Written by Adam Schwartz
After yet another defeat for the American Ryder Cup team on European soil in late September, several peculiar events have transpired. The Ryder Cup is an event that is based strictly on competition between two sides: The Americans and Continental Europe’s top 12 players, based on performance and captain’s picks. The two sides play for absolute pride; no money is awarded to the participants. However, this year, pride became personal for a number of United States constituents involved with the decision-making.
Some of the major headlines started before the Ryder Cup even began. They all included the American side, and never seemed to appear as positive news. PGA president Ted Bishop went against protocol by naming Tom Watson to be Ryder Cup captain for a second time, becoming the oldest-ever captain at the age of 65. Other headlines included the absence of Tiger Woods and PGA champion Jason Dufner from the team due to injuries. In addition was Dustin Johnson’s leave of absence due to excessive “snow-blowing.”
The other debacle was the apparent handling of the Ryder Cup captain selection show. If you watched LeBron’s cheesy “decision” show, this was eerily similar to the pathetic loss of someone’s time to watch a 40-minute show about making a simple decision. This show was again orchestrated by the PGA and Ted Bishop.
Play of the Ryder Cup in the last weekend of September included a “call-out” from top U.S. player Phil Mickelson towards the leadership and decision-making of the most recent captains, and how the formula for winning seems to have been unsuccessful since the victorious team of 2008, with Paul Azinger as captain. Phil was doing exactly what all losers of an event do, which is to vent his frustrations through opinion. After the loss this past month, the PGA and its officers decided, again unprecedentedly, to name a Ryder Cup “task force” team to combat all the criticism of the recent decision-making. This is apparent knee-jerk reactive thinking that should embarrass any American golf fan, and more inclusively, any member in good standing with the PGA. Jack Nicklaus described this decision as being “overkill.”
Furthermore, just this past week, a few European competitors like Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter were mocking this decision via Twitter. Again, and for the final time, Ted Bishop made his last mistake as PGA president by retaliating to comments Poulter made. This time, Mr. Bishop’s comments, although arbitrary, were the last straw for the PGA’s board of directors. Not even a month until Mr. Bishop’s tenure as president would be complete, his position was compromised short of completion.
The recurring theme I would like to reiterate is that the PGA, along with their former president, were making the Ryder Cup a bigger deal than it truly is. The U.S. simply lost because they didn’t have their entire team playing. The team played hard with desire and pride, but it simply did not work out. There is not a perfect formula that the task force team will come up with to win, nor an ideal captain of the team. The whole process now to fix what the PGA thinks is wrong is counter-intuitive. The PGA and its Ryder Cup constituents should all take a step back and do less, rather than publicly announce that more is the answer.
