2012 Ryder Cup Musings

10 thoughts (no particular order) on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup:

- The way that Jim Furyk tried to use his putter to line himself up on his crucial putt on #18 - I've only seen that done by higher handicaps (no disrespect intended).  Tough year for that guy, "losing" the Ryder Cup, US Open, and a World Golf Championship.

- Lee Westwood came across as relatively useless for the first two days, but came up huge on Sunday, and must feel vindicated.  Highly criticized for his putting the last few years, he made some big ones in his singles match.

- On Martin Kaymer's putt to retain the cup - nice read.  On TV, it broke to the right side of the screen as it rolled past the hole, but broke to the left side of the screen (even if only slightly) back up the hill, on its way to the bottom of the cup.  It would have been easy to misread that after watching it pass the hole.

- I don't think Captain Love (awesome name, btw) can really be criticized by not playing Mickelson/Bradley in all 4 paired matches.  This competition was lost on Sunday; any Ryder Cup Captain would have been quite happy with a 4 point lead with only the singles to go.

- Ian Poulter deserves all the accolades he's getting; the timing of his hot streak on Saturday afternoon couldn't have come at a better time.

- On what appeared to be one of the easier course setups in modern Ryder Cup history, Tiger Woods only managed to hole ONE birdie putt in his singles match (on a par 5, to halve Francesco Molinari).
(I'll never know why he felt like changing his short game and putting along with his most recent swing change.  Even the most dominating player ever has us scratching our heads sometimes, I guess.)
Interesting follow up by Davis Love III in the closing interviews, figuring that Tiger might have been leading had it been a stroke play event.

- Rory McIlroy: like this day needed more story lines, but the kid shows up 11 minutes before his tee time, shoots 65 and beats the match's strongest performer on the other team in Keegan Bradley.  #1 player in the world.

- Both Phil Mickelson (applauded Rose's late heroics) and Justin Rose (restrained celebration on #18 green) carried themselves with a lot of class in the final few holes of their match.

- Jose Maria Olazabal was classy in his acceptance speech; this must have meant a lot to him in honouring Seve Ballesteros.

- I don't think people should question Tiger conceding the final putt.  Finishing 14-14 shouldn't mean more than 14.5-13.5 to the team needing the win.  The tiebreaker is a perk of winning the previous Ryder Cup, and I hope that doesn't change.  I like that it's different than the President's Cup in this regard.