinal principles are infringed on even slightly that all hell breaks loose. Figures like the top US players tend to be held up in the light of being great as individual players who want nothing less than to dominate and destroy. So, when domination of only half of the field and supporting the other half becomes the game, they seem to faulter.
the village idiot: In America we don't golf with others. We golf by and for ourselves, trying to post our own scores. We don't care for the social interaction of a game. We try to beat our personal best. Says a lot about why we suck at match play, no? For self-obsessed Americans, having to pay attention to how other people are playing is too much of a distraction!
CBell: Surely the Euros are at least the equals of the Yanks at the game, but we don't perceive them in the same light. We'd take a lot more pleasure from seeing Donald Trump lose a contract or, say, be dumped by a supermodel wife than we would from seeing the same thing happen to some lesser-known mogul from afar. In our hearts it's simple justice meted out by the fickle gods of golf - and divine justice trumps loyalty to the state for all but the shallowest of men.
jneuman: Wilt Chamberlain said nobody roots for Goliath. That's us on the international scene. Rooting for the U.S. is like rooting for the New York Yankees -- we have the most resources by a huge margin, and therefore we really OUGHT to win everything. What fun is it to root for a side playing with a stacked deck?
Mark Holthoff: I think it's because almost no one on the American side seems to be having any fun. While we're busy "gutting it out," the Europeans are enjoying themselves, each other, and the game itself -- and that's a lot more fun to watch.
Sean Murphy: The United States' next Ryder Cup Captain should be the grossly neglected......Larry Nelson.
And finally, Chuck wrote: It is interesting (and perhaps just a mere coincidence) that one of the greatest extended periods of success for Europe in the Ryder Cup coincides with one of the greatest periods of futility for Europeans in the major chanpionships.
Friday, September 29, 2006 at 04:22 PM
Reader Comments (6)
I agree wholeheartedly that high school golf should be in match play--everyone gets involved, it truly becomes a team game, and the top 5 players don't hog up everything! You would learn adversity, teamwork, sportsmanship, and other important life lessons. The biggest regret of my high school golfing career was spending my first three years wishing I could participate in a tournament--I always felt my competitive experience was stunted by just watching the big 5 play a 9-hole medal match that whole time.
What images do you in the US conjure up? The camouflage hats of Kiawah? The stampede across the 17th green at Brookline while Olazabal is preparing to putt? Probably so, since those are images from two of your three victories the last twenty years.
I'm not trying to offend anyone from across the pond, I'm just posting a rhetorical question: Is it any wonder that Europe keeps dominating the Ryder Cup, considering the difference in mental baggage the two sides carry into the competition?
As for all of the comments I've read about not playing match play in the U.S. and posting your own scores, it's all well and good to play matches and/ or stableford matches if you're a member at a private club -- especially across the pond where many of the courses have memberships that are (from a US perspective) laughably inexpensive. But if you're going to pay $100+ in greens fees, do you really want to pick up and move on the next hole because your opponent has knocked it stiff? Especially since the fourball in front of you isn't playing match play and you're going to just sit on the next tee chipping balls at tee markers while they're in the fairway, waiting for the next group of morons on the green in front of them??
Induction into the World Golf Hall Of Fame
Monday, October 30, 2006
Larry Nelson has three major championships to his credit: the 1981 and 1987 PGA Championships and the 1983 U.S. Open. His record includes seven additional PGA TOUR victories and 19 Champions Tour victories to date. Nelson topped the 2000 Champions Tour money list and was named Player of Year. He has participated on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams with a 9-3-1 record. He bagan playing golf at age 21, following his time in the military in Vietnam.