The "Playoffs" Highlight Chase For...Ryder Cup Spots

The PGA Tour Playoffs are certainly captivating to accountants, caddies, wives and others with a stake in the ResetCup's bonus pool. Otherwise, the only intriguing chase this week is for a Ryder Cup team spot.

T.J. Auclair does a nice job laying out the scenarios American players are facing as they try to make the top 8 on points. The first five are already set. Barring an upset win at Bethpage in The Barclays, it's looking six people for four spots: Holmes, Reed, Watson, Kuchar, Fowler, Furyk.

Tiger will apparently be watching, as Davis Love notes in his diary that Tiger doesn't sleep much and loves the tactician side of things. I'm not sure if this is setting Tiger up for very limited cart driving and lots of clubhouse white board work on pairings, but nonetheless, an interesting revelation.

On the European side, you all voted Russell Knox, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer on to the team.

John Huggan speaks to Knox about his sense of whether a captain's pick is coming after just missing out on points. Knox senses Clarke will be focusing on adding veterans.

“I hope the rookie thing is not enough for him not to pick me,” Knox said. “But they do seem to be making a big thing of it. I think maybe too big a thing. I look at it this way: If you put, say, Matt Fitzpatrick and I together in foursomes we’re going to be tough to beat. Against anyone. We are hitting it down the fairway 80 percent of the time. I get that he is looking at all the stats though. And it’s a tough decision to make. If he feels like he needs more experience with Graeme McDowell or Luke Donald or whoever, then fair enough.”

Club Car Thanks You: Captain Clarke Adds Fifth Vice-Captain

The European Ryder Cup team's vice captain squad has swollen to five, potentially boosting Club Car's third quarter revenues as Darren Clarke looks to become the first captain to have a shuttle driver for every two players.

According to a BBC report, 2002 winning captain Sam Torrance joins Ian Poulter, Paul Lawrie, Thomas Bjorn and Padraig Harrington on Clarke's coaching squad at Hazeltine in Minnesota.

Oddsmakers have installed Mark James, Neil Coles, Peter Alliss and a hologram of J.H. Taylor as co-frontrunners to grab the next vice-captain spot.

The full release:

DARREN CLARKE NAMES SAM TORRANCE AS HIS FIFTH VICE CAPTAIN FOR THE 2016 RYDER CUP
 
Darren Clarke, the European Captain for The 2016 Ryder Cup, has named Sam Torrance as his fifth and final Vice Captain for the match against the United States at Hazeltine National in September.

The 62 year old Scotsman will bring not only a wealth of experience to Clarke’s backroom team – having played for Europe on eight consecutive occasions between 1981 and 1995 – he will also bring the knowledge of what it takes to be a winning captain in the biennial contest, having led Europe to victory at The Belfry in 2002.

It was also at the English venue that Torrance enjoyed his greatest Ryder Cup moment as a player when, in 1985, he holed his famous curling putt across the 18th green to beat Andy North and secure the winning point as Europe went on to record a 16 ½ - 11 ½ triumph.

The man who still holds the record number of European Tour appearances with 706, also knows what it takes to succeed in the Ryder Cup arena in the US, having been part of the team which won at Muirfield Village in 1987 – the 15-13 success representing Europe’s first triumph on American soil.

Invitation Spotted For Tiger's Ryder Cup Fishing Trip

While the world awaits to find out if he will play the 2016 Masters, Assistant Ryder Cup Captain Tiger Woods has apparently firmed up plans for a prospective team-member bonding trip aboard his yacht, Privacy.

You may recall that Woods has suggested a fishing trip to Captain Davis Love, and to show his passion for this year's event, Tiger attended a prospective team dinner at Jack and Barbara Nicklaus' home in early March.

The fishing expedition invitation suggests the trip will take place the Monday of Players Championship week and will be limited to the top 30 in Ryder Cup points, along with Keegan Bradley no matter where he sits on the list.

A source close to Woods saw the look in Keegan’s eyes during a team dinner at Jack Nicklaus’s house and felt it would be wise to be on the 2011 PGA Champion’s good side, “no matter how little chance he has of making the team.

“Tiger’s got a spot on the back edge of the boat just for Keegan,” said the source. “He doesn’t want Keegan spitting on the new flooring he just installed on Privacy.”

The invitation appears to have been produced by Tiger's corporate partners at Nike. Note the modifications to his yacht, with his Ryder Cup record and the 2016 logo attached.

Darren Clarke Is Prepared To Lose Friends Over Ryder Picks

Oliver Brown of the Daily Mail goes into plenty of detail with Darren Clarke well out from the Ryder Cup, including the captain's obsessive compulisve storage of clothes depending on sizes due to his fluctuating weights (based on the photos taken two weeks ago, he's skewing back toward the Monty weight division again).

