Pond Scrum: Debating Euros' theft of Solheim Cup, and more

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- The week was testament to the very underpinnings of the global game, both ancient and contemporary.

On the Emerald Isle, two dozen of the best female players in the world were biting their manicured nails to the very end as the Solheim Cup played out near Dublin, with the Europeans swiping the trophy with a miraculous rally at the very end of singles play.

There wasn't a pound or penny on the line, either.

Five time zones away in Atlanta, after four days of stultifying statistical convulsions, 29-year-olds Hunter Mahan and Billy Haas met with not only the Tour Championship title on the line, but the entire, throat-constricting bonus for the FedEx Cup.

That's a combined overall pot of $11.44 million to the winner.

For sheer love of country or unadulterated love of money, it doesn't get much more interesting than that on a singular Sunday, does it?

Good thing that CBSSports.com had scribes at both venues, with European correspondent John Huggan in Ireland and senior writer Steve Elling on the oppposite side of the pond in Georgia.

Needless to say, both of their heads were spinning as the final moments played out and roughly a half-dozen potential plotlines came, went or were left to dangle unanswered for an hour or so.

Raindrops and tears fell in Dublin. Haas splashed a wedge out of a lake in Atlanta.

It was a watershed week, by any definition.

We'll begin with the incomprehensibly entertaining team affair, the scintillating European defeat of the USA at the Solheim Cup, perhaps the most thrilling finish in event history. The Americans have lost the Walker, Solheim and Ryder matches in the span of 12 months. Is it time to panic?

Huggan: If there has been a better finish to any team event over the years, I can't think of it right now.

Elling: The Solheim ending was the most astounding 30 minutes I can recall watching. Tectonic shifts in three matches. It was hard to grasp. Then it was over. And only everything had changed. Awesome, memorable television.

Huggan: The great thing is that any and all talk of bringing in the Asian players to beef up the Solheim will now go away. I see this as just the start of a very competitive era in the biennial matches. This was the deepest European team ever and that will only improve two years from now.

Despite USA losing the Solheim Cup, it was the most astounding ending, Steve Elling says. (Getty Images)

Elling: You were there -- describe the scene. Given the incredible ending -- Suzann Pettersen, who has struggled to close the deal several times in LPGA play over the years, played flawlessly coming in and was downright inspirational. The locker room must have been quite a scene with the bubbly flowing. Reminded me of new version of an old joke. "Laura Davies walks out of a bar in Dublin. [Pause for two seconds]. No, really, it could happen."

Huggan: Plus, Annika will surely be the non-playing skipper for Europe next time. A history-making appointment if/when it happens. Never before has an American citizen led the old world into battle. Apart from Eisenhower, of course.

Elling: An American citizen, married to an American, with two American children, no less. As for the American skid, I would also note that sure, the U.S, has dropped the Solheim, Ryder and Walker in fast succession. The Presidents Cup could easily be left behind in Australia in a couple of months, too. But all three have been road matches. These things have gotten tougher and tougher to win on the road for either side. The teams are so closely matched already.

Huggan: I have no idea what went on in the locker room, but I do have it on good authority that Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr had a bit of a ding-dong verbal joust late on Sunday night. Creamer apparently felt that the lovely Cristie could have made more of an effort to play her match on Sunday, sore wrist or not.

Huggan: Of course, the way Paula played on Sunday, Cristie could have beaten her playing one-handed considering how Scotland's Catriona Matthew finished Creamer off.

Elling: Gee, you mean Paula wasn't won over by the sling that Kerr had on her arm later Sunday? Was no full-body cast available? Kerr is a princess and has always been. Not especially surprised by her inability or unwillingness to play.

Elling: Speaking of Kerr and the rules, how is it that the Solheim doesn't have the same injury stipulation as the Ryder Cup, wherein a player's name is placed in an envelope by the captains and in the event of an injury to a player on the other team, the match is deemed to have been halved? The Kerr wrist injury that resulted in a forfeiture of a full point set the tone before the day really started. I guess it was too much to hope for the Euro team to deem it a halved match. You know, in the spirit of sportsmanship and all. (See Walker Cup).

Huggan: Kerr's mistake was playing twice on Saturday if she was struggling. Which, of course, raises questions regarding the quality of Rosie Jones' U.S. captaincy.

Huggan: The envelope thing wouldn't have worked in this case, anyway. By the time Cristie made it clear she was incapacitated, everyone else was already on the course.

