Top trio shares blame for U.S.
It is a gross misrepresentation of the facts to suggest, as some straw-clutchers did, that Tiger Woods took personal responsibility Tuesday for the failures of the five losing U.S. Ryder Cup teams on which he has played.
What he took was his fair share of it, and no more.
“Well, certainly I am responsible for it, because I didn’t earn the points that I was put out there for,” he said.
And his share, he admitted, as a guy who never sits out a game, is significant.
“I believe I was out there in five sessions each time and I didn’t go 5-0 on our side. So I am certainly part of that, and that’s part of being a team.” Note the word “part.” It’s true that in 15 years of trying, Woods has played on just one victorious Ryder Cup side — the one that came from nowhere at Brookline in 1999 to erase a huge European overnight lead and blaze to glory in the Sunday singles.
It’s also a fact that, since then, the Yanks have only won once, and Woods missed it while recovering from 2008 knee surgery.
But in the buildup to the 39th edition of the matches that begin Friday on Medinah’s long, rough-free No. 3 course, and while we’re naming names and assigning blame, let us not forget the other two anchors (in both senses of the word) of all those losing Ryder Cup teams: Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk. Tiger has had company. Mickelson started his Ryder Cup run two years before Woods, in a losing 1995 effort at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., and has played on every team since. His cumulative record: 11-17-6, including 2-5-4 in foursomes, or alternate-shot play, and 5-8-2 in four-ball (best ball). For all his smiling and aw-shucks forelock tugging, he hasn’t played nicely with the other kids.
Furyk, among the most articulate, professional gentlemen out there, two-time winner of the Canadian Open, liked and respected by all, has been even worse: a cumulative 4-13-3 in the team games during his seven Ryder Cups, 8-15-4 overall. What’s up with that?
Woods’ 13-14-2 record (9-13-1 in the team games, 4-1-1 in singles), looks pretty darned respectable by comparison to the other two-thirds of the great American conundrum over the past decade and a half.
But as The Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson rightly asks: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Has the American team’s record in the Woods-Fury k-Mickelson era (2-6 for Mickelson, 2-5 for Furyk, 1-5 for Woods) caused their personal stats to be so poor? Or has their poor play caused the U.S. side to lose so often?
And if it is the latter, wouldn’t it be prudent for U.S. captain Davis Love III to consider benching one or two of them for a couple of the team sessions?
“I kind of throw the Jim Furyk or the Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods records of wins and losses out,” Love said, spiking that idea.
“You just ask them what do they like better, alternate-shot or best-ball, and who do you want to play with. There’s a reason these guys keep making teams.
“I know I’ve messed Tiger up a couple of times, so I’m part of his problem,” he said.
“There’s a lot of other guys. It’s hard to match them up in the beginning, hard to figure out who they should play with.”
Intimidation, egos and optics always enter into a captain’s decision. Sitting out a superstar takes guts, and guarantees some pointed questions of the bencher and the benchee.
“If you look at a lot of great players over the years, they don’t have great Ryder Cup records,” said Love. “I think if you’re even .500 in Ryder Cup, you’re pretty dang good. If you’re above .500 like Seve and Jose (Ballesteros and Olazabal), you’ve had an incredible run in Ryder Cups.”
Might one of them play all five sessions? Yes. But it will depend on how they’re going, how fresh they are, how many holes their matches have gone.
“In a perfect world, I’d like to have a lot of fours and threes, and have everyone fresh,” said Love.
Either way, the Big Three have to help this U.S. team win, or they could find Chicago a tough place to hide.