Fresh Look

Europe won too because it was easier to go into the Ryder Cup as the underdog. "There's something about beating the United States of America in anything that turns the crank of everybody, whether it's Hezbollah or the European Ryder Cup team," says David Ogrin, one of Lehman's friends, who will also be his assistant at the K Club. You can be sure some PGA official is going to try to shut Ogrin up. Sentences like that, they can make you forget that the U.S. is the underdog. It really is.

"I would say the U.S. team is the underdog, and the U.S. is probably going to win," says Ogilvy, the U.S. Open champion. He expects that the Americans will be comfortable at the K Club, an American-style course designed by Arnold Palmer. He predicts that American frustration with its dismal record over the last decade will spur action. Finally, he cites the fun the U.S. team had while winning last year's Presidents Cup.

Fun is Lehman's operative word. In a year when Woods lost his father and DiMarco lost his mother and Clarke lost his wife--and a ghastly number of Americans and Europeans and Iraqis and Lebanese and Israelis have lost loved ones through war--playing an international golf match ought to be a good time, no matter who is on the team, no matter who wins. That's the message from Coach Wooden to Captain Lehman, and from Lehman to us.

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

'DOG DAYS

A largely inexperienced U.S. team will go into the Ryder Cup as an underdog. Here's the skinny on the Americans who will tee it up against the Europeans at the K Club