The conclusion of the European Ryder Cup points race certainly had tongues wagging and eyebrows raised. I left with more than few questions nagging at me.
Here are 10 Ryder Cup riddles I have a tough time answering:
1. Wherefore art thou Darren?What else did Darren Clarke have to do to make the European team? Automatic qualification is the obvious answer, but how Faldo could omit the Northern Irishman baffled most. Myself included. I’m probably Clarke’s least favorite fan, but even I would have put differences aside to have this stalwart on the team. He’s won twice this year, including two weeks ago. If that isn’t form going into the match, that intangible Faldo was supposedly looking for, then maybe I don’t know as much as I thought I did.
2. Have you met Carl?Has Carl Pettersson upset the powers that be at Euro Tour headquarters or something? Has he spent so much time in the States that they think he fits better on the U.S. team than the European side? OK, Pettersson would have made it five rookies had he been selected, but like Clarke, he won a tournament, a PGA Tour event. Isn’t the match being held in the U.S.? Isn’t Pettersson comfortable on U.S. soil against U.S. opponents? Yes and yes. Yet he hardly got a look. Two years ago he got scammed, supposedly over confusion with his Euro membership that cost him valuable points. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t terminate that membership soon.
3. Can we have a straight answer, Nick?Just a straight answer to a straight question. Faldo sat through 45 minutes or so of questioning on his picks and hardly answered one directly. You’d have thought, given the occasion, he could have rose to it by having some reasoned, prepared answers instead of repeatedly saying “it’s my call.”
4. Only one vice captain? Is Faldo expecting clones of himself and Jose Maria Olazabal in the next couple of weeks? I know he didn’t have many friends when he was on tour, but how about getting some of the guys who missed out to drive a few buggies, play water boys, towel suppliers or something, at Valhalla? It would have been some consolation to young guys like Nick Dougherty and Ross Fisher. Friendly Euro faces like those wouldn’t have gone amiss, and it would have involved the disappointed ones in a competition they will no doubt grace in the future.
5. Where did the Poulter “Faldo hotline” come from?Do we really think Faldo would be as daft as to tell Poulter – or Casey, for that matter – that he was already on the team a week early?
6. Why not the King’s course? For 2014, that is. The Ryder Cup will be staged on Gleneagles’ PGA Centenary Course as a sop to the British PGA which has its Scottish headquarters there. Are you kidding me? Ignoring a James Braid classic like the King’s is like going to St. Andrews and playing The Castle Course instead of the Old Course. Utterly laughable.
7. Why rain on Havret’s parade? I know holding the Ryder Cup press conference at the conclusion of the Johnnie Walker Championship keeps things neat and tidy, but it detracted from Gregory Havret’s glory. I’m sure if the Euro Tour had waited a couple of days, Havret would have had more of a moment in the sun for winning the tournament. Instead, his victory was reduced to a mere afterthought.
8. Monty mania, still?Why was there so much hype surrounding Colin Montgomerie as a possible wild card? Because it was Monty and he is still a good story. He had as much of a chance for a wild card spot as a high handicapper breaking 100 at Augusta, but he still managed to garner most of the column inches at Gleneagles. Just goes to show that even though he is nowhere near the player he once was, he’s still arguably the most interesting personality on the European Tour?
9. Where is the European press?Five nations – Denmark, England, Ireland, Spain and Sweden – make up the European Ryder cup team, yet the press room at Gleneagles was full of British and Irish journalists. No Swedes, Spanish or Danish scribes. No difference to any week, really. For all the hullabaloo about the growth of European golf, press rooms still are predominantly filled with British and Irish journalists. No wonder the “European” Tour has gone to the far corners of the globe. It’s still a minority sport in most European nations, which is why there are no full-time Spanish, German, French, Swedish or Danish journalists covering the tour on a regular basis.
10. Is there a Scot out there?No Scot in the Ryder Cup since 1937. Further proof of Scotland’s slide. With Monty now presumably out of the picture, who will be the next Scot to play in Samuel Ryder’s biennial bash? Right now I can’t give a confident answer to that puzzling question. For all I know, the next Ryder Cup Scot – aside from Monty’s inevitable captaincy – is currently toiling in amateur or junior golf. What are the odds of either Arizona State sophomore James Byrne or East Tennessee State freshman Michael Stewart becoming the next Scot to play in the Ryder Cup?
Posted: 9/2/2008
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