The Loop

Jack on the Ryder Cup

We've received loads of letters from you suggesting ways to fix our Ryder Cup team. But I doubt whether anything's got more merit than what Jack Nicklaus suggested this week at the Memorial. The Presidents Cup captain is never afraid to offer an opinion; this one, as reported in this week's Golf World, was pure gold. Jack said he gave his opinion to U.S. Captain Paul Azinger during a call during last year's Presidents Cup:

We talked for about an hour and a half on the phone. He said, "What do you do?" I said, "Paul, it's what I don't do." I said, "To me, these guys all got where they got because of their record and how they played. Tell them how to play golf? That's ridiculous. And to hire a bunch of -- or hire or appoint, whatever you do, a bunch of assistant captains to teach them how to play alternate shot or match play...", I said, "Come on, give me a break. These guys, they don't even know the guys you're bringing in." I said, "Why would you do that? All I do is get out of the way. And I asked the guys, I said, 'Give me who you want to play with and who you don't want to play with. Who do you think you'll do well with?'" All those things. And then, "Just go have fun."

Jack goes on to say he doesn't know whether Azinger bought his approach or not, but that it worked for him.

And I think the guys liked it, because the guys seem to have great attitude with the Presidents Cup. They seemed to like, to enjoy what we were doing. They were having fun. They came to me -- I had several of them come to us after the first dinner on Monday night and say, you know, we hadmore fun tonight than we had the whole week we were at the Ryder Cup. So basically that's the way I approached it. And I think that's what the event's supposed to be. It's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be bringing -- these guys play together a lot now, but it used to be where they never saw each other but once or twice a year and it was a goodwill event. And that's the purpose of it.

Amen.

--Bob Carney