Sutton: we’re on a Ryder mission
In announcing 50-year-old Jay Haas and Stewart Cink as his wild card selections, Sutton stressed he is going to need maturity of thinking from his players and criticised some of his predecessors for “playing everybody in everything so that they would feel good”.
“We are going to do it differently this time. I’m going to ask everybody to be grown men, to be mature about what they are going to do and I’m going to play the guys who I think can win this thing. If that means Jay and Stewart play five matches, they play five matches. If that means they play two matches, they play two matches.”
That has long been the European line of thinking, with many captains coming under fire for sending two or three players “cold” into the Sunday singles. Mark James at the Country Club, Brookline, in 1999 is a case in point. Haas played in the matches in 1983 and 1995 when he was beaten in the decisive match at the 18th by Ireland’s Philip Walton and at the age of 50 could be considered a surprise choice. Cink, whose only appearance was at The Belfry two years ago, fits into the same category, but in truth Sutton didn’t exactly have a lot of riches at his disposal.
Jerry Kelly fans will be disappointed he was overlooked but consider this rather salient statistic. In 62 rounds of major championship golf, Kelly stands 190 over par. And would you want Steve Flesch, who was 11th, in your team? Neither did Hal Sutton.
Justin Leonard put in a great performance in the PGA Championship but did little or nothing else all year. The captain said he couldn’t go for Justin on a week’s form. American golfers haven’t been exactly distinguishing themselves of late, with Jonathan Byrd (who isn’t in the side) the only one of their number to win a US Tour event - the BC Open - in the States since May 30. Just half of the team have finished first this year, although if one were to go by the world rankings of the rival teams, the contest would be a US landslide.
Accordingly, Bernhard Langer and his European team won’t be shivering in their soft-spikes at the sight of the American team. Top man Tiger Woods is in a slump and in any case his Ryder Cup record is nothing to be proud of. Phil Mickelson, at number two in the list, is their most consistent player by a distance, while little or nothing has been heard of Davis Love III, Kenny Perry, David Toms and Chad Campbell over the past few months. Chris DiMarco, I suspect, will strengthen their hand but Fred Funk is lucky to have remained in the top ten, having missed the cut in the PGA Championship, while Chris Riley is renowned as a very good short game player but for little else. Riley, Perry, Campbell, DiMarco and Funk are the five rookies in the American team.
“This job was very difficult,” Sutton conceded. “People who were very deserving didn’t get in. I think we have a tremendous team. Chris Riley made being captain worth everything by his excitement. He’s the most excited he’s ever been. And the team has been rounded out nicely by the addition of Jay and Stewart. I had five guys in my mind but Stewart and Jay were there the whole time as they were in the minds of my vice captains Jackie Burke and Steve Jones.
“They are going to help us win the Ryder Cup.”
Sutton wasn’t admitting as much but there is every possibility that Haas or Cink could have lost out to Scott Verplank had he not injured his right ankle by standing in a hole during the PGA Championship.
The only call the captain made on Sunday in addition to his two picks was to Verplank and it appears he expressed keen disappointment. Sutton agreed that his foot and ankle problems were a worry.
“There are many deserving people. Scott was one of them. They only give me two spots and instead of focusing on who didn’t make the team, I would rather focus on the two guys who did. Jay and Stewart are great drivers of the ball. Both are good iron players and both are in the top 25 for putting. They are not prolific, long hitters but Oakland Hills is not the monster it used to be and Jackie Burke had an interesting comment yesterday when he told me ‘hey, Hal, they only give away trophies on the greens, they don’t give them away on the fairways or the tees. Let’s look to the good putters’.”
Sutton dismissed suggestions that the spirit in the European team is stronger than with the Americans.
He insists his team is “hungry” but also believes the Europeans will punch above their weight.
“Bernhard is going to be a great captain. He was a great Ryder Cup competitor, as I’ve experienced a couple of times myself.”
Sutton refused to be riled by a suggestion that the Americans were “more of a milk-and-cookies, go-to- bed-early group and the Europeans were a bunch that hung around the bar by night and played spirited golf by day.”
“I don’t buy that,” he declared. “They come to America, they know each other, they go to dinner with each other. We don’t go to Europe much. We’re independent contractors, we’re all going different directions when the event is over. If you watched us scatter out of town every week, you’d understand that there’s really no time for us to do anything. But I will tell you this. If it’s within my power, we will come together as a team and we will play like we were drinking beer together in the bar at night and playing golf together by day.
“We are on a mission.”
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