Ryder Cup

I see that the pairings for Friday 4 ball matches are out, just curious as to everyones thoughts:

Woods/furyk v. Monty/Padraig: I think this one the U.S needs to win or tie, and I am not sure you could get a better pairing to open the Match. My prediction is US

Cink/Henry v. Casey/Karlsson: Looks like Woosie put his two hottest golfers out there together, Europe has to be a favorite in this match. Though Cink and Henry make a lot of birdies. I will go with Europe

Toms/weitterich v. Olazabal/Garcia: another interesting match Wetterich will be the key, no one hits it longer off the tee and I think the US will give him the green light to go for all the high risk shots figuring Toms will make pars. Europe has to be the favorite but I will say US will get at least half a point in this match.

Lefty/Dimarco v. Clarke/Westwood. Another great match. The key is whose game between Phil and CLarkes is in better shape. I will go with Phil

Prediction US 2.5 points Europe 1.5

The alternate shot Veplank/ Zach, Cambell/taylor will join Tiger/ Furyk and that Lehaman will go with Phil if he is on if not look for Toms and Cink to team up. Not sure about the Europe team Donald and Howell will paly, Stenson most likely I not sure about Mcginley. Woosie has the tougher time.

Sort of excited to watch the matches.

hi
its been an intresting day, it was closer than the score 5-3. to think it could of been 6-2 or even 4-4 was that close.
bill

hi
do you think putting mcginley and clark at number 6 and 7 in sundays match, woosnam thinks one of the the irish pair is going to get the magic points to win the ryder cup.
bill

What a wonderful Cup with many memorable shots.

The Europeans interacted with the crowds and expressed their emotion. They thrived on the atmostphere. In contrast, it appeared that the Americans were very introvert.

Some commentators on Fox passed comment that the American's lacked emotion and were not team focused.

IMO it appeared that the Europeans were a close knit group. The Americans - were not.

What do you think?

I did not get a chance to see a lot of the matches and just got a chance to see 1/2 a match here and 1/2 a match there, but my take on the matches were that Europe jumped all over the Americans early. That this gave them a lot of momentum and emotion, as well as took a lot of the pressure off. By contrast I thought that the Americans played a little tight and were getting a head of themselves at times, when Europe would make a mistake the Americans more often then not would follow up with a bad shot. The Americans also I think were looking for anything at all to get some momentum to feed off of but really never had a lot of matches shots holes in a row go right.

As for the team thing, I think that over the years Europe has an easier time finding pairings that work, a lot of it is the attitude of their players. I really not sure if any of their players care who their matched with they seem to be happy who they have a chance to perform. The Americans to me are more concerned with who they are matched with, as well as "finding the right partner". Take this weekend where one golfer in the alternate shot is going to have 12 of the 18 approach shots (I believe that is the stat they gave for the K club) why would you not split up the 2 top golfers in the world Furyk and Woods (both great iron players) put them with a great putter and let each of them anchor a team. I know they expressed an interest in playing together and how their games are similar but to me where you lack Europe's depth and are down they should have been split up on alternate shot.

Also, I think that the Americans stick with their "stars" way too much. Given Phil's past ryder cup record, I am not sure why you run him out all 5 matches (same for Tiger and Furyk but at least they showed they came to play on day 1). I can see giving him the first day, but where he fails to get a point you need to give the other guys a chance besides giving him a wake up call and sitting him might just fire him up.

hi
i think woosie thaough more about the pairing the way he used the long hitters in the mornings and the shorter plays in the afternoon and had the longer players tee up so thay played the par 5s, it seemed to work and let every one play and i think every player getting at lest a half before the songles helped us so much more than the usa, woosie played it good and so dit the guys helping him, the only real good point for the usa was cink, he had a great ryder cup. played some wonderful shots and gave sergio no chance in the singles.
monty said he could not stop smilling down the first hole of the singles with the huge cheer he got on the first tee, great having someone like that at mumber on on your list. all 12 played great and added something to the team and it showed so much it was a team and one persons score did not mater only the team score matered.
really though tom did all he could to motvate the usa and he was good, dont know if the will have him a second time but think he should be given a chance to have one more go.
bill

I am not blaming Lehman I think he did a great job in attempting to motivate the team and as far as match ups my guess is that nothing would have mattered Europe was hot and there just was not a lot of options he had to go with.

