Michael Bamberger at Golf.Com has a very interesting article on how the US Ryder Cup team gelled over the competition.  The inside scoop comes from Ted Bishop, secretary of the PGA.

“This team had no cliques,” Bishop said. “The young guys and the veterans were together. Phil and Tiger were doubles partners in Ping-Pong, having a great time, taking on all challengers. According to some of the younger players, Phil was saying that he feels his career is winding down and he wanted them to know how much the Ryder Cup meant, pass it down to them, and that going forward he wanted to help them understand how to grow the game.”

Ok. So we might expect that sort of thing from Phil. But Tiger also was working overtime to be a team player:

“Tiger was amazing,” Bishop said. “He knew that Jeff Overton had never met him, and Overton had been telling people that the thing he was most excited about was the chance to finally meet Tiger. Jeff’s sitting in a chair, talking to some people. Tiger gets in a chair right next to him, taps Jeff on the shoulder. Jeff turns around, sees who it is and yells, ‘It’s Tiger Woods!’”

On the overnight charter to Wales, Woods did soduko puzzles. Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson were jumping around like kids on a field trip. “Tiger rips out a couple of pages from his book, and like a parent calming down children, hands them the puzzles and says, ‘Here, why don’t you try to do these?’ And they did them and came back and said, ‘O.K., we can handle something harder now.’ Tiger was laughing.”

That doesn’t sound to me like the Tiger as typically portrayed by the media.

Read the rest of the article. It’s quite interesting.

Congratulations are in order to the Europeans, who have regained the Ryder Cup with a narrow 13 1/2 - 14 1/2 victory.

The storyline as it was ending was that it all came down to Mahan and McDowell, but I think that’s unfair. In any sport, I refuse to believe that it comes down to one play. For example, if Phil, as the World Number Two, had been able to get a couple of points, Mahan’s victory wouldn’t have been needed. On the other hand, if the Europeans had managed to maintain some momentum over the interrupted matches from the first rounds, they would’t have needed McDowell ...

Or ... Or ... Or ...

But I think those sort of what-ifs is a sign of a good event. It was tense from beginning to end, and there was no one play that can blamed or credited.

I look forward to the next bout.

Henry Grantland Rice was the sportswriter who was at the center at the center of the Golden Age of Sports, writing heroically about the achievements of the new American Gods: Bobby Jones, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bill Tilden and Red Grange. With language that sometimes approached poetry, he deliberately turned them into objects of hero worship.  Of the famed backfield of Notre Dame, he wrote:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

There’s also this famous piece:

When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name
He marks- not that you won or lost - but how you played the game

And of Bobby Jones, Rice wrote: “One might as well attempt to describe the smoothness of the wind as to paint a clear picture of his complete swing.”

Rice also was a fair hand with poetry, and so I thought his piece “The Answer” might be appropriate as game day inspiration for the Ryder Cup Teams:

The Answer
By Grantland Rice

When the battle breaks against you and the crowd forgets to cheer,
When the Anvil Chorus echoes with the essence of a jeer;
When the knockers start their panning in the knocker’s nimble way,
With a rap for all your errors and a josh upon your play.
There is one quick answer ready that will nail them on the wing;
There is one reply forthcoming that will wipe away the sting;
There is one elastic come-back that will hold them, as it should,
Make good.

No matter where you finish in the mix-up or the row,
There are those among the rabble who will pan you anyhow;
But the entry who is sticking and delivering the stuff,
Can listen to the yapping as he giggles up his cuff;
The loafer has no come-back and the quitter no reply,
When the Anvil Chorus echoes, as it will, against the sky;
But there’s one quick answer ready that will wrap them in a hood,
Make good.

Here are Monday’s singles matches for the 2010 Ryder Cup. Europe leads the US 9 1/2 to 6 1/2. Europe needs to win five of 12 to take the Cup back. The entire affair will be broadcast on USA starting at 4 am Eastern.

Steve Stricker v Lee Westwood
Stewart Cink v Rory McIlroy
Jim Furyk v Luke Donald
Dustin Johnson v Martin Kaymer
Matt Kuchar v Ian Poulter
Jeff Overton v Ross Fisher
Bubba Watson v Miguel Jimenez
Tiger Woods v Francesco Molinari
Rickie Fowler v Eduardo Molinari
Phil Mickelson v Peter Hanson
Zach Johnson v Padraig Harrington
Hunter Mahan v Graeme McDowell

I like the way these have shaped up. I don’t see any that I’d say are a given, one way or another. Phil Mickelson—the pointless wonder—got a break in being matched against Peter Hanson, perhaps the weakest in Europe’s lineup.

As the rain fell during Friday’s early round action at the Ryder Cup, the US uniform rain gear apparently failed—big time. The players were soaked, and rumor has it that team officials were running to the merchandise tent to buy replacements. No loss, really. Those rain suits were hideously ugly.

And then at PR Newswire, I spotted this hilarious press release from Gore Tex.

ELKTON, Md., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/—In response to news reports at the Ryder Cup regarding the malfunction of the U.S. Team’s rainwear, W.L. Gore & Associates today issued the following statement:

“It’s unfortunate that the U.S. team at the Ryder Cup was not wearing uniforms with the GORE-TEX® brand, especially if the faulty gear ultimately interfered with performance,” said Yvonne Erickson, marketing leader at W.L. Gore & Associates. “Gore has rigorous uncompromising standards in place to ensure that our products are of the highest quality, to back up our Guaranteed to Keep you Dry® promise to consumers. Gore and Sun Mountain Sports parted ways in 2006 and, therefore, GORE-TEX® brand technology was not used in the rain jackets and pants worn by the U.S. team this morning. We hope that the U.S. Ryder Cup Team will be wearing uniforms with GORE-TEX® product technology in the future.”

The new format has created a bit of a change for the television times.

2 am - 8 am ESPN
8 am - 2 pm NBC

It’ll now all be live. TIVO set! I’ll start watching at 6ish or so (that’ll let me sleep in an hour from my normal weekday schedule), and be caught up to live action by 8 am by blasting through commercials and dead spots in the action.