It would perhaps be a blessing in disguise for Team USA if Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson do not make it into their line-up at the Ryder Cup.
The two American superstars, who have 19 major titles between them, are both struggling with their games and are currently outside the top-nine in the standings that would guarantee them a place in the team automatically.
Mickelson is marginally outside that bracket, languishing in 11th place. But what is more astonishing is that he has not had a top-10 finish all year on the PGA Tour, and has also missed the cut at The Masters and the Players Championship.
Woods is 70th in the points list, and he will have to make up ground fast because he is also way outside the top-125 in the FedEx Cup list.
In a season that has been heavily truncated because of his repeated episode of back spasms, which led to surgery on March 31 and forced him to miss the first two majors of the season, the former world No1 is 215th on that list, which means he will fail to make it to the Playoffs unless he does something dramatic in the WGC-Bridgestone and the PGA Championship during the next two weeks.
If he doesn’t make it to the Playoffs, as per his current schedule, he will not be playing any competitive golf before the September 26-28 battle at Gleneagles.
And it’s not just their recent form that will be worrying captain Tom Watson about his two most experienced stars. Woods, who has played seven Ryder Cups, has a winning percentage of 44. Mickelson is marginally better at 45 per cent, and he has featured in each of the last nine tournaments.
Both players have had enormous issues with their pairings in the foursomes and fourballs. It is only recently that Woods seems to have settled with Steve Stricker, and Mickelson was superb with Keegan Bradley two years ago at Medinah. Unfortunately, both Stricker and Keegan are also outside the topnine at the moment.
What captain Tom Watson has to weigh up before he makes his picks on September 3, is how the pros and cons stack up in choosing Woods and Mickelson.
Obviously, such is the record and aura of these two players that their presence will be inspirational for the team. And Watson will also have to give just a tiny bit of thought to the commercial success that the involvement of the duo ensures for any tournament. But this is not any ordinary tournament, and there is much more at stake for Watson and the American fans than just seeing their favourite stars in action. Having lost seven out of their last nine Ryder Cups, it is time for some hard decisions to be taken, and if youth is the answer, so be it. Players like Brendon Todd (12th on the list), Bradley (16th) and Harris English (17th), should be preferred as wildcards.
If there is one person who would not be too enamoured by what’s happened in the past, it is Watson. For the sake of American pride, let’s hope he gets it correct this time.
Langer for Ryder Cup?
There is some deep thinking to be done by Watson’s counterpart, Paul McGinley as well.
Such was the quality of 56-yearold Bernhard Langer’s golf in winning The Senior Open by a whopping margin of 13 shots, McGinley will have to give his name a serious consideration as one of Europe’s three picks.
It’s unheard of so far to have a Seniors Tour player in the team, but Langer has more than his Royal Porthcawl performance to support his case. Earlier this year, he was majestic at The Masters and finished tied-eighth – that was better than each of the nine players who currently make it to the team automatically.
Take a look at his stats from the Seniors Tour this year – 14 starts, four wins and 13 top-10 finishes. He is finding almost 76 per cent fairways off the tee, and he is hitting 79.2 per cent greens in regulation. Those are magical numbers indeed.
McGinley played under Langer in their 2004 win at Oakland Hills. He knows what the German star, called by many as the “ultimate golf professional”, brings to the table. Will he bite?
Welcome back Jarrod
The most inspirational and feelgood story of last week was the return of Australian Jarrod Lyle, who is recovering from a second battle with leukemia, to America for competitive golf.
Lyle should just be happy to be alive, but the 32-year-old proved once again what a fighter he is. At Web.com Tour’s Midwest Classic in Kansas, he shot all four rounds in the 60s and finished an incredible tied-11th.
Lyle hasn’t made a competitive start in the United States since February 2012, when he began treatment for a recurrence of acute myeloid leukemia that afflicted him for the first time at the age of 17. He found out that the dreaded disease had returned the same time as he and his wife were expecting their first child.
Lyle is sure it was the arrival of his daughter which gave him the strength to go through the entire process of intense chemotherapy, and recover.
Surely, he has already won the war. Golf tournaments are just minor skirmishes in comparison.