Anyway, it's not until late September and the stage for drama is already being set as stalwarts Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter look unlikely to make the team on points.

Considering that the captain has three primary jobs--finding rainsuits that don't leak, informing players when they are being benched, and not running over spectators in the captain's buggy--Brown believes that Clarke should have job #2 covered:

It is unlikely the 2011 Open champion will be scribbling potential pairings on scraps of paper during practice and trying to pass them off as a sandwich order, as Sir Nick Faldo did at Valhalla in 2008. Clarke will have a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C. He will organise. He will be involved. He will man-manage. He will know the characters of each of his players inside-out.

After a bunch of stuff about how he and Paul McGinley have patched things up (I know you were worried), Clarke admits he may lose some pals over his captain's picks in the name of winning.

Clarke knows he will face tough choices. Others have already wondered aloud whether he might be tempted to offer preferential treatment to old pals like Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter if they fail to qualify automatically for Hazeltine and need to rely on being among Clarke’s three wildcard picks. Clarke snorts with contempt about that idea.

‘An old pals’ act?’ he says. ‘How could I possibly do that? The Ryder Cup is much, much more important than an old pals’ act. That does not happen. Under no circumstances would I let myself... that’s not going to happen. No chance.

'I would have no problem with saying to Lee I was picking a rookie instead of him for a wildcard. Lee would be my best mate but I would have no problem. Why? Because it’s for the team. It’s not individuals. You have got to manage individuals’ egos but the team is there together."

Oy Vey: Ryder Cup Team Dinners, Tiger Wants A Fishing Trip

Since this was revealed earlier in the week, I've been trying to ponder how this is not embarrassing overkill and failing.

It was Nick Faldo's sigh at the topic during today's telecast that didn't help matters. Granted, he's not the Winston Churchill of captains, but still, here goes: Davis Love is planning a Ryder Cup team bonding dinner at the Honda Classic. Oh, and assistant captain Tiger Woods, who wouldn't have been caught dead at any kind of Ryder Cup bonding exercise in his prime, is suggesting a...fishing trip?

Go Europe!

From Doug Ferguson's AP notes column:

"We're going to have a dinner during the week of Honda, and then we'll probably have two or three more," Love said Wednesday. "So I'm going to be a little bit more focused this time on the start, work my way through the points list and make sure that we've got everybody covered — not wait until the Memorial Tournament when we have a clothes fitting to talk to the guys for the first time."

USA, USA!

And this is just nauseating...

Love also said another vice captain, Tiger Woods, suggested getting together away from the golf course, perhaps a fishing trip to hang out and talk shop.

"I think if we all get to know each other a little bit better in March and April and May, rather than waiting until August and September, we're going to be better off," he said.

Or not.

Captain Clarke Practically Penciling In Westwood, Poulter?

Captain Darren Clarke, who guided his team via Club Car to a resounding 18½-5½ victory in something called the EurAsia Cup EURASIA CUP presented by DRB-HICOM, practically named two of his biggest captaincy allies to this fall's European Ryder Cup team.

From a EuropeanTour.com report:

Clarke said: "What Lee and Poults have brought to the team room has been priceless. They have been very, very good. All the young kids have listened to them, they have all learnt from them."

Cart Driver Clarke patted himself on the back for not running over anyone in his first go behind the wheel.

He added: "I've enjoyed it immensely. It's been a wonderful learning experience for me. I've been around the game a long time and done most things in the game and been fortunate to do so.

"This is different. I really enjoyed it. The guys seemed to listen to what I had to say, and if my little part of it has helped them along, then well be it."

Casey Explains: "I've been in too many hotel rooms wondering why I was there"

The decision to pass on extra travel days just to make himself Ryder Cup eligible is no doubt still leaving Team Europe perplexed, but Paul Casey explains his thinking and remains consistent in his reasoning.
Even if it doesn't it well with most of Europe or perhaps entirely tell the full story of his 2010 snub.

From Bob Harig's ESPN.com report:

"I've been in too many hotel rooms wondering why I was there,'' Casey said. "I felt many times like I was going through the motions, going to play to get a number. That is so against what it is to be a competitor.''

On the European Tour side, Casey needs five European starts. One would be the Ryder Cup itself. The Olympics, if he qualities, also counts. He could play the BMW PGA Championship and British Masters in his home country of England and be one tournament away, perhaps the Scottish Open or one of the Final Series events.

Casey said he's heard some of the rumblings concerning why he'd want to forego the Ryder Cup, but said his decision was not about that event.

"It's an unfortunate by-product of the decision I've made,'' he said. "It's purely about my family and spending quality time. The Ryder Cup is what's talked about, but this is not what this is about."