In spite of the fact that he remains the world number one, Tiger’s game is just not ready for the Ryder Cup. As of this writing, he’s nine back at the Deutsche Bank Championship in 87th place and needs a terrific Saturday to make the cut (note if this causes any confusion—this weekend’s tournament held round 1 on Friday).

I just can’t see Tiger helping the effort at the Ryder Cup.

Here are my choices: Zach Johnson, Lucas Glover, JB Holmes and Fred Couples. What are yours?

Euro Ryder Cup Captain Colin Montgomerie may add Bernhard Langer as a wild card pick on his team.

Corey Pavin should counter with Fred Couples.

I’m glad I’m not Corey Pavin. The way Eldrick is playing right now, Pavin’s going to have to decide whether Woods gets one of the Captain’s Picks for the Ryder Cup. Tiger is ninth in the rankings, and only the top eight are automatic.

I personally wouldn’t blow one of my four picks on Tiger. But Pavin is in a damned-if-you-do; damned-if-you-don’t situation.

The best thing for all concerned would be for Tiger to take himself out of the running.

Golf is not life. It’s WAY more serious than that.

Writers from across Europe apparently are pushing Nick Faldo under the bus for the European Ryder Cup loss. One newspaper called him “Captain Calamity.” The Times of London said that while Azinger inspired his players, Faldo “inspired chaos.” The Daily Mail wrote “Nick Faldo, not the crowd, was America’s 13th Man.”

John Huggan, a golf writer for several publications, including The Scotsman and Golfworld has gone after Nick Faldo for the European Ryder Cup loss.

In GolfWorld, he writes:

In contrast to the cold-blooded silent assassin (and record Ryder Cup points-scorer) that was Faldo the player, his erratic and emotional job as captain was jarring even to British eyes and ears used to the six-time major champion’s legendary level of self-absorption. Beyond a succession of head-scratching tactical decisions during the matches themselves, Faldo perpetrated any number of faux pas during his week-long stay in Kentucky.

The low moment, among many from a man once described by his second wife, Gill, as “a 24-handicapper socially,” was his speech during the opening ceremony. In an embarrassing ramble through seemingly every member of his family, the history of Ireland and a series of accents Inspector Clouseau would have rejected as too unlikely, Faldo perplexed the vast majority of his audience.

Introducing Padraig Harrington, Faldo was moved to stereotypically comment that the British Open and PGA champion had “hit more balls than potatoes have been planted in Ireland.” Introducing Ulsterman Graeme McDowell, Faldo asked, “Do you come from Ireland or Northern Ireland?” Not too long ago, bad men were killing each other over similar queries. And let’s not even get into his intro of Søren Hansen as “Søren Stenson.”

A similarly scathing retort is found in his Scotsman article:

EVER PERVERSE, Nick Faldo did exactly what we should have expected of him when he named Paul Casey and, more particularly, Ian Poulter as his two finishing touches to this year’s European Ryder Cup side. Faldo’s oversized ego was never going to be comfortable choosing someone with Darren Clarke’s strength of character. Nor, for similar reasons, did he shed any significant tears over not picking the dreadfully off-form Colin Montgomerie.
“Faldo clearly didn’t want anyone in the team room with the potential to rock his boat,” points out one former Ryder Cup player who prefers to remain anonymous. “The 2004 Ryder Cup was all about Monty and his divorce; 2006 at the K Club was all about Darren and the tragic death of his wife; Nick wants Valhalla to be all about him.”

Harsh words, but even a cursory review of Faldo’s career reveals the extraordinary level of self-absorption that made the six-time major champion one of the most unpopular players of his or any other generation. It is perfectly logical that he prefers to be surrounded by those too young to remember any of the many and various slights felt by his direct contemporaries. As is his reluctance to add a second vice-captain alongside Jose Maria Olazabal. As ever, it’s Nick’s way or the highway.

Matt Dickinson of The Times Online writes:

The biggest surprise, as it turns out, is not that Nick Faldo made the bad call going into the final day of the Ryder Cup but that he did not make the call at all. As the players spoke before scattering across Europe, it emerged that Faldo had played only a supervising role in drawing up the singles running order. “We pretty much chose where we wanted to play,” Ian Poulter said. In admitting so, he thought that he was doing his captain a favour.

