Ryder Remains

Just a couple of quick hits before I head over to Westchester Country Club...

Shack has it down to a three-man race:

T.J. Auclair reports on the Team USA practice session at Hazeltine National and

concludes from the appearances that all of the Ryan Moore, Kevin Na, Kevin Kisner andTiger Woods as captain's pick talk, may rest in peace. 

(Yes, Rymer's making the Tiger case, here is our debate on Morning Drive. I will admit he made a better case than I thought.)

Trust me, Charlie wasn't that convincing, but perhaps you'll see it differently.... the linked Auclair piece is on the same page:

So with the Hazeltine invitation extended to Berger, Thomas and Watson, is that a sign that those are the three U.S. Captain Davis Love III is contemplating for that final pick during halftime of Sunday Night Football in six days?

You guys do know that Furyk was there as well?  Though I do agree that if he was going to make that Alas, Poor Pick, it would have been in the prior group.

The Tour Confidential panel took on that poignant question as well:

Alan Shipnuck: Task force member Jim Furyk will be the pick, at the urging of fellow Task Forcer Phil Mickelson, made official by Davis Love, a member of the Task Force that made him captain. I will be happy if he takes literally any other player than Furyk, the biggest loser in Ryder Cup history.

 Alan, have you had a bad childhood experience with task forces?

But the winner is.....cynicism, and we all know that means that the terrorists have won:

Gary Van Sickle: I still think it will be Bubba Watson if only because of his world ranking. I don't see Furyk on a long, potentially soft Hazeltine track as a pick. Who should Love take? He should take an American player who showed up when it counted in August and September and got hot. Oops, there isn't one.

And this cheap shot is defamatory and needlessly hurtful, so do share it with your friends:

Mark Godich: It's going to be whoever fits in best in the team room, because we all know that's where matches are won. I'm guessing that eliminates Kevin Na.

Golf.com has been running features on the event, some more worthy than others....this Cam Morfit piece on three RC moments that shook the golf world is pretty far off base in my mind.  Including Medinah but not The Country Club seems like an unforced error, but to me the truly shocking installment was the 1987 version at Muirfield Village under Jack's watchful eye.

There's a slideshow of the worst unis ever that I can't share due to a broken link, but Golf Digest had it's own version in 2012 that included this gem:

Two years after notoriously chilly matches in Surrey, England, Team USA welcomed warmer temperatures at the 1955 matches in Palm Springs by designing a hybrid sport coat/swim thong.

Upon further review, this might be a parody:

Corey Pavin's wife, Lisa, chose Team USA's raingear for the 2010 matches held at Celtic Manor in Wales. The garments struggled to repel moisture.

Ah yes, remember the Captainess.... 

Hopefully Golf.com will continue down this path with slideshows of the worst captain's picks and worst captains.  For those looking to wager, I'd go with Curtis Strange and Hal Sutton, respectively....

Just remember, pairing Tiger and Phil was merely the second stupidest thing he did that week.  I'll explain at a later time....

We'll close with some thoughts from Jack, whose perspective on this event is rather unique.  First up, he had this comment on our process:

“I don’t really see the necessity to put the pressure on the young guys to win the Ryder Cup,” Nicklaus said. “They’ve got enough pressure on them week after week. When I was playing we had four major championships. Now we have four major championships, four world championships, the Players Championship, we’ve got the Olympics. We’ve got other significant events, they play all around the world.”

I don't get why the task force places undue pressure on the young players, as if there's anyone that should be squirming it's Phil and the other task force members.  But perhaps more importantly, what young players is he talking about?  We don't have any, unless you're thinking of Brooks Koepka....

 Then there was this:

"To me, the competition is incidental," Nicklaus said at the Creighton Farms Invitational on Thursday, according to USA Today. "Who wins bragging rights -- and I know everyone wants to win -- but that's not the important thing. The important thing is the game of golf and people having good relations and goodwill."

"The Ryder Cup to me, we make a little bigger deal out of it than I think should be," Nicklaus said. "I think it's a goodwill event. It's a great event to have bragging rights for Europe or bragging rights for America. It's a great format. It's a great competition. There's a lot of nice things about it, but I wish we wouldn’t make such a war out of it."

let's remember that Jack came of age in a different era, in fact that famous concession to Tony Jacklin in 1969 was his first Ryder Cup, notwithstanding that he had been winning majors since 1962.  Jack was also the guy that spurred the expansion of the format to include Continental Europe to keep the event competitive.  

But good luck putting that genie back in the bottle, and it perhaps should be asked whether we'd even want to.  For instance, here's a couple of comments in reaction from the TC panel:

GODICH: It's only become overkill because Europe has won eight of the last 10 matches. I'm confident that the task force has determined that the Americans need to play better golf, and more specifically, hole more putts. 

RITTER: It means the world to the players, and the rest of us are just following their lead. Agree with Sens that it's refreshing to watch them play for something other than a paycheck and personal glory.

In the immortal words of the U.S. chief strategist, it is what it is....

 I'll see you all tomorrow.