Posted: Wed September 3, 1997
Every U.S. Ryder Cup team has a captain appointed by the PGA of
America and a leader anointed by his teammates. The latter may
be the more critical choice. Before the matches, when
organization counts, the captain's job is the most important.
Once the competition begins, though, it's crucial that the
players have one of their own to lean on, a person they believe
in and can count on when the heat's turned up between the ropes.
Paul Azinger (1991), Fred Couples ('93) and Corey Pavin ('95)
have filled the role in the past, but Azinger and Pavin won't be
around Sept. 26-28 at Valderrama in Sotogrande, Spain, and
Couples isn't the player he was. The job is open, and who will
seize it has been a topic of conversation on Tour. One candidate
is obvious. "Maybe Tiger," says Azinger.
Perhaps the task will fall to Woods someday, but not this year.
The position is usually reserved for a veteran, and no one on
the team, besides Couples, has more experience than Mark
O'Meara, who not only has played in more Ryder Cups (three:
1985, '89 and '91) than anyone else who qualified for the squad,
but at 40 is also one of the senior men on the U.S. side.
O'Meara has all the credentials for leadership. He has been an
impressively consistent performer almost from the moment he
joined the Tour in 1981, winning 14 times—including a record
five times at Pebble Beach—and finishing out of the top 30 on
the money list only twice in the last 13 seasons. More
important, he has played some of his best golf over the past 2
1/2 years. This season he has won twice: at Pebble, where he
held off Woods, and at the Buick Invitational. O'Meara has also
been successful at match play. He won the 1979 U.S. Amateur,
blistering John Cook 8 and 7 in the final, and paced the
victorious U.S. team with a 5-0 record in last year's Presidents
Cup.
Take us to your leader? O'Meara would seem to be the logical
choice, except for two things: He's probably less enthused about
going to Valderrama than any other player on either side, and he
has a lousy record in the Ryder Cup (2-5-1, including 0-3 in
singles). "He's not the kind of guy who's motivated to get on
the Ryder Cup team," says Azinger, who with O'Meara as a partner
beat Nick Faldo and David Gilford 7 and 6 in a foursomes match
in 1991 at Kiawah Island. "He doesn't enjoy going to the dinners
and all that. He would probably want to be on the team more if
they didn't have the dinners."
Says Payne Stewart, who was a teammate of O'Meara's on the 1989
and '91 teams, "It's a stressed-out week—a severely
stressed-out week," and then adds, "Some guys don't like to deal
with that."
There's no question that the Ryder Cup has become an ordeal for
the players. After practice rounds, meetings, interviews and
official functions, they have maybe five waking hours to
themselves during the week. "Let me ask you a question," O'Meara
says. "There's a champions' dinner after the matches. If you've
lost, would you want to go to a victory dinner?"
O'Meara has experienced the gamut of Ryder Cup emotions—he has
been on teams that have lost ('85), tied ('89) and won
('91)—but has had a hard time getting fired up about the event.
After Tom Kite was named captain of this year's team, he asked
O'Meara about this ambivalence. "Tom said, 'Look, I know you
haven't been the biggest fan of the Ryder Cup,'" says O'Meara.
"I said, 'Well, I've got to be truthful. When we get to
Valderrama, I'm going to do whatever it takes for our team to
win. If I'm on my game, I'll want to be out there every match.
If I'm not, I'll be the first to admit that somebody else should
play.' Honesty is the key to playing on a team."
Issue date: September 8, 1997
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