New system, same old spot for U.S. Ryder Cup team

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Paul Azinger began his Ryder Cup captaincy with a premise of promise.

The host PGA of America agreed to revamp the points selection system, putting an emphasis on recent performance, and allowed him to wait until the last moment to name his at-large picks, which were doubled to four spots.

The early returns are in: Oops.

Early Monday morning, with the echoes of Padraig Harrington's victory in the 90th PGA Championship still wafting over the grounds at Oakland Hills, Azinger sat back in a chair and eyeballed the names of the eight players who had cemented spots on his team.

"This time I think it's clear that we are the underdogs going into these matches," Azinger said.

Nobody begged to differ.

With 39 days left before the matches begin in Kentucky, one new player had effectively cracked the roster of each team, with largely unheralded American Ben Curtis and Spain's battle-tested Sergio Garcia wedging their way onto the rosters Sunday.

Sorry, friends and countrymen, but that's not an even swap, and it underscores the increasingly obvious chasm between the teams. Taking a chainsaw to the points system was a nice idea, but the hardcore truth about the core of the teams remains obvious, and forgive the Olympics-style jingoism.

Their dozen is better than our dozen, period, and for that reason, there's no reason to assume the American luck will change at Valhalla on Sept. 19-21.

Here is a simple recitation of fact. No European had ever won a PGA Championship in the 50 years it had been contested as stroke play, a streak Harrington destroyed when he held off Garcia and Curtis on Sunday.

The European Ryder candidates did far more than whip our tails at the top of the board. The first page of the PGA results are littered with Europeans and brings even more clarity to the notion that the European side has infinitely more depth and talent, no matter how you tweak the qualification scorecard.

It was yet another Euro trashing, another en masse massacre. Players in the mix for the European team, which will be finalized Aug. 31, demonstrably throttled their American counterparts, another potential harbinger of doom.

The European cup candidates claimed seven spots in the top 20 at Oakland Hills, while their American brethren with a true shot at making the team managed three.

The first words out of Azinger's mouth on Monday morning said it all, really. In three weeks, he has to identify the last four members of a team from among a list of candidates who have been outclassed and outplayed.

"I'm really glad I don't have to pick four players this morning," he said.

He's just postponing the pain, pushing back his root canal. The end of the American bench isn't any deeper than it was the last time around, when J.J. Henry and Vaughn Taylor were sent abroad to absorb a red, white and blue striping. In the two years since the 2006 matches, those two have six combined top 10 finishes.

The next wave of American possibles, 20-something players who entered the week in the top 16 in points, such as J.B. Holmes, Sean O'Hair, D.J. Trahan and Brandt Snedeker -- all in position to steal an automatic roster spot -- were summarily chewed up by the Oakland Hill Monster.

On the two weekend rounds, when the course softened and Harrington and Garcia were a combined 11 under, none of the four broke par. In fact, of the players in the mix for a spot on the U.S. roster, only Curtis broke par on the weekend. He was 1 under.

As for the old blood, the five players with Ryder experience who earned spots on Sunday night have a dubious record. Justin Leonard and Kenny Perry have never won a Ryder match and Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Stewart Cink are a combined 18-29-10.

Garcia, who began the week outside the European qualifying standard, jumped to third on the world points list. He has a career record of 14-4-2 in the Ryder.

"He's a giant killer," said Boo Weekley, who finished eighth on the U.S. list to claim the spot created by Tiger Woods' injury.

Who isn't? Europe has won or retained the cup in eight of the past 11 meetings.

At some point, it's time to let go of the notion that Europeans are winning because they grow up competing in match play, have better team camaraderie or merely make more putts.

Yeah, they have outplayed the Yanks, but not just for those reasons. Their firepower is, quite simply, superior. Moreover, the European team is younger, too, so the Euro edge likely won't end soon. Four of the eight Americans are age 36 or older; only three of Europe's current top 10 falls into the same demographic.

Discuss this among yourselves: If you were forced to go window shopping like Azinger, which four guys would you add on Sept. 2, when the captain's picks are announced? Is there a clear consensus?

Didn't think so.