Ryder Cup Notes

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Tomorrow starts one of golf's greatest events - The Ryder Cup. Here is a brief overview of the event and once again a few of my mindless musings.

Some pertinent sites to visit:

Take a look at who is playing and their Ryder Cup records:

Team Europe:

Lee Westwood – 37 World ranking: 3 Ryder Cups: 6 - played 29 - 14/5/10.  (won/halved/lost)

Martin Kaymer – 25 World ranking: 6 Ryder Cups: 0

Luke Donald – 32. World ranking: 8 Ryder Cups: 2 - played 7 - 5/1/1.

Rory McIlroy – Age: 21. World ranking: 9 Ryder Cups: 0

Graeme McDowell – Age: 31. World ranking: 13 Ryder Cups: one - played 4 - 2/1/1.

Edoardo Molinari – Age: 29. World ranking: 15 Ryder Cups: 0

Ian Poulter – Age: 34. World ranking: 16 Ryder Cups: 2 - played 7 - 6/0/1.

Padraig Harrington – Age: 39. World ranking: 22 Ryder Cups: 5 - played 21 - 7/3/11.

Miguel Ángel Jiménez – Age: 46. World ranking: 26 Ryder Cups: 3 - played 12 - 2/3/7.

Ross Fisher – Age: 29. World ranking: 27 Ryder Cups: 0

Francesco Molinari – Age: 27. World ranking: 32 Ryder Cups: 0

Peter Hanson – Age: 32. World ranking: 42 Ryder Cups: 0

Team USA

Tiger Woods Age: 34 World ranking: 1 Ryder Cups: 5 - played 24 - 9/2/13.

Phil Mickelson Age: 40. World ranking: 2 Ryder Cups: 7 - played 30 - 10/6/14.

Steve Stricker Age: 43. World ranking: 4 Ryder Cups: 1 - played 3 - 0/1/2.

Jim Furyk Age: 40. World ranking: 5 Ryder Cups: 6 - played 24 - 8/3/13.

Matt Kuchar Age: 32. World ranking: 11 Ryder Cups: 0

Dustin Johnson Age: 26. World ranking: 12 Ryder Cups: 0

Hunter Mahan Age: 28. World ranking: 14 Ryder Cups: 1 - played 5 - 2/0/3.

Zach Johnson Age: 34 World ranking: 19 Ryder Cups: 1 - played 4 - 1/1/2.

Bubba Watson Age: 31. World ranking: 24 Ryder Cups: 0

Rickie Fowler Age: 21 World ranking: 33 Ryder Cups: 0

Stewart Cink Age: 37 World ranking: 35 Ryder Cups: 4 - played 15 - 4/4/7.

Jeff Overton Age: 27. World ranking: 48 Ryder Cups: 0

Some interesting facts:

  • Team USA has 21 majors compared to Team Europe's 5
  • Team USA has no players with winning records, while Team Europe has 4!
  • Celtic Manor and the city of Newport paid $1 billion to host the event.....not really, but they were close

My thoughts:

  • I believe the most powerful person involved with the Ryder Cup to be..........

Mrs. Doubtfire err, Colin Montgomerie! Simply because he is the only person involved who has the ability to single handedly cause a team to lose. The unfortunate thing is that he only possesses that power over his own team, but hopefully he'll only be putting out fires instead of starting them.

The winner will be......

Team Europe in a landslide! Monty will manage to stay out of the way, Tiger will be horrible and Dustin and Ricky will just not be enough to overcome the Euros as Poulter and the Molinari's manhandle the "Yankees"! The reason - can you picture Tiger, Phil and Stewy wearing the above pictured hair pieces? And that's just it - camaraderie and kinship. I get the feeling the Euros want to be together as a team, whereas the US side is put together as a team, they have to deal with being together.

Nothing can beat good old fashioned team chemistry!

Enjoy the golf and thanks for checking in.