Elling: You mean it raises more questions abut Jones' captaincy. The Sunday lineup was apparently chosen randomly. For instance, there was no pressure on U.S. rookie Ryann O'Toole there at the end, right? After all, she had a total of 10 LPGA starts to her name.

Huggan: Are you telling me that the Americans would have called the Kerr match a halved point if the situation had been reversed? What color is the sky in your world?

Elling: No way they would have. Just pointing out that in the Walker, everybody took the high road. And that, too, cost the Yanks. You know, just selectively spinning facts to best suit my point of view.

Huggan: I did wonder about the U.S. order in the singles. Kerr at the end looked like a mistake given that the whole thing was more than likely to be over before she could contribute.

Huggan: I laughed when the R&A were caught out at the Walker Cup. They sort of said, 'no harm done, let's move on.' I bet Mark Roe, to name but one who has been royally shafted by the pedantry of the rulebook over the years, wishes they had taken the same benign, shoulder-shrugging attitude at the Open Championship back in 2003. He was DQ'd for something that had nothing to do with golf and had no effect on his or anyone else's score. As usual, officialdom wants it both ways.

Elling: Related to Kerr, I'm surprised more Americans were not injured. Creamer had so many flags, ribbons, bows, facepaint and scarves on her head, she could have needed a neck brace. Oh, and let's not forget the sunglasses ti filterout the blinding Dublin glare. Yeah, we get it -- you play for the American team. Geez. She looked like a South Carolina fireworks store on July 4.

Huggan: Yeah, the face-painting and ribbons is just so lame. Throw in the narcissist that is Christina Kim and the whole thing looks more like playtime at kindergarten than it does a serious golf contest. The only thing missing is a swing-set and maybe a water slide.

Elling: So, if Annika gets the nod, who steers the boat for the USA team next time?

Huggan: Has to be the admirable Juli Inkster. Sadly, she is done as a player -- her putting stroke is, anyway -- but she will make a terrific skipper. One of those people who commands the respect of both sides.

Huggan: The match between Juli and the equally over-the-hill Laura Davies was a comedy of errors. Thankfully, they both made the same number of mistakes and it ended in a halved point.

Elling: Excellent choice and a tremendously quotable player. She and Annika are perfect for the job. They should be captains for life. No doubt, watching Davies and Inkster was like watching Ali or Larry Holmes well past their primes. It was a merciful tie.

Huggan: Indeed, theirs was the hug of the week. And there were plenty of them to choose from.

Elling: The real hug of the week would have been you and Christina.

We will know the answers Tuesday night, but make your cases for the last three spots on the Presidents Cup rosters, to be announced by Fred Couples and Greg Norman.

Elling: Norman said he would pick the player, not the flag. Well, I hope those are empty words. Those guys deserve it. Unlike, say, the first guy Couples picked already.

Australian Robert Allenby is a no-brainer for the President's Cup. (Getty Images)

Elling: Because of his incredible reach in taking skidding world No. 50 Tiger Woods a full month ago, Couples has to pick between two-time rookie winner Keegan Bradley and the winner in Atlanta on Sunday night, Bill Haas, who happens to be the son of his assistant captain, Jay Haas. We could argue all day over which player "deserves" the pick. In actuality, they both do and Tiger doesn't, so Couples' decision to take the easy way out with Woods is coming back to bite him in the butt. He deserves all the guff he's going to get, because Haas and Bradley both should be on that team. Yeah, yeah, it's an exhibition, I know, I know. But fair is fair. Woods has played on a million of these teams and neither of the other two had ever had the chance.

Huggan: It has to be Keegan Bradley for me. Or Bradley Keegan if he is unavailable. Whichever way you look at the PGA champion, he is just that: a major winner. I'd have some sympathy for Haas, but not that much. Winning a small-field money-grab in no way compares with a major, even if it is the PGA.

Elling: That's an excellent point. Bradley won a major. Haas beat 29 guys. I am not sure there is a right answer here. Oh, right, except that they both deserve it.

Huggan: The picking of Tiger looks even more foolish -- from a purely golfing standpoint -- when there are two very deserving candidate vying for the one spot left over. But, as I said before, Tiger was selected by the TV companies more than Fred.

Elling: Bradley is the lone American to have won a major this year. He had one year to accumulate points and get noticed, as Phil Mickelson has repeatedly underscored. Bradley could possibly be voted the PGA Tour player of the year. Yet he might get skipped over for the Presidents Cup team because the guy driving the ship was asleep at the wheel and didn't wait a month to see how the plot played out. Couples being lazy? Yeah, shocking.

