At No. 9, Watson is wedged between the eight automatically selected players and Love’s three captain’s picks: Holmes, Fowler and Kuchar. With the 12-man European team already set, USA captain Davis Love III will make his final pick after next week’s Tour Championship.
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Yes, Bubba Watson, a man with nine PGA Tour wins and two major championships.
Holmes said he was thinking too much about making the Ryder Cup, one of the reasons he missed five of seven cuts from the U.S. Open until the start of the playoffs.
Love said the final pick will not necessarily come down to who plays the best at the Tour Championship.
He has consulted widely among the players who have qualified for the U.S. team over who they want alongside them at Hazeltine and Watson’s name clearly has not come up too often. “We have another tough decision coming up in two week”.
In choosing his captain’s picks, Love III seems to have placed a premium on previous Ryder Cup experience. “I can’t wan to make amends [for losing to Europe at Medinah in 2012] as try to bring the Cup home”. His Ryder Cup record is a less-than-stellar 0-4-4 but that such a small sample size that it could easily be fixed over the next two editions with good play.
Love’s official unveiling of his options was the snoozefest such events usually are until Kuchar threw out Woods’ name as that potential 12th and final member of Team USA.
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“The Ryder Cup’s a whole different animal and I’m looking forward to that opportunity”.
Love also discussed the role played by Tiger Woods, who has previously been described as the team’s unofficial “tactician”.
And he warned that even if the unpopular Watson were to enjoy a stellar finish to the season’s Tour Championship it might not be enough to force his way onto the team. Having had the two overseas, it’s going to be pretty incredible getting to play in front of a home crowd.
“Tiger looks at things from maybe a higher viewpoint than us sometimes”, Love said.
It hosted the Tony Jacklin charity event, a venue where Jacklin twice captained the European Ryder Cup team. And if you go by Sportingbet’s numbers, everyone outside of Watson, Berger and Thomas still has a lot of work to do if they want to be DL3’s fourth pick.
“I think over my career, since my rookie season to now, I’ve gotten better”, he said in the Masters media conference following the vote.
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Now that Fowler is confirmed, I expect Love will pick Watson for the last place, with Jim Furyk the only obvious alternative, unless someone comes from nowhere in the next fortnight.
