How to Change the Ryder Cup

[Anthony Butler]

The U.S. needs better players.  Period.  They seem to care about the event sufficiently IMO.  If you don't think the players were trying to peak their games I think you're wrong.  Sure, Mickelson and Co. try to peak their games for the majors, but they try to peak again for the Ryder Cup.  The problem just comes down to the players.  

Mickelson played like crap, but he's been playing like crap since July.  

Furyk had a losing record, but he got beak 2 up by Paul Casey's eight birdies!  

Woods played well except for one round, I think.  Pretty typical performance.  When Woods has played like a dog (1997, 2002 in particular) he was in the middle of swing changes.

The Euros have players from six different countries.  At any given time when those players were junior golfers, they were considered the top player from their country.  They learned how to deal with that pressure -- the pressure of being "Number 1" and the pressure of being the flag bearer for their country.  Between a guy like Henrik Stenson or a guy like Vaughn Taylor, who would you rather have?  Who do you think has grown up playing with Ryder Cup-like pressure on his shoulders?  

The U.S. is definitely able to field a better team than the one it put out there.  The goal should be to have as many "Number 1's" as Europe does.  Europe has two "Best Spaniard" golfer on its team -- Ollie from one generation and Sergio from the next.  Clarke and Harrington each can lay claim to best Irish golfer of his generation.  Westwood is undoubtedly the best English golfer of his generation, with Luke Donald not too far behind.  Monty preceded both of those as top Englishman.  Stenson has definitely taken the mantle from Parnevik for top Swede. You see where I'm going here.

What had the U.S. gotten?  Two players that could lay claim to "Top American" titles -- Woods and Mickelson.  The rest have always played second fiddle, and I think this has reduced the ability to play in pressure packed situations.  A team with more "Top American" golfers might do better, and the team would look considerably different.  It would be a team that spanned generations far more than the current team.  Off the top of my head, here's who would definitely have been on it this year:

Tiger, Phil, DL III, Freddy, and Lehman (top American for at least two years).  These are the only "Top American" players that are close enough to top form that they would be formidable opponents.  So then you've got to go to recent play.

Obviously Furyk, Toms, and DiMarco are worthy choices based on current play and world ranking (though I think that DiMarco is actually a poor match play player because he's not the type of guy that can pulls shots out of his ass and piss off his opponent).  Hard to argue with Cink and Verplank on the team, based on play and gutsiness respectively.

That leaves two guys left.  Zack Johnson showed he was worthy, so I'll leave him.  

The last guy?  How about Ryan Moore?

How would that team stack up against the Euros?

Not well... for all the reasons you mentioned.

[Aaron Katz]

Touche!

[johnk]

I agree with everyone who says we need better RC players.  But we don't have them.

Face it, we haven't had players that can win Ryder Cups for a long time.  People were hoping Davis Love would make the team?  WHY?  He's lost tons of matches.

My point was that unless something is done, the RC becomes less competitive and less interesting.

And I do realize that the Americans were destroyed in Singles both in '06 and '04.  However, my idea to play singles earlier or mix it up would prevent them from falling so far behind so fast and making Saturday and Sunday anti-climactic.

The Sunday matches just aren't that entertaining when the US can't win a team match session for 2 days and falls behind by 4 points.

So I think putting some singles matches earlier, or allowing the stronger players to play singles twice would help restore competitive balance.

How about this:  Add a day to the event (more $$$) and play an opening round of 8 singles matches or something?

Either that or it's give the US players strokes...

[Gary Slatter]

Someone said Rest of the World vs. Europe - perfect!
Or make the US Team arrive on Thursday.

[johnk]

David Toms brings up the topic of local knowledge - which I've commented on before - i.e. the US doesn't have a home course advantage:

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/news?slug=rydercup&prov=st&type=lgns

Toms also called for a change on how America plans for Ryder Cups - starting with the selection of courses.

Europe won its third successive Ryder Cup on a course which is an annual venue for the European Open.

By contrast, the 2008 host club is Valhalla, which is not a regular PGA Tour venue but is on the major rotation, having held the 1996 and 2000 PGA Championships.

"They (the Europeans) play here all the time," Toms said. "They play The Belfry all the time. We seem to host it (the Ryder Cup) at major championship venues we only go to once every eight years."

[Jim Nugent]

All the U.S. needed this year was for its top few players to play well.  Tiger, Phil and Furyk only won 3 1/2 points out of 11.  That's pathetic.  Had they won 8 1/2 points out of 11, as the 3 top-rated Euro players did, the U.S. wins easily, I bet.  

Actually, all the U.S. needs every RC is for its players not to underachieve.  Our best beat Europe's best in the other big tournaments.  If we played the 3 RC days the way we do the rest of the time, Europe would not have a prayer.  

[Dan Kelly]

Three words:

12 Captain's picks.

[David_Madison]

Yes, more Captain's picks and the guts to play them in more matches while benching big names who've lost their competitive intensity and shut it down for the year. There was too much pressure to keep playing Phil because he was the #2 or #3 ranked player in the world, even if he was playing like #102 this week.

Maybe there's a difference in the captains between the RC and the PC. Not that Lehman and the other recent US RC captains didn't do a decent job, but they just don't have the stature to command the same full focus that a Jack Nicklaus will get without even having to ask.

[Wayne_Kozun]

David Toms brings up the topic of local knowledge - which I've commented on before - i.e. the US doesn't have a home course advantage:

How many of the Euros regularly play in the event at the K Club?  Is there a Euro event at The Belfry (the site of the 2002 Cup - the start of the current Euro winning streak)?

If local knowledge helps then shouldn't Europeans be winning the Open Championship at St Andrews when many of them play the Dunhill Cup every year, yet the last three Opens at TOC have been one by Americans.

[Tom Huckaby]

I'm with Walshe and others who say this really doesn't need to be fixed, not yet anyway.  Oh, Europe is dominating now and has for a decade... But it's really just mirroring what has occurred in other sports that were once American-dominated.  Think about basketball... baseball (if it ever was dominated by USA really)... and compare Hockey as it pertains to Canada... the world has just caught up to the once-dominant nations.

So how to fix it to make this more competitive?

Well... I don't think adding Canada and Mexico helps the USA at all.. we'd get Mike Weir - maybe - and that's about it.  Don't see that making much of a difference.

To me, the answer is simple.

Make it 8 players only, not 12.  And all 8 play every single match.

Think about that for a second....

Our 8 against their 8 and this time, well USA wouldn't be favored, but it would be VERY competitive at least on paper.

Of course this will never occur.  But if we're asking one nation to take on many - even a nation as huge as the USA - well... depth will always be an issue - at least now that the world has caught up.

TH

[Mike Benham]

David Toms brings up the topic of local knowledge - which I've commented on before - i.e. the US doesn't have a home course advantage:

Another lame statement by the Amero's.  If the local course knowledge is such an advantage for the Euro's, why don't the Amero Ryder Cuppers play in the same European PGA event the year before the Ryder Cup?  

It can be because that event conflicts with the Big Lumber 84 Buick Milkshake Open is it?

[Rick Shefchik]

Tom --

I think you're on to something. The idea of four guys sitting out each session for the first two days doesn't really make sense, and I don't believe that was the way it worked when the competition began back in the '20s. I'd propose nine-man squads, with one player considered a reserve to be used at the captain's discretion, as well as the player who automatically goes in the envelope on Sunday.

Then I'd play the singles in order of World Ranking, as I suggested earlier. It's really a fairly small tweak  -- certainly a lot smaller than adding Europe to GB/I -- but I think it might tend to make the matches more competitive than they are now, which both sides should prefer.