Cristie Kerr.
Nice to see the ice maiden show some real, raw emotion. She cares. I like that. That’s one reason why I prefer the Solheim Cup. I mean, Christina Kim needs a muzzle and there is a bit too much cutesiness to the ribbons and Patrick-Henry-meets-the-carnival-midway facepaint; you gotta respect the spirit. However, and this is where Kerr plays back through, if you can’t go, you get the collar. It was the correct call for her to lose that match. Golf is an individual event, even in team guise. Not a person who qualified for the Solheim Cup team made it by calling on late-inning relief when she hit a bad stretch. You play your way in; you play your way through. Splitting the point or having someone from the other side sit would be like putting Tiger Woods on the current Presidents Cup team.
(No, they didn’t, did they?)
I don’t care about all the Bradley v. Haas angst. One really is more likely to step up or fall down than the other, really? The kid has two wins this year and a major. He also went 1963 Mets—or 2011 Bosox—down the home stretch. Haas caught lightning in a bottle after spitting the bit in Atlanta and elsewhere this year. He also lifted two trophies and an eight-digit check all at once. Pick ’em. (Me, I’d have taken Sneds, but they don’t let me vote. And, no, I don’t have a mancrush on Sneds.) Regardless, Tiger’s way-in-advance selection to the team is just another reason why the PC is about PC, and the all-important ratings, and not a true competitive endeavor. My god, the Tavistock Cup looks only slightly less silly. The PC proved its mettle, such as it is, when the infamous tie-we-retain, no, wait, tie-we-tie conclusion was cooked up in the South African gloaming. The Derby doesn’t declare a winner at the mile post. The Presidents Cup is a show pony.
It’s easy to have camaraderie and cut-throat in the same field. Look to the Ryder Cup (or the women; Creamer’s stink-eye was classic, if not class). Phil and Amy walking widower Clarke through the opening ceremonies? A player like Mahan playing the part of the flawed hero from that little-known Shakespearian tragedy, “Seppuku in Cymru”? Nothing manufactured in these instances.
It’s too early to get rolling on the Ryder Cup, which just adds to the silliness of some of my journalistic brethren thinking it germane to quiz DLIII on his Tiger Timeline for an event that’s still a year away. If golf has become “Animal Farm,” and all players are equal except for those who are more equal, let’s just roll out a standing invitation to a great who still has game to stand against the young guys.
Someone get Tom Watson on the line.
