AMERICA AT LARGE:The principal reason the orange-clad 21-year-old is on the US Ryder Cup team and his infectious enthusiasm
THE GUY who asked Corey Pavin whether he had partaken of any “special medication” the previous evening as he contemplated the identities of his captain’s picks was presumably joking, but one might have asked the same question of the PGA of America.
Since the evidence suggests that in the Year of Our Lord 2010 the stockbrokers, day-traders and hedge-fund manipulators who populate Wall Street have overtaken politicians, lawyers, lap-dancers, meter-maids, crack-dealers and telemarketers to become the most despised group in America, you have to wonder what the PGA could have been thinking when they decided to make the New York Stock Exchange the focal point for Tuesday’s exercise in international diplomacy.
Upstairs, in a seventh-floor boardroom, Pavin squirmed uncomfortably in a jacket and tie as he confirmed the additions of Eldrick Woods, Stewart Cink, Zack Johnson and Rickie Fowler to the American team which begins its defence of the Ryder Cup three weeks from tomorrow in Wales.
Seemingly oblivious to the momentous event, day-traders on their lunch hour stood in a queue 50 brokers long, each awaiting the issuance of a white Celtic Manor baseball cap, a miniature American flag and a golf ball, along with the temporary loan of a putter, before tackling the artificial-turf practice green spread across Wall Street for the day.
Pavin’s immediate predecessor, Paul Azinger, made a corresponding announcement two Septembers ago in a midtown Manhattan hotel. Azinger later revealed that, even after successfully arguing his case for a fourth wild card pick, he had relieved himself of much of the soul-searching by allowing his three assistants to make one selection apiece.
Two of the 2008 captain’s picks (who turn out to have been vice-captains’ picks), Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker, had played their way onto the 2010 team in the qualification process determining this year’s first eight roster spots.
Pavin, recognising that history’s assessment of his captaincy would rest on the performance of the team he takes to Celtic Manor, made no such concessions to the democratic process. While he listened to the advice of his four assistants (Tom Lehman, Davis Love, Paul Goydos and Jeff Sluman), and even considered input from the eight men already on the team, the final decision was his alone. And while he ascribed it to “a gut feeling”, his nomination of the 21-year-old Fowler appears to be less a roll of the dice than an attempt by Pavin to shape the team in his image.
Put it this way: when one of Tuesday’s interrogators referred to Pavin’s as a “bulldog personality”, he did not disagree.
Fowler, an Oklahoma State product, is better known for wearing his school colour (orange) in each round of tournament competition than for winning PGA events, which he has yet to do. (Asked whether he could get through a whole week without wearing his trademark outfits, Fowler pointed out, “I’ve made it through two Walker Cups not wearing orange and it worked out well”. Pavin cited Fowler’s 7-1 Walker Cup record as a factor in his selection.)
But the principal reason Fowler is on the American team is his infectious enthusiasm. Pavin hopes he will emerge as the 2010 team’s Corey Pavin, if not its Anthony Kim.
Pavin’s recitation of his expectations echoed memories of his camouflage-wearing, search-and-destroy rampage at Kiawah in 1991: voicing hope that the aforementioned bulldog personality would rub off on his players, he described a mindset in which “every one of them is on a mission” that would see them do “whatever it takes . . . to keep the Ryder Cup in our hands”.
Kim’s emotional comportment at Valhalla was viewed by some as a catalyst in the American win. (It was viewed by others as an ill-mannered annoyance.) Although he stood ninth on the US points list when it closed on August 15th, Kim spent the summer recuperating from thumb surgery and does not appear to have been seriously considered.
JB Holmes (one of Azinger’s 2008 additions), Ricky Barnes and Nick Watney were also ahead of Fowler on the points list and will doubtless be disappointed, but as a whole Pavin’s selections are unlikely to inspire an incendiary backlash on the order of that which greeted Colin Montgomerie’s additions to, and exclusions from, the European side.
Although the selection of Woods was not the slam-dunk it might have been in another era, leaving Tiger off his team is not something Pavin ever seriously considered – although it might be noted the only Ryder Cup the Americans won over the past decade was the one in which Woods didn’t play.
His form notwithstanding, excluding Woods would not only have left Pavin open to second-guessing, but could have produced a deleterious effect on both the US television audience and the live gate at the host venue.
Fowler joins Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton and Matt Kuchar as first-time Ryder Cuppers. Zach Johnson, Mahan and Stricker will each be playing in his second. The greybeards will be Phil Mickelson, participating in his eighth Ryder Cup, Jim Furyk (seventh), Woods (sixth) and Cink. The 2009 British Open champion, Cink will be playing in his fifth Ryder Cup, and 2010 marks a US record third time he has been added via the wild card route.
Pavin said the next three weeks would be spent honing the pairings for the fourball and foursomes events. Woods has previously partnered only two members of the 2010 event. In a diabolical 2004 experiment dreampt up by Hal Sutton, he played two rounds with Mickelson, a partnership which was dissolved after losing both matches.
At the K Club four years ago, Woods and Furyk played together in all four team events.
Their 2-2 record might have been somewhat underwhelming, but it was a significant improvement over Tiger’s Ryder Cup record (5-10-1) with everybody else.
