If you don’t like the Ryder Cup you don’t like cream gravy, or black-eyed peas, or hotdogs, or apple pie, or pasta, or KFC, or Mexican food, or potatoes, or … Sorry, I’m on a diet. In any case, here we are at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A., the home of Adolph Rupp, Muhammad Ali, the Kentucky Derby, Thomas Edison, Tom Cruise, Diane Sawyer, Hunter S. Thompson and the Louisville Slugger, and before the week is over the U.S. team may need a Louisville Slugger to use on the internationals.
According to everyone, including Paul Azinger, we are the underdogs, and if history is any indicator… However, this year’s U.S. team probably knows less about Ryder Cup history than any team in the past. Anthony Kim was in junior high school when Justin Leonard won the Cup in 1999 and Hunter Mahan was a teenager trying to get his learner’s permit. Sure, Jim Furyk and Kenny Perry remember what happened, but they’re on the Champions Tour, aren’t they? In case you are counting, not only has half of the U.S. team never played in a Ryder Cup, they have never even attended one.
No weight of history here, and that’s the good news. On the other hand, Captain Azinger will need to make sure that his talented rookies don’t let their confidence turn into arrogance. In other words, they need to let the game come to them. Stay humble like Boo Weekley who, when asked what it’s like to wear the Ryder Cup uniform this week, said, "I can tell you right now these pants I've got on are probably the most expensive thing I've ever owned. These things here, they felt like a pair of silk underwear when you're getting ready to go hunting. They're unreal.”
Weekley showed up in Louisville last Saturday to get in a few extra practice rounds at Valhalla. "I come out early so I could ride in a golf cart," he said with a smile. "I'm too fat to walk that many holes all the time."
When asked about the past, Weekley said, "I think the past has got to change. It's time for a new era. ... We're the underdogs. ... You don't know what you've got until you get out there and play with it.
"It's like getting a new pack of hounds when we were growing up and going deer hunting. You don't know what kind of dogs you've got until you run them, so let's run them and we'll see."
Capitan Azinger has also decided to run the dogs a little differently. As the host, he is allowed to pick the order of play and he has opted for foursomes each morning.
"Ryder Cups I played (in) we always played alternate shots in the morning," Azinger said. And it's not surprising he remembers those fondly -- the U.S. went 16-4 in foursome matches in his first three appearances and 4 1/2-3 1/2 in his final one.
"It would be hard to make a case that we're better at one or the other because of the margin of victory (in the last three Ryder Cups)," Azinger said. "Sometimes I think a change is good as the rest. I don't mind changing it back to the way it was when I played, and I just feel like they've won five of the last six matches playing best ball in the morning.
"I think it would be kind of crazy not to change it."
Looking to get our guys off to a fast start, Azinger intimated that he might put Kentucky natives Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes off in the first group "to get this crowd rocking," he said.
“I certainly think it's important that we're a lot closer than we have been," said Justin Leonard, who capped the U.S. rally in 1999 with a 45-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole. "You might be able to lose a Ryder Cup on Friday, but it's pretty difficult.”
As for Ryder Cup history, Anthony Kim said, "I don't even know about the past and about the U.S. getting off to a slow start. This is a brand new team. We've got six rookies. We're going to go out there, not worry about if a guy is hitting a draw or a fade.
"The only goal is to get the ball in the hole faster than the other guys, and I think we've got a pretty good shot at doing that."
