US captain Davis Love III added power, personality and the recent Olympic bronze medalist to his Ryder Cup team Monday.
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When Davis Love III and the U.S. Ryder Cup team come to Hazeltine at the end of the month, they will be looking to avoid an unprecedented fourth straight defeat to the Europeans.
“I’ve been saying all along, we’re a sports team and we have to draft the right player for the right position”, Love said. “We have another tough decision coming up in two weeks”. “We’re really confident in them and we’re excited to have our 11 players now. We were really close two weeks ago but it took us to last night to finish it off”. In that Ryder Cup Holmes went 2-0-1.
“I would say players playing in the Tour Championship need to think about winning the Tour Championship and not to think about Ryder Cup points”. It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see Watson on the US team, but Furyk didn’t make the BWM field this week and Fowler has struggled in the playoffs.
That record adds up to lot of bogeys – by players and captains both – given the Americans owned this biennial competition from its inception in 1927 until its first loss in 1985, when the late, great Seve Ballesteros united Europe and changed the entire culture of the thing.
This year’s event is being held in Hazeltine, Minnesota from 30 September to 2 October.
Amongst the famous names in attendance were Peter Shilton, England’s most capped footballer of all-time, former England cricketer Matthew Hoggard, England rugby’s World Cup hero Neil Back and Harry Potter movie stars Oliver and James Phelps.
“Phil (Mickelson) kept saying “we want to try and win the next 10 Ryder Cups”. There’s been some awkward conversations with him but we’ve told him not to put his clubs away just yet”. Having had the two overseas, it’s going to be pretty fantastic getting to play in front of a home crowd.
It was a bit of a surprising selection partly because Rickie Fowler hasn’t had a great season, and also because because Bubba Watson and Jim Furyk – two players who in the mind of many thought should cruise onto the team – weren’t among those included.
Thomas Pieters, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer were selected as picks by European captain Darren Clarke last month, the inclusion of the Belgian taking the number of rookies in the defending champions’ team to six.
Kuchar, who will make his fourth consecutive appearance, said: “I was part of that team in Medinah”.
Watson may be a bit of an awkward fit in team match play, but he is nevertheless one of the most decorated American players of the last five years.
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I’d like to see him getting thrown into the mix on home soil rather than waiting two years and making his Ryder Cup debut in France.