Huggan: I'm not sure it's going to matter that much, though. My feeling is that a collection of Americans reared on the one-dimensional PGA Tour isn't going to fare too well when faced with the strategic masterpiece that is Royal Melbourne.

Elling: Interesting anecdote on your TV theory: After the cameras were off, NBC's Dan Hicks emceed the trophy presentation and said something like, "See you in Australia" over the public-address system to Biil Haas. I turned to the PGA Tour guy standing next to me and said, "I guess we know how NBC Sports feels about the last captain's pick."

Elling: Picking Tiger brings eyeballs. It also brings scrutiny. He hasn't won in two years. If Haas gets picked over Bradley and struggles in Melbourne, Bill's going to get drilled and charges of nepotism will be raised. Even if Woods goes 5-0, as he did two years ago, it's going to be hard to cheer him. It should be Bradley and Haas on the team.

Huggan: Haas' dad being the vice-captain is unfortunate. If Bill gets the nod some will yell "nepotism." If he doesn't it may be concluded that their close relationship worked against him. Whatever, no one wins.

Elling: I raised that point to Haas three weeks ago and he got very, very offended. The suggestion that nepotism charges might be raised had never remotely occurred to him. Well, he understands now.

Is there any point in debating the incomprehensible FedEx Cup points system any longer?

Elling: Here's an idea, revisited. Call it the FedEx Cup money list and use cash as your yardstick for the seasonal performance, like they have for 100 years. Then you can stage whatever final-lap showdown you want at the end. Did you know that 27 of the top 30 on the PGA Tour money list advanced to Atlanta and that two of the three in the financial top 30 finished just outside the East Lake field 31 and 32 in FedEx points? All of this brainstem-melting points nonsense, and it's all the same guys from the money list anyway? Fans will continue to ignore what cannot be understood. Yawn.

Huggan: I mean, had Haas even been quoted as a possible winner until this week?

Elling: He was 25th in points. He had as much chance of winning as I did.

Huggan: I have an idea, too. Why don't they give the money and the trophy to the guy who shoots the lowest score? Revolutionary I know, but worth a shot.

Elling: Unless I miss my math, Luke Donald finished in a tie for third and missed winning the bonus by a single stroke. You tell me -- who had the better year, Donald or Haas? The last-minute circus of having two guys battle for the whole enchillada doesn't fix the fact that the so-called playoffs are indecipherable.

Luke Donald is your player of the year -- if you ask John Huggan. (Getty Images)

Huggan: Luke "T-4" Donald has had an amazing season. He is clearly your player of the year if only because of his extraordinary consistency. I mean, who else can it be?

Elling: That's an argument for another day. Never has the U.S. Player of the Year been awarded to a guy with one PGA Tour win, which happens to be Donald’s tally here for 2011, and his season in the States is complete.

Huggan: If you give it to anyone else, everyone is simply going to point at how much better Donald has been from first to last. I'd rather talk about the Player of the Year than the FedEx thingy. In fact, I'd rather talk about rugby than the FedEx. Have you been watching the World Cup? Can't believe Namibia didn't do better eh?

Elling: Bradley won twice, and won a major. I think he will get votes. So will Webb Simpson, who won twice and lost another in a playoff.

Huggan: Do you think the fact that Donald is a "furrner" (foreigner) will work against him?

Elling: Impossible to say. I talked to a dozen pros and got a smattering of shrugs. Nobody seems sure who they will vote for. Bill Haas winning for the first time all year added zero clarity. Donald is about as foreign as Annika -- married to American, about to have two American kids, has played here for a decade. That will not work against him with his peers in the voting, I suspect.

Huggan: Here's an idea: you could have two players of the year in the same way that the World Golf Hall of Fame has a PGA Tour ballot and an International ballot. So you could have an American winner and an international winner. Then everyone is happy. Or maybe nobody.

Elling: One last, true FedEx story: After the third round, a tour employee walked up to Anthony Knight, Aaron Baddeley's caddie, and said that if the two of them had questions about how the FedEx worked, or might affect them, to ask away. The caddie looked at him blankly. The guy walked away and Knight said, "We have to win, that's all that matters. The rest, who knows?" Same for nearly everybody watching. So the fact that for the second year in a row, the tour had $11.44 million riding on a single putt at the end justifies the means? Come on.

Has the LPGA granted status to 16-year-old Lexi Thompson yet?

