{"id":915,"date":"2014-10-23T07:34:16","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T12:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/?p=915"},"modified":"2014-10-24T11:27:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T16:27:04","slug":"note-to-ryder-cup-panel-give-it-a-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/golf\/personalities\/915\/note-to-ryder-cup-panel-give-it-a-rest","title":{"rendered":"Note to Ryder Cup Panel: Give It A Rest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2008<\/a>In a way, it\u2019s funny: Issues currently confronting other sports include spousal abuse, aggravated assault, rape, child endangerment, performance-enhancing drugs, stabbings, and shootings. Meanwhile, in golf we contemplate reasons we can\u2019t seem to beat those blasted Euros lately.<\/p>\n

At the same time, while comparatively harmless, the post-Ryder Cup conversation has become a bit unseemly, on both sides. Apart from that, a rehash of Team USA\u2019s deficiencies is more likely to hurt than to help.<\/p>\n

Move back the date for captain\u2019s picks for maximum flexibility? Fine. But of the innumerable theories on our inability to \u201cget the job done,\u201d only Judy Rankin\u2019s is persuasive: It\u2019s not that we\u2019re not trying hard enough, it\u2019s that we\u2019re trying too hard. The Europeans tend to play better simply because it\u2019s easier for them to relax.<\/p>\n

And as anyone who\u2019s ever played golf knows, telling yourself to relax doesn\u2019t always work; however, neither does continued deliberation of past shortcomings.<\/p>\n

Finally, we find ourselves in this situation because we wanted to make golf an international game and it worked<\/em>. Like essentially everywhere else, American golf suffers participation-level problems, but this remains hands down the greatest place on earth for golf \u2013 courses, equipment, instruction, college programs, you name it.<\/p>\n

If it weren\u2019t, we wouldn\u2019t have so many foreign-born pros living here, including Euros. In fact, in certain respects the Ryder Cup reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld\u2019s notion of major league baseball in the age of free agency: My clothes are going to beat your clothes.<\/p>\n

So the advice here \u2013 yes, easier to give than to take \u2013 is: relax.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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