Ryder Cup Clippings, Final Edition Vol. 4
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Despite the rout, there's still plenty to say about the Ryder Cup, starting with Golf World's Ron Sirak on the tape delay issue:
TV networks have to face the fact that times have changed. The Internet makes it impractical to take live events and repackage the time element out of them. Remember, a large part of what is compelling about sports is that it is an unscripted improvisational drama happening now. Why turn it into an old made-for-TV movie?
Brett Avery issues his report card in the new Golf World, and it's not pretty for the U.S. team. They also have posted the stats and scoring package in a PDF file.
Jim Furyk commented on the Ryder Cup in his Amex press conference. Anyone care to guess who the writer was?
Q. I meant the Europeans, they're not winning majors, but they do very well in the Ryder Cup.
JIM FURYK: I think they would find that question very offensive because now you're taking a shot at them in the major championships. You're offending someone, I'm not sure exactly who it is (laughter).
I don't mean it that way, but as an American player in the Ryder Cup, I had a writer, actually very well respected writer from the U.S., a guy that everyone in this room would know, ask me point blank to my face whether it was all over on Sunday whether in the whole big scheme of things whether it actually mattered to me. Now, without wanting to reach out and just strangle him or send a few F bombs his way, I just bit my tongue, said yes, told him he offended me and walked away. There's not much else I can do. It's an offensive question.
Nothing towards you, but when you all write stuff about us about how bad we played, if someone writes last week that I played awful, I had no game, I didn't show up, you know what, I can accept anything physical. But when someone questions what's inside me or my teammates, that's kind of like the offensive part. That's where I think guys get upset.
I'm not upset with you or anything like that. I understand the questions. But for everyone that knows me inside, they know how important the Ryder Cup is. And if you can't get up for the Ryder Cup, you don't have a pulse. It is the premium event. I get more jacked up for that than I could imagine ever getting jacked up for an event individually, maybe to a fault at times, but it's exciting. You could not step on the first tee last week and listen to everyone pound their feet in the stands and listen to the place going nuts and singing and thinking, how cool is this.
Lorne Rubenstein swoons over dreaded 2010 site Celtic Manor even though the course is under the knife not long after its original design was deemed a complete disaster.
In a Globe and Mirror Mail column, he wonders if the U.S. team has been harmed by the President's Cup.
Consider the six Ryder Cups played before the first Presidents Cup, back to 1983, that is. The United States won three and tied one. However, as mentioned, the U.S. team has won only one of the six Ryder Cups since the Presidents Cup started.
Why might the Presidents Cup make such a difference? Remember, this is just a theory.
It could be because the U.S. players who qualify for both the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup -- read Woods, Mickelson and Jim Furyk, to name three heavyweights -- are called upon to represent their country every year.
The Europeans, however, are called upon every two years. They have 24 months to build up to the Ryder Cup, without interruption. They're fresh when they play.
The U.S. players who qualify for the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup don't have that amount of time to get excited about the Ryder Cup. This isn't to say the Presidents Cup isn't worthwhile in its own right. It came into its own in 2005 when the United States beat the International team by three points in a dramatic confrontation at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William Country, Va.
