Ryder Cup process puts emphasis on recent results

The year's final major, the PGA Championship, is just around the corner. Not only are we eager to find out the winner at Medinah, but this event ends the process of point accumulation for those who are vying to compete on the Ryder Cup team in September.

With his second place finish in the Open Championship, Chris DiMarco's jumped from 21st in standings to sixth, pretty much insuring his position on the roster.

The interesting thing, and a point of contention over the past couple of weeks, is that John Rollings vaulted from outside the top 60 and into the top-10 during the same week with his win at the BC Open. Rollings garnered 375 points against a lackluster field while DiMarco earned only 360 points for his runner-up in a major.

So is there a problem in the new allocation of Ryder Cup points?

Ryder Cup points are earned by players for top-10 finishes in events on the PGA Tour. What the PGA of America did this time with the new system was reward those playing the best golf in the year leading up to the matches. The current year is worth four times as many points, majors counting double, and there is a 75-point bonus for winning.

My father, 1979 Ryder Cup captain Billy Casper said, "The players that are playing the best the year leading into the Ryder Cup are the one's that should be on the team."

Many critics have said that it should be the top-10 U.S. finishers in PGA events that should get the points. Currently there are points weekly that aren't awarded, especially since there are so many European and World players competing and finishing each week in the top-10.

PGA President Roger Warren had some interesting thoughts on this: "The reason we reward points in the top 10 is it becomes difficult to look at a player who finishes 24th and 25th. If there are a lot of European players in the field, those are the players they're going to compete against at the Ryder Cup.

"Play harder. Play better."

My sentiments exactly. If the Americans can't beat the Euros at any given event on the PGA Tour, then why should they get points? So what if there are unearned points weekly on tour. The last thing that U.S. golf needs is for mediocrity to be rewarded, hence the top-10 standard.

Everything was all well and good with the new system until some no-named players decided that the brass ring of making the team was in their grasp.

Brett Wetterich started playing well in May when he won in Dallas and finishing second at the Memorial.

Then J.J. Henry, who tied for second in Phoenix and also tied for fourth in Atlanta, won in Hartford and climbed all the way to No. 7.

But the panic really set in two weeks ago when Rollins cracked the top 10 by winning and earned more points than DiMarco, who finished second to Tiger Woods at the British Open.

My take: Winning should always be rewarded. I'm not discounting DiMarco's finish, but to win takes dealing with pressures coming down the stretch to close the deal. Pressure that is very similar to those of a Ryder Cup when players are competing for a point to win a match for their country, their team and themselves.

So now the question is, Who will be the players that will fill out the team that heads to the K Club in Ireland against the Euro's?

Here's the standings with three weeks left:

The top six are pretty much set in stone, and should be as they all have prior Ryder Cup experience. Positions seven through 15 remain up in the air and a lot can happen over the next couple of weeks.

Veterans Davis Love III and Fred Couples can still make it into the mix with stellar play or they could be a captain's pick. At this point their play in this Ryder Cup year has been lackluster at best.

Others that Captain Tom Lehman could possibly call on might be Stewart Cink and Scott Verplank.

As to the notion that our team could be weak by the inclusion of possibly four rookies, I say it's about time. The Euros have been cleaning our clocks with rookies over the past decade. Let's get some new blood on the team and who knows, maybe our rookies will step up to the plate with this opportunity and challenge facing them.

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