The Ryder Cup
I don’t doubt that the American players in this week’s Ryder Cup care about the biennial tournament and really want to win. The suggestion that they don’t want it largely stems from the fact that they’ve won only three of the last ten, dating to 1985. That and the uniforms. The last time they won it, in 1999, the shirt portion of their uniforms looked like they were cut from the carpet of a chain motel, but that may be doing a great disservice to the carpets of chain motels. What I doubt is the importance of this event for anyone but the players, professional golfers not in the tournament and the most diehard followers and fans of the sport. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me we’re being told this tournament is of far greater importance and significance---national pride at stake!---than it actually is. We’re not talking the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This is no 1980, never has been and despite the efforts of NBC, the Ryder Cup does not carry the kind of national importance that the Olympics has (though the Olympics have lost a lot of oomph in recent years and decades, for many reasons, and are nearly as unwatchable as the Ryder Cup). Why is the Ryder Cup unwatchable? It’s not because of the golf. Match play is a particularly exciting brand of golf to watch. And these are the top players in the world, with the exception of international players not from Europe. It’s because of the aforementioned promotion of the event as something more significant than it actually is, and because of the spectacle. Two years ago, I actually watched some of the opening ceremonies. There was a stage with plenty of C-grade entertainers. The players and their wives, in formal attire uniforms, watched as Samuel L. Jackson---who once acted in Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Jungle Fever, Fresh, Pulp Fiction and Unbreakable, and who this summer starred in … Snakes on a Plane---shared the stage with the likes of Ben Taylor and Donald Trump. A USA Today article on the 2004 opening ceremonies included this paragraph: “Entertainment will feature traditional music provided by a 24-piece bag pipe band and Celtic fiddler, mixed with the cool sounds of soul, bluegrass, country and western and pop music.” Forget about cool sounds, what about Kool-Aid? The article goes on to mention that “Jack Morton Worldwide, the company behind the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, is producing the Opening Ceremonies for The 35th Ryder Cup Matches.” This Ryder Cup, despite the pomp and circumstance, despite Olympic dreams, which you’ll notice do not attend the sport’s four major tournaments, actually has some story lines: Darren Clarke’s return to competition after the death of his wife, Tiger taking more of a leadership role for the American side, and the possibility for Phil Mickelson to somewhat salvage his season and the devastating loss at the U.S. Open if the Americans can win. There’s another aspect of Tiger’s role, which is that he’s having quite a finishing third of the season on Tour and could destroy the suggestion that he’s much more of an individual competitor than a team player given his less than stellar record in match play, at least as compares to his record on his own. The European side, you can be sure, is going to sweat it out to try to win for Clarke. The Americans have the better players, all things considered, but that hasn’t meant much in recent Ryder Cups. They seem to want this one more, though. They flew to Ireland a couple weeks ago. Tiger took the rookies out to eat. He’s paired with Jim Furyk, which is a winning combination. They’ve got some grit on their side in Scott Verplank. Sooooo ….. For this week’s Ryder Cup, take the United States to defeat the European team (11-10), 1.5 units. Last week: Sean O’Hair was right in it after two rounds then laid an egg Saturday (78), effectively ending my chances in the outright. I won the head-to-head, though, as Chad Campbell finished higher than Craig Barlow (T106 to T123). At 4-5, 1 unit, that was $800. Coupled with the outright loss of half a unit, I finished up $300. That brings my season total to minus 18.5 units. Note: all odds from WillHill.com
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