Tiger Woods completed a successful defense of his title at the Bridgestone world championship in Akron last night. This is his 4th victory in a row and must be a big boost to the morale of the US Ryder Cup Team as their star player is definitely on form (after a very shaky start to the competition – Tiger himself admitting that he was lucky to even make the play-off). This was Tigers 70th professional victory. He has arrived in Ireland today with the rest of the US Ryder cup team to get to know the other players on the sqaud and play some golf on the Palmer course at the K Club.
America’s leading sports writer Rick Reilly has savaged the US Ryder Cup team with a scathing piece in the latest issue of Sports illustratedRick’s article can be read in full here, basically has him dispairing of his country’s Ryder Cup team and deciding to become european (drink warm beer, drive a small car and date hairy women). Despite the sarcasm of his piece he makes some very interesting observations…
He feels that this is “the single worst squad we’ve ever taken to a Ryder Cup, and that’s saying something, considering the last batch got pummelled 18½-9½” so he’s obviously not pulling any punches. He cites some depressing stats on the new boys (Wetterich, Zach Johnson, J.J. Henry and Vaughn Taylor ) – three of them missed the cut at last week’s US PGA Championship, and Henry finished 41st and Wetterich has missed five cuts in his last eight starts.
Woosnam now knows the first seven players on the European team who will defend their title at the K Club next month.
Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, David Howell, Colin Montgomerie, Robert Karlsson and Paul Casey are now all in unassailable positions and are guaranteed places on the team.
Padraig Harrington is almost certain of a place, however Paul McGinley and Jose Maria Olazabal are both under threat for the last two automatic spots. The others players jostling for a place through automatic qualification at this late stage are Paul Broadhurst, Johan Edfors and John Bickerton
