Graeme: Love’s out to stir Ryder crowd
MEDINAH, lll. — Davis Love III had the rough cut down this week, which would figure to benefit a longer-hitting, less accurate American team. But Europe’s Graeme McDowell has an interesting take on Love’s motivation. He thinks the Euros are only slightly shorter and Love is looking for another advantage entirely.
“The only thing that Davis can do this week is to set the golf course up for scoring to get the crowds on their feet, and to get them charged up from the word go,” McDowell said. “I really think that’s their tactic — to get the crowd behind their guys. Oakland Hills (2004) . . . the golf course was quite difficult, and the crowd didn’t really get behind their guys the way they would have liked them to, because scoring was tough and it wasn’t that exciting; it was a real battle of attrition really, which obviously Europe won very well.”
McDowell said the “hostility” is gone because so many Euros play the PGA Tour and that the crowd needs other reasons to get really excited. Jim Furyk is expecting some throaty Chicago fans this week.
“I know European fans . . . 3,000 here . . . can make a lot of noise. That’s what they are good at. They have their soccer chants. That’s (part of their culture),” he conceded. “But I know that 37,000 Americans can drown out 3,000 Europeans if they want to. That’s kind of what happened at Valhalla. They let them have their fun for a while and when they got tired of it, they just started, ‘U-S-A, U-S-A’ and made enough nose that you couldn’t hear them any more.”
TIGER REMEMBERS
Tiger Woods on his only Ryder Cup win, the big comeback at The Country Club in 1999: “It wasn’t like you were squeaking out these matches 1-up. There was birdie after birdie after birdie, and we were just rolling,” he recalled. “I’ve never been a part of anything like that. Never seen a comeback like that in golf, in a team atmosphere. It was something that I will never, ever forget.”
FOR SEVE
The European team is honoring the late Seve Ballesteros this week. A Ryder Cup hero as a captain and player, he was always an inspiration, even the two years when he made an emotional address to the team via speaker phone on the eve of the matches.
Captain Jose Maria Olazabal, who formed the Spanish Armada partnership with his friend at several Ryder Cups, unveiled a team bag emblazoned with the iconic silhouette depicting Ballesteros’ famous Open Championship triumph at St. Andrews in 1984.