The Ryder Cup....Starts Friday...

[Tony2005]

To be honest with you i thought from before the Ryder cup started that the American way of selection for this one was a lot better then ours, Azinger has the chance to pick 4 in form players where as Faldo only had the choice of 2.

I dont do this very often but even though i backed USA i really wanted Europe to win come the last day, winning cash wasnt as important as a european victory

Saturday afternoons fourballs where the American crowd and one or too of their players went compleatly over the top and to be honest embarrased not only America but themselves with some of the comments , cheering of missed putts and some appalling sportsmanship ..... This was the turning point for me when the winning of cash went out of the window...

As for Sunday....where was Faldo when Garcia was losing his head..?...throwing mini cans of beer into the crowd and joking with DJ Spoony..(WTF was he doing round the team..?)....this is golf not a night out with Rio Ferdinand..

Faldo in my opinion has to be blamed for not being able to motivate the bigger names when they clearly needed it.....Like you said...Harrington, Westwood and Garcia were all poor.....Stenson wasnt really on his game ...Jimenez has never really been good enough....Hanson looked lost in the company of some great players and Oliver Wilson who showed some heart was in a couple of years too early..

That leaves...Casey who from tee to green was superb, shame he couldnt putt...
Karlson...played well but never really had the right partner..
Rose...steady as usual and pulled off a great win in the singles...

That leaves the best two players we had....McDowell tried his guts out and played some unbelievable golf...hopefully he will be around for many Ryder cups to come..

Last but not least...our beat player by a street...POULTER...alright i gave him a roasting after the first mornings fk up on the 18th but from there on in not only was he the best player on any side but he showed great spirit, heart and that will to win...
If this weekend would have been a major at Valhalla there would have only been one winner....IAN POULTER..

[TheShark72]

I dont think you can say too much about the American celebrations...ok, they had some larger than life characters who gave it plenty when they made their putt or won a game, but realistically no more than the Europeans gave it at the K club in front of their own crowd....I actually thought the level of sportsmanship between the players was very good, and Kim/Garcia apart you could see that it was played in great friendly spirits which i think brought out the high standard of golf on show.

Ultimately, Azinger was the better Captain and the American 1-12 were the better team over the 3 days - our guys performed admirably but to me it seemed obvious were gonna come up short as like Tony says, Azinger had more scope to pick more in form players which made alot of difference in the overall balance of the team.

I still think that at 9-7 going into the singles Faldo really needed to front load his team - it seemed ridiculous to me to see Harrington, Westwood and Poulter still on the course when the Americans scored the winning point - Robert Karlsson was underused and if Garcia needed a rest why play him in the fourballs rather than the foursomes, where he would make less shots? Its those little things that could have made the difference but overall, as disappointing a result as it was, the best team won - and for once, they were a team.

Better without Tiger than with him?

[Tony2005]

The best team did win no doubts about that...Getting back to Faldo....to only have Olazabal as your eyes and ears around the course was utter madness...Azinger had Ray Floyd and Dave Stockton ( both previous captains)....Faldo wanted to "do it his way " and thats why we failed...your so right about wasting three big players at the end...didnt the Americans do that with Woods a few years ago..?

The Garcia / Kim thing was a little embarrasing to both teams and ultimitly cost us any chance of a Garcia point in game one..

The Bo Weekley exploits on the Saturday afternoon were bang out of order but at least he did the sensible thing and seek out Westwood to apologise...Something Justin Leanord didnt do after the dancing around the green incident at Kiowa Island..

Hopefully we will have learnt something about selecting our team for the 2010 Ryder Cup and im sure Woosie will captain that team and make a better job then Faldo...

[Part-Timer]

I think this "Captain" thing is overstated, once the comp starts. We all know what American crowds are like, so there was no surprises there, remember Mrs Doubtfire. We missed putts, that is why we lost. We won the 1st 4 games 2 1/2 to 1 1/2, if we continued that right through we would have won. No excuses the better team won and if any sportsman cant pick himself up in that atmosphere he should not be there.

[Part-Timer]

How did your weekend go Bally, or is it still a blur?