As an insight into Faldo’s leadership, that revelation has to be regarded as alarming, even by those who believe that the Europe captain has been flogged too harshly for losing the Ryder Cup to the United States. There we were marking Faldo down as a man who wanted to micro-manage this team to victory when the reality was that he sat in the Brown Hotel in Louisville allowing his players to dictate strategy, like Sven-Göran Eriksson in his last days as England head coach. How old-fashioned of us to think that selection was the captain’s business.

I really think that these criticisms are out of line. While Faldo probably did make a tactical mistake in not leading with his best on Sunday, he can’t be blamed for the fact that the core of his team simply was outplayed. His pick of Ian Poulter—much derided before the tournament—turned out to be genius. Garcia—the vaunted Ryder Cup giant-slayer—simply fizzled. So did Harrington. (To be fair, both of these apparently had health issues.)

And as for Faldo’s lack of social graces ... well, everyone knew what they were getting. You can’t pick a guy with such a strong personality and then expect him to change. This is, after all, the guy whose ex-wife described him as a “24-handicapper” socially.

You might have expected it. The calls have gone out for Paul Azinger to return as Ryder Cup Captain. Veteran golf writer Doug Ferguson has an article in USA Today:

No one spent more time in the PGA of America hospitality room last month at Oakland Hills than Corey Pavin, presumably to start lobbying to be the next U.S. captain for the Ryder Cup.

The list of candidates has rarely been this short, nor has it been so obvious.

“Zinger in 2010,” Phil Mickelson said after the Americans reclaimed possession of the Ryder Cup.

He certainly has one thing on his resume that recent US Captains haven’t had: a win.

My question is whether his approach would work again. I think it’s possible that his act would get “old” and that next time out, the players wouldn’t listen to him as much. Of course, its probably just as likely that his success has bred a respect that would carry over.

My guess is that if he wants the job, it’s his.

I missed this one. Apparently Tiger was watching the Ryder Cup and offered his support via text messages:

World number one Tiger Woods, a frustrated absentee from this week’s Ryder Cup, has been busily sending the U.S. team messages of support.

“The greatest player in the world is sitting at home watching and text messaging me and everybody else he can find,” U.S. captain Paul Azinger told reporters after Saturday’s fourball matches at Valhalla Golf Club.

“He texted me 10 times yesterday, at least. He likes to heckle. I kind of told him he needed to step up his heckling skills a little bit and he brought it today.

“I didn’t know he could take it to such a high level, so I give him credit. He has been great.”

That was good of him. Seriously. He could have been a total putz and just blown the thing off.

Gregg Doyel may be laying it on a bit thickly, but he also may be right. Anthony Kim’s dismantling of Sergio Garcia may be the herald of a new superstar in golf.

We’ve been waiting for another one. Not for another Tiger Woods, exactly, because getting one Tiger Woods was miraculous enough. But we’ve been waiting for another one, another superstar, another American golfer with the moxie and the mental toughness to match his superstar skill.

And on Sunday, he arrived. Wearing a jewel-encrusted belt buckle. In the colors red, white and blue.

No ordinary Ryder Cup rookie, cocky young American Anthony Kim drew the enormous assignment of playing the first of Sunday’s 12 individual matches—and responded by destroying the best Ryder Cup player of this generation. Kim’s 5 and 4 demolition of Sergio Garcia gave the United States an enormous psychological lift and just enough of a scoreboard cushion to hold off Europe and bring home the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1999.

He’s good, but Hunter Mahan had 3.5 points in four matches to Kim’s 2.5. Still, as Doyel put it,

Kim is so cold, he refused Garcia’s request on the first hole to concede both putts. Garcia was farther away, maybe 3 feet to Kim’s 2½, and when he looked at both ball locations and raised his eyebrows, Kim shook his head. No, Sergio. You’re going to have to putt that one. Nothing comes easy today.

And nothing did. Kim poured it on like Georgia Tech against Cumberland College, hitting shot after shot near the pin and getting up-and-down from greenside bunkers. Kim was so confident, he made the most remarkable concession I’ve ever seen. It came on the fourth hole when Garcia ran a low pitch to within 3 feet of the hole. Pick it up, Kim said from the fairway, before running his own approach shot to within 4 feet and burying his putt to halve the hole.

Garcia was done. He dunked two shots in the water on No. 7. The crowd was hooting, and Kim asked them to be even louder. On the next hole Kim reached into Garcia’s chest cavity and removed his heart by getting up-and-down for par from a bunker as Garcia was missing a makable birdie putt.

That’s dominance of the sort that Tiger routinely imposes on his playing partners in the final round of Majors.