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Presidents Cup pluses
Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle will answer your questions every Thursday during the golf season. Click here to send him a question. The Ryder Cup could stand to borrow a few ideas from its half-brother, the Presidents Cup. The daily draft during which the Presidents Cup captains match up the next round's pairings is a fun dose of strategy, part golf, part chess. I'd love to see that at the Ryder Cup, too, especially with Sunday's singles draw.
I don't care for the Presidents Cup one-man playoff, which happens if the whole thing ends in a tie Sunday night. Ties are part of match play. What's wrong with that? This week's mail:
Why has Tiger Woods had so much trouble in match-play formats as a pro? You'd think he'd intimidate people to the point where his competition doesn't show up for the tee time. Why do people like Darren Clarke come up and sting him in match play all the time?
All the time? Hardly. But it's simple, Evan. An 18-hole match is everyone's best (or maybe only) chance to beat Woods. It's like challenging Michael Johnson to a 10-yard sprint. Get off to a good start and you might nip him, but at 100 or 200 meters you're dead. Same with Woods over 72 holes if he's playing his best. Throw up five or six birdies in an 18-hole match and you've got a good chance. The more holes you play, the more likely it is that Woods' skill will come out. Plus, while Woods won 18 matches in a row as an amateur, don't forget that he gets stuck with a partner until Sunday's singles matches in the Ryder and Presidents Cups, and some of his partners haven't played so well. Woods is 3-6-1 in the Ryder Cup. At Valderrama in '97 he caught a funky course that took the driver out of his and the rest of the long-hitting Americans' hands. At the '98 Presidents Cup, where he was 2-3, let's face it, he and a number of American players viewed it as an exhibition and didn't grind on their games in advance. He did beat Greg Norman in singles, if you recall. Even the great Bobby Jones used to fear the 18-hole matches in the early rounds of the U.S. and British amateurs because he knew he was vulnerable. But once he got to the 36-hole matches, he was confident the cream would rise to the top.
Why is there a Presidents Cup? I love the Ryder Cup and everything it stands for, but I feel total apathy toward the Presidents Cup. Does anyone other than the TV networks care about it?
Maybe you haven't noticed, Steve, but most of the world is excluded from the Ryder Cup. To the players who aren't from America or Europe, the Presidents Cup is the world's No. 1 team event. Presidents Cup play is captivating, if you're a golf fan, even if the significance of the outcome isn't.
What do you think about having the U.S. and Europe alternate in the Presidents Cup? If I were one of the American pros, I probably would start to lose interest in the Presidents Cup.
As I've written repeatedly, Ben, a merger would be in the best interests of both events. Let the Presidents Cup winner play in the following Ryder Cup against the defending Ryder Cup champion. The resulting Ryder Cup winner would get a year off while the two losing teams would square off in the Presidents Cup to earn the right to go to the next Ryder Cup. If my format was in place last year, this Presidents Cup would feature the Internationals vs. Europe, which lost to the U.S. last year, with the winner playing the Americans next year at The Belfry. It would be great because it would give the Presidents Cup the needed do-or-die urgency while adding interest to the Ryder Cup, which hasn't been very big in the rest of the world. Imagine the hysteria worldwide if the Internationals, featuring players from golf-crazy Japan, Canada, Australia and so on, faced the U.S. in the Ryder Cup. Too bad the PGA of America, the organization of club pros that runs the Ryder Cup, and the PGA Tour, which started the Presidents Cup, won't start sharing money and power until the day after hell freezes over.
About Tiger Woods' lifetime exemption for winning 20 PGA Tours events, I've heard it doesn't take effect until he has been on the tour for 15 years. Hence, he'll have to remain exempt by other means until 2011. No mean task for him, I'm sure.
I don't get the fascination with Tiger's exemptions. It's like wondering whether Bill Gates keeps 20s or 50s in his wallet. But you're right, Tiger can't invoke his 20-win lifetime exemption until he's slugged it out for 15 seasons on the tour. Think he'll last that long, P.C.?
I always thought golf was a game of honor, courtesy and honesty. Pat Bradley and her team showed none of the above at the Solheim Cup. What happened to the grace that Jack Nicklaus showed when he picked up his opponent's ball on the 18th green rather than force him to make a three-footer to tie?
Do tell, William. You're wrong about the honesty part. Annika Sorenstam was 100 percent wrong to play out of turn and 200 percent wrong for complaining about being forced to replay her shot. The order of play is vital in match play and it's in the rule book. Bradley was right. That said, I thought it was cheesy and I would never call an opponent on such an infraction, although I would let him know of his error. As for Nicklaus' grand gesture, that was a different era. The Brits weren't competitive in the Ryder Cup, and giving them a tie was throwing them a puny bone. After the acrimony of the Tony Jacklin years helped fuel interest in the Ryder Cup, however, I guarantee there would be a mutiny these days if any American player thought about conceding his opponent a putt that would let the matches end in a tie.
Why was Ernie Els left out of the Grand Slam of Golf after coming in second in three of the four majors this year?
Els declined an invitation to compete in the strictly made-for-TV, silly-season money-grab.
Click here to send your golf question to Gary Van Sickle.
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