Ryder Fatigue

Former Assistant Captain Olazabal and his team.

The Ryder Cup takes place this weekend. What used to be one of the most anticipated events on the golfing calendar seems to have lost a lot of its lustre. What happened to this once prestigious event? Like a Greek tragedy, the Ryder Cup's slow death can be attributed to its evil brother, the President's Cup.

Formally, the Ryder Cup offered golf fans a different sort of tournament; a match play event pitting once country against another. The unique format made it exciting and different, the fact it only happened every two years added to the prestige. Add to that, the top quality players who participated, and you had quite the event on your hands, exciting for fans and profitable for the organizers, the PGA. But by the early 1990's, golf began to change, as players from different parts of the world rose to prominence. Names like Greg Norman, Ernie Els and Nick Price. Not being from Europe or the Untied States, they were not eligible for the Ryder Cup, and the PGA was unable to showcase many of the game's top names. Unfortunately, greed crept into play, and brought the world the President's Cup, a bastardization of the Ryder Cup, played under the false pretence of "patriotism." A more contrived event has never existed in the world of golf, and I'm including the 84 Lumber Classic.

The President's Cup watered down the match play format by creating an annual match play event pitting the United States against...whomever. What used to be a rare treat now occurs every year at the same time. It just isn't as exciting anymore. Picture the Olympics taking place every year. Sure, we all loved watching cross-country skiing this past February, but if the Olympics took place every year, nobody would care. I guess the PGA never heard of "leaving the audience longing for more" and instead went with "let's drown 'em with this stuff!"

But it isn't just the fans who are tired of the event, players don't seem to be as excited anymore either. Top players like Phil Mickelson (and formally Tiger Woods), have qualified for these events every year for over a decade. Knowing they will be playing in a for-profit event, pro bono, every single year for two decades just isn't as exciting for them as it may sound. And don't tell me they should be playing in this for "patriotic" reasons either; such a contrived event has about as much to do with patriotism as the X-Games. There is no tradition, no reason for the event to exist, other than making the PGA a boat load of money, and no reason for the players to be excited about playing in it.

So what can be done to fix the poor, old, Ryder Cup, a tournament that's fading through no fault of its own? The PGA needs to look at combining the two events into one, by having the United States take on the rest of the world, including Europe. The event would be held every other year and would pit the world's best golfers against each other. Or, perhaps the event could be between hemispheres, West vs. East. There are a couple of South Americans who might make the team. (If anybody suggests Mike Weir could, I'll throw up. He sucks.) By returning the event to a bi-annual event, it might restore some of the prestige and mystic that has been lost since 1994, and having it involve the entire world, would only improve the quality of play. Don't worry about the team aspect of the Cup by doing this either. There isn't any bond between Germans, Italians and Englishmen, so it wouldn't matter if we threw an Aussie or a South African into the mix.

The other problem with the Ryder Cup is the focus that has been put on the Captains in the last ten or fifteen years. I mean really, what the hell does the Captain actually do? According to the Press office for the European Tour, shirt color is one of the Captain's main duties:

"The Captain is also responsible for deciding the clothing that the players wear both on and off the fairways. Both Captains confer so that the colour co-ordinated playing uniforms do not clash.”

Right. Remember 1999, at Brookline, and the ugly shirts the Americans wore on the last day? Ben Crenshaw talked about these shirts like they were the deciding factor in the match. C'mon!!! Yeah, that's why I passed Sociology 201 too, because I wore my favourite "hypercolor" t-shirt; it had nothing to do with me cheating off the girl who sat in front of me during the final exam. (As an aside, Tiger has said about his shirt from that day, "I threw it in the fireplace over Christmas and burned it. It was sooo ugly. It provided more warmth for the house.")

People make it sound like Pavin and Monty have a chance to cure cancer or something. They're putting the name of one world-class golfer next to that of another world-class golfer. It isn't rocket science. The pairing and the order of the matches and all that other bullshit don't mean anything; and the media needs to give it a rest. Let's move the Captain's back to where they belong, on the sidelines, and get back to showcasing the golfers and their play. And the ugly shirts chosen by the Captains.

-TheRev

twitter.com/TheRevBW

Agree? Disagree? We want to hear from you! Click below to comment