Elling: Hmmm. Win a tournament, earn membership. You are onto something there. Thompson will be 17 by the time the 2012 season starts. There's nothing to discuss, really. Unlike players like Aree Song who struggled after being granted admission to the tour before age 18, Thompson has already won. Just make it end and grant her the tour card. Make it go away. Let her play.

Huggan: I think you just summed it all up perfectly. Have you been drinking?

Elling: Coffee. Long season, mate. Long season.

In a poorly timed bit of news, Tiger Woods hired Dustin Johnson's caddie on Sunday night, Joe LaCava. Will it make much difference?

Elling: Caddies get poached all the time, but rarely from top-10 players, as is the case with Johnson, who won with LaCava four weeks ago. Once again, no matter how it was planned, it all leaked out prematurely, caused a stir when the Solheim and FedEx cups were being played, and made pretty much everybody involved look bad.

Will new caddie make a difference for Tiger Woods? (Getty Images)

Huggan: Of course, maybe Joe just got tired of telling Dustin Johnson when he was in a bunker and when he wasn't.

Elling: Zing! I heard he got tired of trying to convince Johnson to practice his short game.

Huggan: The timing wasn't Tiger's fault. Butch Harmon, who had just spoken to Johnson, blurted it out on Sky television. So the U.K. knew before the U.S. did. Butch looked pleased with himself, though. Hot-shot journo, that man. Gets all the scoops. Well, the ones not on tigerwoods.com, anyway.

Elling: Tiger's website made it look like LaCava approached Tiger. That has to make D.J. feel even better, eh?

Huggan: He did, apparently. Which tells you all you need to know about what it's like to caddie for D.J. Maybe Joe had it too easy for too long. Pointing Fred in the right direction has to be the easiest job in golf, given that Couples barely notices what day it is, never mind what his scoring is like.

Elling: There's one certainty here. LaCava is a far chattier guy than Steve Williams. He will only help as it relates to rebuilding Tiger's image. Not that much of anything could make it worse.

Hmmm, shocking news from the Austrian Open in Vienna and the European Tour, where John Daly was disqualified last week and acted like a clown yet again. You two must be mortified.

Elling: It wasn't just that Daly quit. He heaved a club in the water and stormed off the course after a less-than-genial conversation with a Euro Tour rules official. I would suggest that the PGA Tour suspend him, but how could anybody ever tell? Most tournaments over here stopped inviting him to play a couple of years ago.

Huggan: But wait, he's in the field here at the Dunhill. They never learn, do they? I can't believe he puts many bums on seats these days. If this is not the end, it must be near.

Elling: I didn't think the Dunhill needed to appeal to the RV-driving, compulsive, serial-philanderer crowd. Although Daly smokes cigarettes by the crate, a product the title sponsor happens to manufacture. Somewhere in Jupiter, Tiger Woods must have dropped to a knee and said to the big man upstairs, "Thank you for sending me John Daly. There but for the grace of God ..." Or some such utterance for causing the spotlight to shine elsewhere. At this point, any tournament director who is hard-up enough to give the guy a sponsor exemption deserves what he gets.

Huggan: The great thing about the Dunhill is that, when entrance is free over the first three days, hardly anyone comes to watch. Then, on Sunday, when most of the amateurs are gone and the golf is "real" they get thousands through the gates even though everyone has to pay. When I hear stories like that, I'm proud to be Scottish. We simply won't watch rubbish. Even when it is free.

Elling: Who is Daly's amateur celebrity partner at Dunhill? Lindsey Lohan?

Huggan: The way John plays these days, he needs a pro as a partner.

Last one, just for fun. Bill Clinton played golf over the weekend with Barack Obama. Comments, please, you witty and worldly gents.

Elling: Box of cigars?

Huggan: Maybe POTUS needed some advice on lying. Can't think of a better source.

Elling: Free dry cleaning for life?

Elling: Bill was cracking jokes all day, including one that ended, "Take my wife, please."

Huggan: How many mulligans were involved? And conceded five-footers?

Elling: There are no longer called mulligans in the States. It's called socialized golf. All the extras you want, no charge, and the real score is tallied much later.

Huggan: We could have sent over Prince Andrew to make it a threesome. He's useless, too.

Elling: Hopefully, Obama got something out of it, because the U.S. economy looks as broken as the FedEx points system. I sense a running joke here. One that's been running for five years -- and still counting. And counting.

Elling: Best line of the week came from the scribe who dubbed the tour FedEx finale the World Math Play Championship. Where every pencil needs an eraser.