I think it was crazy to have your two best players playing together in the fourball.
What is the point in them winning a hole where they both have birdies and then the two rookies lose a hole with two bogeys..
Surely its better to split them up to increase your chances, its like the Americans (well I guess Lehman really) arent too hot on the tactics required for matchplay.
You dont need a low score, you just need one better one than your opposition.

I can see both sides, I think Lehman's early pairings were an attempt to splitt the points and remain close heading into singles and avoid a total disaster. Thinking that by running out 2 real strong teams they should be able to get 1.5 points and his 2 other teams should be able to some how salvage a .5 point.

The problem is that the super star teams did not dominate or even win holes with 2 birdies let alone 1 birdies . Tiger/furyk went 2-2 (so a .5 a match) and Phil/Dimarco(toms for one) went 0-3-1 (.125 a match)

The little I watched I thought that Verplank, Cambell, Henry and Johnson came to play ( Cink, Tiger and Furyk as well) and should have played more then they did. Phil is so talented and I know it would have been tough to sit him but at some point the results matter and if he is not getting results he needs to sit.

hi
how much was it lehman's pick and how much tiger wanting to play with furyk, i think there was presure on tiger getting more wins as he had done so bad in the past and thats why he had the best partner.
in the 2004 ryder cup monty was over the moon with the two best usa players playing together, he said they already had won a point as the usa could only win one point and not two.
bill

I think it was more Tiger's decision. Lehman made an effort to get Tiger motivated for the matches and allowed him to hand pick his partner. Figuring a happy Tiger is better then telling him how it is going to be and have him disatisfied. I also think that Lehaman tried hard to find guys everyone was comfortable playing with as opposed to ones games mixed well and that formed the best team. Tiger has a terrible record when paired with anyone besides Furyk.

I also thought it was amusing that Tiger was widely qouted as telling Lehman "do not worry about our rookies I will take care of them" My thought when reading this would be if you want to do that then be paired with one and win with someone who is not the second ranked player in the world. I think Lehaman would have been esctatic if Tiger said "give me a rookie that will make birdies in 4 ball and a rookie who will hit fairways and a great putter in alternate shot. "

To me Tiger (also Nike) is very much aware of golf's history and is motivated on how he will end up fitting into the record books when his career is over. Tiger is motivated by becoming the greatest golfer which means winning majors and in some respects avoiding a losing individual Ryder cup record hence requesting to be paired with USA's next best player.

hi
i agree with everything you say its just how i was thinking when he got paired with furyk and not droped in the second match.
bill

Irrespective of what the individual wants, one should do the team thing. Perhaps some in the American team were more concerned about themselves than the bigger picture, ie, team and the Cup.

It's interesting the comments made here about Tiger. Again some of the commentators on Fox were suggesting Tiger was not a team player and either he didn't place much emphasis on the Cup or comprehended the history behind the Cup. His record is quite good in the Cup. I don't know his exact statistics but he was won plenty more mathces than he has lost.

Lehmann's list management for future Ryder Cups (if Capt.) will be better off from this defeat. It makes a fair bit of sense to put the best players with the second tier players in the 4bbb and foursomes.

__________________
VP

hi
tiger is 7--11--2 = 8 points he has lost 11 games.
so not so good for the best player in the world.
he has lost 5 games each in the foresomes and foreball.
only lost one in the singles.
bill

I believe that was prior to this year so now he is 10-13-2

And is 3-1-1 in singles, which leaves a 7-12-1 mark for team matches.

Bob