Comments on: Why the Americans won the Ryder Cup

By: Darren Rowland

Darren Rowland — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:55:54 +0000

Europe lost the ryder cup because phil mickelson is the best player in the world

By: David Thorp

David Thorp — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:28:00 +0000

Europe’s Ryder Cup fell apart on the last day. Faldo’s casual approach to Sunday’s order of play was a big mistake. It was reported that he asked the players their preferred positon in the line-up and went along with their choices. This lead to Poulter, Westwood and Harrington going out in the last three matches. I’m sure they were very tired and all wanted to hole the winning putt, but with the team 2 points behind surely the strongest players should have played first to claw back the deficit. Garcia was arguably the correct choice to lead off but he was “out-Sergioed” by Kim and the first point was lost. With stronger captaincy Europe could have won, but the whole three days gave us great entertainment, and all concerned must be congratulated.

By: Ken Jackson

Ken Jackson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:46:26 +0000

Good points, folks. I do think guys like Kim, Weekley, Mahan, Stricker, et al, probably racheted it up a bit more with Woods absent, but yes they would have been “themselves” regardless. Tiger’s absence meant the others couldn’t wait around for him to “make a play” (win a match) and they had to go out and do it themselves. Besides, I’m sure a bit of ol’ Yankee pride kicked in with folks like Furyk, Mickelson and Leonard — with the exception of 1999 they’ve been getting their butts kicked for 13 years. Boo, J.B., Anthony and Kenny Perry didn’t come with that kind of baggage and were a breath of fresh air.

By: TeeOff

TeeOff — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:11:08 +0000

Tiger’s absence was noticeable but I don’t think that the enthusiasm of Kim, Mahan and Weekley would have been any different. They were pumped and maybe the Ryder Cup will return to prominence.

By: Robert Fowler

Robert Fowler — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:02:40 +0000

Good post. When it became clear Tiger would not be in the Ryder Cup, I told some friends that it was actually a good thing for the USA. This will be heresy to many, but he is not the ultimate team player and his Ryder Cup record is average. The media attention he gets and his demeanor in general I think distracted from the “team” in the past.
Zinger did a great job and he took his job seriously. Not that past Captains did not, but Zinger was willing to shake things up and not go with the status quo. Kudos to the stodgy PGA for listening to him.