Memory Lane: 2004 Ryder Cup

It might be more relevant to recap the wonderful week at Pebble Beach. Arron Oberholser followed up two years of top ten finishes with a five stroke victory just down the road from where he grew up. Watching the AT&T is therapy for every golfer who has clubs collecting dust in the midst of another cold winter. It is one of my favorite weeks and deserves lots of ink. But I thought we would take a trip down memory lane and revisit the 2004 Ryder Cup.


Let us Re-cap:

Despite coming to Oakland Hills, Mich., as underdogs, the European team handed the Americans their worst loss in the 77-year history of the matches, 18 1/2 to 9 1/2. Europe has now won the Ryder Cup four of the last five times, and seven of 10.

Hal Sutton’s captaincy, of the 2004 US Ryder Cup team, was pathetically pathetic. My wife, honestly, would have done a better job. She would have used conventional wisdom. She would have talked to the players and got their opinions. I am convinced she would have worked circles around Cowboy Hal. Her pairings would have not been so bizarre and her quotes far less painful to listener’s ears. Otherwise, ol’ Hal did a pretty darn rooting-tooting good job.

The Sutton legacy, from the ’04 Ryder Cup, is a long list of wrongs moves and what to avoid when making pairings. It was Friday morning and Hal drew up Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as the super duo. The bright side is they can’t lose. It is two guaranteed points, right? I didn’t like the pick the night before. Even if they swept both matches, I felt they could have been more effective for the team split up. (They actually went 0-2, losing both matches that day) David Toms and Mickelson had chemistry in past team events and Tiger teamed with Jim Furyk, at the 2005 Presidents Cup, proving like-mindedness is more critical than star power.

The Woods/Mickelson pairing had more significance than just deflating the U.S. squad and helped lead to the most lopsided European rout in Cup history. It is significant because it put the two biggest U.S. stars under a microscope revealing how vastly different each golfer approaches the game. Mickelson’s dopey smiles and Tiger’s steely focus were oil and water, and we will not live to see the two paired as teammates again. We can thank Hal for letting us see it once. I was there for the first day matches and it was like being at a UK – Athletes in Action game. Such a yawner and a bore, but the bright side of the pairing was Amy and Elin riding in the same golf cart. We at least had that going for us, so it was not all bad.

The golfers still hit the shots, BUT I am convinced if Molly was at the helm, we would have had a better showing than 18.5 EURO - 9.5 US. Hal’s ability to hinder a team of elite professional golfers was impressive in its own right and we all owe him a big thank you for the Woods and Lefty pairing.

I will leave you with Hal’s thoughts after the first day matches:

“I wished y'all would have gone through what I've gone through in the last hour trying to mix 'n' match, because I didn't see a lot out there that gave me some conclusive points on what I should do. I was at as big a loss as anybody in this room could have been.”Sutton, on his picks for the Friday foursomes.