The 16th hole, a 511-yard par 4 called Down the Stretch, is a monster. At first I did not fully support the PGA of America's decision to lengthen this hole, but as the golf ball has continued to go farther, I'm in agreement that it's a very good change. We've also added three greenside bunkers. The area behind the green is now an amphitheater that will be overflowing with spectators during the matches.
THE CAPTAINS
As usual, all eyes will be on the captains, Nick Faldo for the European team and Paul Azinger for the United States.
Paul, one of the most inspirational Ryder Cup players ever, is definitely from the proactive school of captaincy.
I played my Ryder Cups under captains who employed a more benign style. The feeling in my era was that everyone
who was good enough to make the team obviously knew how to play and was pretty self-sufficient. We always believed we had the superior team,
so our captains--I played for Sam Snead, Jay Hebert, Jackie Burke Jr., Arnold Palmer, Dow Finsterwald and Dave Marr--made the pairings and then pretty much stayed out of the way (also see "Faldo & Azinger: The Odd Couple").
I basically took the same approach in my first captaincy in 1983, but by that time our opponents from Great Britain & Ireland had added players from all over Europe, like Seve Ballesteros, and the matches became more hotly contested. We were fortunate to win at PGA National thanks to some last-hole heroics by Lanny Wadkins.
NO. 3 / PAR 3 / 206 YARDS / The first of the four par 3s at Valhalla (the others measure 180, 208 and 215 yards).
After Europe won the cup in 1985, the buildup for the 1987 matches was a lot more intense. I was the U.S. captain, the founder of the host course, Muirfield Village, built just outside my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Early on, our team had difficulty winning the tight matches. I got after them in our team meeting, saying, "Guys, we have got to find a way to win the 18th hole." In retrospect, I might have been too hard on them. I added to the pressure and made them tighter. We won the 18th hole in only one match, and we lost the Ryder Cup on American soil for the first time. Reflecting on that time helped me to refine my philosophy about Ryder Cup captaincy.
Rule No. 1: The captain should relieve pressure, not add to it. I believe the Americans as a team are under more tension than the Europeans, with less to gain and more to lose in terms of public perception. That makes it harder to have fun and play. So with my four teams in the Presidents Cup I've emphasized the goodwill and camaraderie of the matches, team chemistry and plain old fun. I don't think my players have felt exactly the way I feel about the matches, nor did I expect them to. They've come up in an era when America has lost more than it has won, and they've been criticized in the media as a result. I'm under no illusion that being under the microscope representing your country and having your teammates count on you isn't a lot of pressure. But I've tried to get them to take it my way, in part because I think that's the appropriate perspective for the matches, but more so to relax them and let their talent come out.
Granted, I might have been too laid back in 1998 in Australia when I captained our Presidents Cup team for the first time. It was obvious when our team arrived that several of the players were less than fired up. Choosing not to be as vocal as I had been at Muirfield Village, I chose to let it ride. When we got waxed by the International side, I didn't have to say anything. Several players came to me and apologized, saying, "We owe you one."
Since then, my approach as a captain has been that less is more. On the three winning Presidents Cups teams I've led, I didn't really do anything. I was just sort of there. More than anything, I was their friend. And I think it worked. I've had a few come up to me after the first dinner on Monday night and say, "You know, we had fun tonight."
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