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By Thursday you had to get the
sense that this might be a tough week. Later Thursday
night USA Captain Hal Sutton announced that Tiger Woods and Phil
Mickelson would be paired together all day on Friday.
While the tension is always high at the Ryder Cup, I think this
move made things a little more exciting for everyone as the
matches kicked off on Friday morning.
Our crew arrived at around 7am on
Friday. The gates would open at 7:30am, but I got in
earlier thanks to my volunteer credential. During the
practice rounds we decided that we would start the week off
watching from the grandstands near the green on hole #6- a
tantalizingly short par 4, that under the right conditions, many
of the players could reach with their tee shots. The
fellers joined me, then they announced the first group was
teeing off.
Monty and partner Padraig
Harrington took it to Phil and Tiger right away. They
approached our hole about 45 minutes after teeing off.
Monty stepped up and calmly drained a 25 foot, downhill putt
right in front of us and we knew this was just the beginning.
Phil and Tiger never recovered all day, losing both matches.
The rest of the weekend the US
could never really mount a comeback. Friday afternoon
started out kind a nice, but the Euro team beat us back.
On Sunday morning, there was a point when it looked like the
Yanks might make a stunning comeback, but it never came to be.
Despite the poor performance of
the USA team overall, we had many great moments over the
weekend. Here are some winners and losers from the week:
Winners:
BBC Sports: We were
fortunate enough to hear the broadcast of BBC Sport "Radio Five
Live", led by the brilliant host
Russell Fuller and others
around the course. It is tough to describe, but the
commentary from these guys during the match is incredible.
It is much different from the NBC broadcast led by Johnny
Miller, in that the BBC feed is meant for radio listeners.
These guys paint a portrait of what's happening on the course,
and bring along a grand portion of English humor - some of the
funniest stuff you'll hear. For instance:
- One man on BBC described the
awkward golf swing of American Jim Furyk as "an octopus falling
out of a tree." Immediately another Brit agreed, then
provided his own delicious description of Jim's swing as "a one
armed man fighting a snake inside a phone booth."
- Fuller referred to one of the
American pairings on Saturday as "Cink-Love" (Stewart Cink &
Davis Love III), and then offered that the team name "sounds
like an unfortunate incident in the kitchen".
Monty, Sergio and the rest:
Wow, these guys are tough. Monty is just 41 and he
flat out took it to the best players in the world. Despite
his team's loss in Brookline, he was the best player on either
team. That was probably the case this week as well.
Sergio Garcia might have some argument there, as he was
outstanding all week and made all his big putts.
Oakland Hills:
No beer on the course was a major drag, but overall the layout
was outstanding. I would have preferred a few more
grandstands and a few more scoreboards and big screens, but hey.
Losers (Duds):
The "International Pavilion":
The lines outside the IP were, at times, ridiculous. They
oversold the access to this privileged, VIP area, and it was
unavailable when we needed it most: during lunch and before the
opening ceremonies. Thanks for nothing.
Radios: Just like at
the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline, all the spectators were left
fiddling around like idiots trying to get their radios to work.
Dudes - get some decent radios next time and/or let people bring
in their own from home. I snuck my own in - it was huge on
Saturday and Sunday.
The US attitude: I'm
sorry, but a lot of the US players are just jackasses.
Davis Love III strikes me as a total ass. Tiger is
obviously not much for fun, but he kind of gets away with it.
The rest need to relax a little bit. Everyone keeps
talking about all the pressure involved in this match, but the
US seem to be the only ones caving to it. Lighten up.
I wonder if they won't go really big with the captain - someone
like Watson or Nicklaus or someone like that. That said, I don't
think you can place any blame on Hal Sutton - I mean, how many
points is a captain responsible for, anyway? Under the
best circumstances, how many points would line up changes have
made?
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