Player Reverses His Canadian Stance

Kudos to Craig Dolch in the Palm Beach Post and Lorne Rubenstein in the Toronto Globe and Mail for reminding us today what Gary Player said back in February about his captain's picks for next month's Presidents Cup matches at Royal Montreal in Canada:

"I can't just put a Canadian in because we're playing in Canada," Player said. "It's my duty as captain to put in the best team."

At least when Player announced Monday that Australian Nick O'Hern and, ahem, Canadian Mike Weir would be his captain's picks for the Sept. 27-30 matches, he was honest in explaining why Weir belonged on the team.

"Being played in Canada, if we didn't have a Canadian in the team, I can assure you in my opinion only, this series would be quite flat amongst the Canadian people," Player said. "Mike is a hero in his country, deservedly so."

Rubenstein says that Stephen Ames, a Canadian citizen since 2004 and ranked higher (36th) than Weir (46th) in the World Golf Ranking might have been the more logical pick.

Jack Nicklaus made Lucas Glover and Hunter Mahan his captain's picks for the U.S. Team. Arron Oberholser, who finished fourth in the PGA Championship and is ranked (29th) above both Mahan (49th) and Glover (58th) was too far back in the Presidents Cup points standings (23rd).

Here are the lineups for the U.S. team and the International team.

-- Craig Bestrom