Lee Westwood not so sure Tiger Woods will help U.S. Ryder Cup team
Jordan Spieth talks up Woods' Ryder Cup involvement even as Westwood has questions
United States Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III has been effusive in his praise for his most famous vice captain, Tiger Woods. Love has gone out of his way to talk about how pertinent Woods has been to the strategy his team has been developing over the past few weeks and months.
"Tiger looks at things from maybe a little bit higher viewpoint than all of us sometimes," said Love last week. "His strategy on the golf course ... Everybody just automatically thinks, just look at the scorecard, it's a really long course, we need long hitters. Tiger looks at it a whole lot differently than that.
"Tiger, over the last two or three weeks, has made us really think hard about not only pairings but other things that we need to look for in our players. He's taken the stats package that we get and breaking it down to what we really need. Tiger has really had us focused on some key things to make these three decisions and how we're going to think about it the next two weeks."
Like I said, effusive.
One European golfer is not so sure Woods as a vice captain is the greatest idea, though.
"I don't know what impact there will be from having Tiger around," Westwood told ESPN. "They [the U.S. team] have always struggled to find a partner for Tiger that's been successful. He could have an adverse effect in the team room. People have always seemed to try to do too much when they have partnered him. It might be different if he's one of the vice-captains -- you don't know."
Bulletin board material? Maybe, but Westwood also brings up a decent point. Golfers like Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Rickie Fowler grew up idolizing Woods. The pressure they feel from all angles might not be helped by wanting to impress him on the biggest stage. Or maybe it will. Who knows. Spieth certainly sounded unperturbed about the whole thing on Tuesday.
"Jimmy [Walker] and I were the first ones there [for Ryder Cup practice on Monday at Hazeltine]," said Spieth. "We ended up having a dinner where everyone had come in. We had dinner at the hotel that we're going to end up staying at, just story-telling. We had Butch and Claude Harmon there. We had a few of our caddies there with Davis and [Steve Stricker]. Stricker even fielded in a call from Tiger via speaker before he quickly shut it off and went and talked to him for about 30 minutes. Tiger's all-in. He is putting a lot of work into this, too."
All-in. I would imagine the Westwood quotes at least get tossed around a little bit in the U.S. team room, which is great. The only event better than a Ryder Cup is a Ryder Cup that gets a little spice and drama tossed in.
















