PARAMUS, N.J. -- Ladies and gents, Yanks and Rebs, meet the candidates for your U.S. Ryder Cup team.
And you thought the presidential race had become a choice between the evil of two lessers?
With regard to making the American Ryder team with two weeks left to qualify, this period in the season is supposed to represent the stretch run. Instead, they're carrying the candidates off on stretchers.
At U.S. captain Paul Azinger's behest, the Ryder points list is still being tallied weekly, even though the top eight picks have already been cemented. If Azinger is watching from home, let's hope he hasn’t attempted to slice his wrists with his remote control, because his points list is becoming pointless.
Before taking the position, Azinger lobbied for four captain's picks and is eyeing a list of guys who have largely fainted in the summer heat. He's got more spots than he's got hot players to pick from.
Way more, frankly.
Of the players occupying the 10 position between Nos. 9 and 18 on the U.S. Ryder points list, which Azinger indicated that he would use as a guide when making his four picks Aug. 2, a whopping total of four made the cut on Friday at The Barclays, the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup series opener.
Granted, Steve Stricker and Hunter Mahan, Nos. 9 and 12 on the U.S. points list, are running first and second on the Barclays leaderboard, which is surely a positive development. Elsewhere, though, it was mostly disaster with one tournament left in Boston next week.
Of the remaining would-be Azinger appointees, only Brandt Snedeker and J.B. Holmes made the cut Friday, and both are 10 shots back and tied for 44th place at even par.
The trainwreck of the day went to 2006 Ryder Cup player Zach Johnson, who was 2 under with six holes left, then played his closing stretch in 5 over to miss the cut by two.
Woody Austin, No. 10 in Ryder points, missed his second straight cut, this time at 2 over. First-time American hopefuls D.J. Trahan, Sean O'Hair, Rocco Mediate and Jeff Quinney -- all in the top 18 in Ryder points entering the week and theoretically on Azinger's watch list -- were sent home for the weekend.
Meanwhile, European captain Nick Faldo has more guys on the outside looking in -- Paul Casey, Ian Poulter, Darren Clarke and Ryder warhorse Colin Montgomerie -- than he can possibly accommodate wit his two alotted captain's picks. Azinger seemingly has too few guys for too many spots.
When that notion was floated on Friday night, Faldo laughed, though he didn’t exactly disagree.
"Make sure those are your words, not mine," he said.
Hey, the scoreboard backs it up.
