FUP stands for follow-up, btw
The often radically wrong Gary Van Sickle gets it right, I think - remember he's a provocateur and a self-styled jokester, so don't take it all too seriously, but I think these are really good ideas. And SOMETHING needs to happen...
http://tinyurl.com/5flel---------------------------------------------
Ten final thoughts on the Ryder Cup (for those who never tire of second-guessing):
1. Hal Sutton didn't lose the Ryder Cup for the U.S. Those who blame him for the whopping loss -- and that includes some nationally known columnists -- either don't understand golf or match play, aren't current with today's players on both tours or are simply looking for the easy, fast-food (and wrong) answer. The U.S. didn't lose the Cup because of Sutton's strategy. The U.S. lost because the Europeans played better, a lot better, or because the Europeans had a better team. Or both, in my opinion. Sutton made all the right moves to build team unity and interest. Chemistry doesn't hit fairways. Bonding doesn't sink putts. Players do that. There's no bonding or team chemistry needed for singles play. And if the Europeans weren't a better team, then why did they kick the Americans' butts in singles?
2. Pairing Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson was a gamble, but it was worth a shot. They actually played all right in the opening bestball matches, but got chewed up by Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington, whose eight birdies on a tough day ranked with the best team performances of the last two decades. Here's why you don't pair your two biggest studs: Together, they make a great team. Paired with anyone else, they also make a great team. So you can pair Tiger and Phil and have one great team, or pair Tiger with, say,�Stewart Cink, and Phil with, says, David Toms, and have two great teams. Pretty simple. I can't believe Jackie Burke didn't talk Captain Hal out of this one.
3. The best team in golf right now is the International squad that will play in next year's President's Cup. It's comprised of�Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Tim Clark, Stuart Appleby and all the Australians If you think the Americans are going to redeem their Ryder Cup spanking by winning the Prez Cup, think again.
4. The best thing to happen to the Ryder Cup would be a merger with the President's Cup, in which the Prez Cup winner would advance to the Ryder Cup to play the Ryder Cup's defending champion. If applied now, Europe would play in the 2006 Ryder Cup against the winner of next year's President's Cup. Why is this better? It makes the Ryder Cup into a true worldwide competition, as Samuel Ryder would have no doubt wanted had he foreseen golf becoming a global game. Imagine the ads and ticket sales and interest generated in Japan the first time Shigeki�Maruyama played in a Ryder Cup? Or K.J. Choi of Korea played? Or the Aussies? The event would get even bigger and generate even more cash. Meanwhile, the President's Cup wouldn't become a second-fiddle qualifier. It would become hugely important. Lose the Prez Cup and you're not in the next Ryder Cup. Which makes the Prez Cup do or die. And as for the American players' recent whining about having to play in a team match-play event every year, this solves it. Win the Ryder Cup and you get the skip the next President's Cup. The only catch is, you'd have to reschedule the Ryder Cup sites to make sure it's held on a host-team continent - -presumably, you'd let the winning team be the host. But that could be easily managed. It's a brilliant idea if only the PGA Tour and PGA of America weren't both so greedy and power hungry.
5. If the PGA of America really wants to win back the Ryder Cup, it needs to give the Americans a real home-course advantage. Pick a course the Tour players already know, not another Oakland Hills or Kiawah Island, where the team has no more local knowledge than the Europeans. In fact, move the Ryder Cup to a desert course, the kind of place European players would have the least amount of experience. And make the Euros cross as many time zones as possible to make it even tougher for them. I'm thinking Hawaii. Let's make sunscreen and windburn, two things anyone raised on Mud Island (Great Britain) has little experience with, an issue.
6. The American team was as stale as a Bonanza rerun on TV Land. The points list was based on two years and eight months,�because of�the 9/11 disaster, and the U.S. lineup was stuck with golfers who played great in 2003, but not so great in 2004 -- such as Kenny Perry, Davis Love and David Toms. Now's a good time to change the formula and go to a one-year points system, starting the week after the PGA Championship in 2005. Todd Hamilton and John Daly would've made the team on a one-year points list this time. Would they have made a difference? Based on the results, pretty much anyone else couldn't have done any worse.
7. The whole points-list thing? It's a waste of time. What makes a 10th-place finish worthy of points and an 11th-place finish worthy of nothing? Also, more and more foreign-born players -- notably Singh -- are finishing in the top-10 in PGA Tour events, which further skews the point-scoring for the American team. We already have a flawed world ranking system that could be used to select the team, although I'm not that keen on the rankings. Here's a better idea: Give the captain some real responsibility for once. Let him choose all 12 players. Let him fail or succeed with his own players and not those foisted upon him by an outdated points system. It's simple, clean and sure to make the selection show a must-watch event on The Golf Channel.
8. We gave Great Britain and Ireland the rest of Europe to make their side more competitive. The scales have tipped. So we'll take Canada and Mexico and make this a team all North America can be proud of. Weirsy, you're with us.
9. The Ryder Cup opening ceremonies should have something to do with golf. You need a military flyover, fine. Let's have more appearances by former Ryder Cup captains on both sides --c'mon, Seve Ballesteros has got to be part of this. The opening ceremonies should be about celebrating these teams and these players, not a thinly-veiled two-hour promotional vehicle for NBC's fall schedule.
10. All the great, historic links in Ireland and the next Ryder Cup is going to be held at the K Club, a bland, totally American-style course? Let's see somebody with half an ounce of guts at the PGA of America stand up and say, "The Ryder Cup isn't all about the money, it's about the competition." Any Irish course that's more than 12 years old would be a better choice. We're saddled with all these lame future sites when we could have, say, St. Andrews, Pebble Beach, Ballybunion, Spyglass Hill, Portmarnock or (how's this for a great match-play site?) the TPC at Sawgrass Stadium Course. to name a few.
11. (This one's a bonus.) Instead of putting pressure on Woods to play well, the next captain should give Tiger only two directives: One, have fun. Two, never mind how you play, Tiger, it's your job to make sure your partner plays well. I'm sure you're smart enough to figure out a way to do that. And while you're doing that, don't forget the first directive.